philosophes & the enlightenment

8/6/2019 Philosophes & The Enlightenment

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The Age of Enlightenment was revolutionary period for

mankind;fresh, new

ideas emerged that sought to better both the individual's

understanding of

the world around him, and consequently, civilisation as a

whole.Thephilosophes, a wave of incredibly influential thinkers

that rose to

prominence during this 18th century epoch, believed that

a fully

functional, lucrative society was attainable via a

rational, logical

mindset. They had to inquire into what was preventing

this utopian society

from prevailing-some identified innate human nature as

the culprit, whileothers placed the blame on either arrogant despots or

lack of a written

code of laws. However, the political systems put forth by

Jean Jacques

Rousseau, John Locke, and Charles De Secondat Baron De

Montesquieu

respectively all carried great gravitas-this

triumvirates resounding

theories wound up influencing both governments and

political phenomenons

that define the Western political experience in the

modern era.

The liberalist approach of unity put forth by Jean

Jacques

Rousseau(1712-1778) can be found in Communist ideals.

What's more, it

greatly influenced the French Revolution (1789-1799).

Rousseau, a native of

Geneva, had a cacoethes for society to be as uniform and

singular aspossible. He identified the perfect community as one

wherein all men submit

their rights and desires unequivocally to the state; they

should "freely

surrender all property rightsindividual rights"

(Halsall, par. 6).

Rousseau believed that this political motion would

indubitably guarantee

state-wide equality ("the conditions are the same for

all" (Halsall,

par.6)). Furthermore, since the citizenry unanimously


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make up the

government , the possibility of the government carrying

out decisions

against the populace's will is virtually vanquished at

once. In other

words, this newly-formed government would be "subsumedwith the shared

common or general will of the whole community"

(Cranston). Anomalously,

Rousseau was one of the few philosophes whom opposed the

supremacy of the

individual. His suggestions "rejected that desirable

societies could be

founded on traditional concepts of [individual's] natural

law" (Reill,

par.9) One could argue that this viewpoint counters thosetypically found

within the Enlightenment period . The aforementioned

ideas, preached

through the pages of Rousseau's magnum opus, The Social

Contract (1762),

were plangent enough to leave its domestic mark on the

French Revolution.

This event, in which the people overhauled the power of

the-then godly

absolute monarchy and, in doing so, transmogrified the

order of Frenchsociety, demonstrated a duo of Rousseau's key points.

Primarily, it proved

that, in crisis-stricken times, man truly does have a

tendency to "become

social" (Cranston), or unite. Man is cognisant that he

alone cannot play

the role of the iconoclast; it is his fellow compatriots

upon whom the

"satisfaction of his inclination now depends".(Cranston).

Likewise,Rousseau argued that men must converge into a formidable

entity to obtain

what they wish-and rightly doing so would result in a "

new, collective

freedom in return" (Blackwood, 15). Moreover, Rousseau

was a firm believer

that no individual should rise to overcome or disagree

with the state,

since, transitively speaking, this individual would be

challenging the

people. Thus, Rousseau asserted that doing so should be


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met with harsh

consequences. This mindset was already instilled within

Louis XVI'

(1754-1793)'s monarchy: none of this petty populace

should even dare

challenge the monarchy. Alas, this dual bellicosity wasthe impetus for the

"brutality of the mass executions" (Cranston). Though

French society

underwent drastic alteration, Rousseau's ideas lived on,

and didn't morph.

In fact, these ideals imprinted themselves into the

foundations of

Communist and totalitarian thought. Despite the promise

of Rousseau's

overarching idea of unity, his ruminations "manifesteditself in the

ideologies of communism and fascism" (Williams). The

haunting Marxist roar

of "Workers, unite!" clearly resonated with Rousseau's

state of mind

(Blackwood, 15). Amusingly enough, when The Social

Contract was first

published, it was met with alarming controversy and was

immediately banned

within France, due to the fact that it focussed on

"curing political ills"(Reill, par.3). The corybantic, absolutist idea of

draining the rights of

the people into the state combined with Marxist ideology

would consequently

inspire "the Soviet Union"(1922-1991), (Cranston).

Following the Russian

Revolution (1917), which saw the expiry of the anterior

rule of the Tsars

and the gradual uprising of the domineering Communist

party, the beliefs ofthe latter were implemented into the national identity.

However, ideal

communism wasn't practiced as Rousseau had intended for

it to be- Russia

was much too vast for it to affect the nation in a

positive fashion, and

Rousseau's image of communism had a better chance of

operating well within

"smallercommunities" (Siaflas) else suffering and

impoverishment

("oppression" (Siaflas)) would become deep-rooted within


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the state.

Therefore, one can affirm that although Rousseau's ideas

were culpable for

planting the ideological seeds for the Soviet Union's

20th century

government (the U.S.S.R. is dissolved in 1991), thedaunting Russians

didn't enact Rousseau's ideals as he had intended for

them to . A spooky

mutuality between the triumvirate of Rousseau, Marx, and

the Soviet Union,

is that all these entities championed "social

cooperation, patriotism, and

sacrifice" (Cranston). These can only be regarded as

three principal

ingredients of warmongering propaganda.

Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, John Locke

(1632-1704), an

English philosophe, believed that the perfect society was

tangible via

means of eliminating overruling powers, instituting

universal rights, and

handing citizens the capability to establish and dissolve

their

government-all under the sovereignty of a Constitution.

The GloriousRevolution, named so due to its remarkably peaceful

nature, saw King James

II forcibly abdicate the English throne due to chronic

misuse of power, and

averred Parliament-the true formidability of the people-

as a just force.

Locke saw some verity in the aftermath of this event.

Galvanised by the

instillment of the Bill of Rights (1688), which

essentially clarifies therights of Parliament and curtails the power of the

monarch, he wrote and

published The Two Treatises of Government (1690) as a

response, a mere two

years later. Locke plays out his logistics in an almost

mathematical

manner. First off, civilisations should enforce a

rejection of "the

commonly held divine right theory of kings" (Kohn). The

removal of a

piously fuelled ruler should be replaced by a state of


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simple clarity, a

land "of equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is

reciprocal"

(Halsall, par.1) for the benefit of each and every

individual. On the note

of importance of the individual, Locke concluded that allmen are born

neutral, and are subject to alteration depending on the

environment around

them. Locke was quick to encourage the introduction of

formal proprietary

rights: Locke utters that man should be "endowed with

propertyby law of

reason" (Armitage, 604). Combined with his invigorating

argument for

natural rights ("Man hath a right tobe executioner ofthe law of nature"

(Halsall, para. 8)), Locke is hailed as the de facto

Father of Liberalism.

Locke surmises that these natural rights cannot be

assigned-they naturally

(hence the eponym, "nature") are bestowed upon the

shoulders of all upon

birth. Moreover, Locke's corollary to this was that the

rights cannot be

taken away. He was pragmatic in the sense that he was

sure to address thefraudulence that could emerge from his political

propositions, making it

clear that the individual's rights are reserved for the

beholder only;

these rights serve as a form of insurance until they

clash with another

citizen's rights. To be frank, a clash of rights would be

deemed as a

violation of each belligerent's rights. Sure enough,

natural rights shouldbe exercised and granted to all, Locke argued, but they

can't be "invaded"

.(Halsall, para 8.). He decreed that the best method of

preservation for

the code of rights would be in the form of a written

doctrine also known as

a Constitution. This Constitution would unequivocally be

the supreme law of

the state, and its superlative authority should not be

challenged. Locke

premonished that government should be kept fairly simple,


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else

complications would arise. In his Two Treatises of

Government, Locke

decrees that since all humans are prone to error, they

may very well have

"devised a remedyincrease the sore, which it shouldhave cured"(301). In

this longueur, he states that, in the case of ineffective

government, the

people have the undoubted "right to dismiss it"(Kohn),

and this is rightly

so- if the people have consciously erected this

government to better their

society, then they have perfect grounds to remove it if

it is growing to be

a reckless actuality. If this automatic right isn'tgranted, the people

shall carry out retaliatory measures by means of

violence- "presently in

the voice of faction and rebellion" (Halsall, par.1),

which can lead to

catastrophic consequences, as erstwhile revolts have

proved (i.e., the

French Revolution). These notions introduce the concept

of government with

consent of the governed; one that encompasses such great

truth that itfound its way into the Declaration of Independence(1776):

Thomas Jefferson

scribes that, on the note of government, "it is the

right of the people to

alter or abolish it" (U.S. 1776).The duality of Locke's

concepts-natural

rights embedded in a Constitution- would successfully

synthesise to form

the backbone of the Constitution of the United States

(1787) , theincumbent, omnipotent law of the nation. His ideas were

visualised as a

"moral utility" (Kohn) for the entire notion of American

independence and

establishment of a common law. In fact, it was John

Locke's whom first

uttered the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of

property" in his work

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)-the very

same words

paraphrased and slyly inserted into the Declaration of


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Independence, which

effectively fuelled the creation of the United State's

autonomous

government. In due course, the expository statements

regarding natural

rights and equality in the Declaration of Independencealso mirror Locke's

ideas: it states that "all men are created equal", and

enforces a system

of: "unalienable rights" (U.S. 1776). The American

populace, whom

patriotically believe in the elements of equality via

natural rights and

their Constitution (the former of which is preached in

the Declaration of

Independence) to this day, are indebted to theenlightening inferences of

John Locke.

A fellow philosophe, Charles De Secondat Baron De

Montesquieu (1689-1755),

sought to limit the power of government only rather than

formulate a hybrid

relationship between government and the people (in the

manner of his

compatriot Rousseau). Montesquieu, stimulated by the

English politicalsystem at the time, proposed the trilateral government

nexus-thereby laying

down the foundation for several governments in the

Western world, including

that of the United States. Montesquieu, a pioneering

political scientist ,

identified the underlying "evils" as "enslaving others,

intolerance, and

extreme despotism" (Shackleton & Loy, par.7). In his 1748

work The Spiritof the Laws, Montesquieu instated that equality and

natural law were the

way to go for the individual's benefit, a la Locke.

