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Europe: The Enlightenment

Elizabeth Hyde

18th-century intellectual movement.

Based upon the belief that REASON could be used to improve society.

Practiced by “philosophes,” (French for philosopher).

Immanuel Kant wrote in 1784:

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. . . . Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.”

Facilitated by many forms of PRINT Newspapers, pamphlets, underground book

trade

Ideas discussed in Meeting places, coffee houses, taverns

Salons

Freemasonry—lodges and clubs

Voltaire anti Catholic Church Anti absolutism

Diderot Anti church (a Deist), anti absolutism Believed in power of knowledge

Published Encyclopédie

Titlepage to Diderot’s Encyclopedia.

Enlightenment on politics Influence of Locke and Hobbes

Montesquieu Separation of powers

Rousseau Social contract

Education Economy: laissez-faire approach (Adam

Smith) Crime, punishment, and torture Enlightened Absolutism

Frederick the Great of Prussia Joseph II of Austria Catherine the Great of Russia

Enlightened Absolutism did not result in large-scale changes for ordinary Europeans.

But the Enlightenment did produce: Rationale for, theory of, and vocabulary used

to: Critique monarchical governments Justify revolutionary acts Create new democratic forms of government