Scrutinising the

pre-revolutionary aristocratic behaviour, Montesquieu

believed that they

should do their utmost to "level themselves in appearance

with the people"

(15). Furthermore, Montesquieu agreed that "the Law ought

to give each man

only what is necessary for nature (94)-which allies him


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with his English

contemporary, John Locke. Montesquieu, a French native,

openly antagonised

and "mocked the reign of Louis XIV"( Shackleton & Loy,

par.6). In The

Spirit of the Laws, This philosophe affirmed hisalleigance- he simply

couldn't invest his faith in a ruler, since he had

asserted that each and

every man, morals aside, was "like all finite

intelligences..[prone

to]ignorance and error"(3). He found that the preeminent

example of a

superlative government (in comparison to France's, at

least) was just

abreast: the political system in England. He generouslylabelled the

English as having "political liberty for the direct

object of its

constitution" (Krause, 115), and that, due to the

presence of the Bill of

Rights, incidentally enacted in his year of birth, the

populace of England

had an "opinion of security" (Krause, 116). Certainly,

England did not

possess the perfect, multidimensional government, but the

Bill of Rightshad a domineering force over the prospect of a despot

rising. If anything,

the power-retrenching measures of the English, which

boasted both the Magna

Carta (1215) and its spiritual successor, the newly

formed Bill of

Rights(1688), needed to be emulated by the French. Alas,

Montesqueieu knew

that there was little possibility of this occurring.

Nonetheless,Montesquieu soon set to work and proposed a nostrum in

The Spirit of the

Laws. Alas, Montesquieu whisked up the separation of

powers theory, in

which governments were fragmented into departments, each

dedicated to

enforcing a specific purpose. In addition to his

Anglophillic incentive,

the separation of powers formula was partially derived

from Calvinism,

whose stalwarts were taught to withhold a phobia of


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"tyrannical use of

power" (Sheldon) during the Protestant Reformation (1517-

1648) .The

repercussions of Montesquieu's findings evidently struck

a chord with the

Founding Fathers of the U.S., whom decided to installthis system into

their nascent government. The Spirit of the Laws provided

the impetus for

"Americans to employ this science of

politics""(Sheldon). In other words,

Montesquieu's finest work spurred the paterfamilial folk

of the U.S. to

apply a simple, logical directorates to its emergent

nation. What's more,

with the dynamic addend of the "checks and balances"system assuaged fears

that one branch of government would "monopolise political

power" (Sheldon),

or override its siblings.. Each branch (judicatory,

executive, and

legislative) would be in a "balance"with each other. In

this balance,

certain powers granted to each branch may curtail the

power of its two

cousins (i.e., executive branch may veto a bill drafted

by the legislativebranch). This logistical, effective gubernatorial system

seemed so

lucrative that it has been incorporated into "German

French and Australian

republicsthe newly formed Eastern European

states"(Krause, 116), proving

its global appeal. That being said, these

multidimensional governments, the

brainchildren of Montesquieu, are still in praxis today.

The political systems put forth during the Enlightenment

by philosophes

either side of the Atlantic were great leaps forward in

the eternal quest

for political perfection and ebullience. Rousseau's

concept of submitting

rights into the state's vacuum proved to be pivotal in

Communist trains of

thought, and embedded itself into their 20th century

government . Locke's

expressed that a cordial aftermath that may rise if


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natural rights are

set-in-stone within a physical Constitution- and, as

justification,

Montesquieu, diving down a similar passage as his English

nemesis, was a

flag-bearer for rights and concluded that a writtendoctrine had greatly

aided the English, though he's immortalised for his

trilateral government

nexus-the exoskeleton for numerous governments in the

Western world. None

of these luminaries managed to give birth to the flawless

political system,

though the contributions of Montesquieu and Locke aided

the construction of

the blueprint for the government of the United States,which, since its

formal birth on July 4th, 1776, has successfully adhered

to the constraints

of its Constitution (which dutifully followed shortly

after in 1787) and

trilateral government. Nonetheless, the audacity in the

philosophies'

actions to both confront the problems of society

headfirst and enhance the

quality of life for their sons and daughters is truly

admirable. In theirefforts, they arrived at their enlightening conclusions

via means of

rationality, unarguably the most significant theme of the

Enlightenment.

Rousseau himself, a philosophe whom ranks highly in the

echelons of

history, explicitly declared that "There is universal

justice emanating

from reason alone"(Williams). The prototypic political

models of thephilosophes were subsumed by Western governments and are

the very same

models we live and prosper under today. These philosophes

have inspired us

to believe the culture of peace, profit, and equality is

one that is

tangible-and it may very well be awaiting us in the

future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:


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Baron De Montesquieu, Charles De Secondat. The Spirit of

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Blackwood, Alan. "2: The Philosophers." Spotlight on The

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Enlightenment. East Sussex: Wayland, 1987. Print.

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