The Enlightenment: Reason and Revolution
Life of Rousseau (1712-1778)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva. His mother died shortly after his birth. He began a life of pilgrimage, working different jobs in different cities. His musical interests took him to Paris, where he came into contact with the Encyclopedists. In 1743, he entered into a relationship with Thérèse Levasseur, with whom he had five children, all of whom were placed in orphanages. After 1750, his fame spread throughout Europe as his various works were banned in different countries, associating his name (originally Jean-Jacques) with the term “Jacobin.” He also began a period of psychological imbalance and persecution mania, which led him to sever several friendships, including that with Hume. He died in France in 1778.
Major Works:
- Discourse on Inequality
- The Social Contract
- Emile, or On Education
The Age of Enlightenment
The enlightened age, the eighteenth century, presents the characteristics of an age-old conflict, in which the revolutions are over, or, already in the nineteenth century, shake Europe. Historically, the Enlightenment means the end of the Ancien Régime, which had tried to continue with enlightened despotism and absolute monarchs whose motto was: “Everything for the people, but without the people.”
These revolutions had already begun in England in the seventeenth century, concluding with an agreement between the bourgeoisie and nobility. However, they would become more radical with American independence in 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, bidding farewell to absolute monarchy. Thus, the Enlightenment prepares the bourgeoisie to take power during the nineteenth century.
The bourgeoisie, formed from the late Middle Ages and increasingly powerful due to trade (both overseas and inland) and the still-nascent industry, would form the idea of peoples and citizens based on the theory of equal political rights, as opposed to aristocratic privilege. The Enlightenment is thus presented as a hope to achieve final emancipation.
Scientific and Technological Progress
Scientific progress, culminating in Newton (admired by Hume and Kant), and the development and progress in all areas of knowledge, fostered the idea of entering a new era: the Age of Reason and Progress.
This breakthrough was not only theoretical but also had a capital importance in technological development, especially with the steam engine.
The Century of Reason
The Enlightenment was the century of Reason (or Enlightenment) and aimed for the final departure from the netherworld, a product of fanaticism. The Encyclopedia (Diderot and d’Alembert) was prepared in order to include all human knowledge.
In art, Neoclassical art and rationality dominated, in contrast to the Baroque. The ideals of Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity dominated political discourse. Figures prepared for the jump to the new bourgeois and capitalist society through contractual liberalism (Locke) as a political idea and economic liberalism (Adam Smith).
Philosophy of the Enlightenment
Philosophy is key to the Enlightenment; it is the guide for all other sciences, marking the direction of knowledge: the emancipation of men. The century begins with the conflict between the rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, authors of the previous century, and the new empiricism of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Key figures in political philosophy also arose, such as Rousseau, admired by Kant, and thinkers who would sow the seeds of new revolutions, like Voltaire and the Encyclopedists in France.
In addition, and classified as a climax, is the philosophy of Kant, who intended to create a synthesis that transcended previous thought. Thus, the Enlightenment philosophy will always be a thought that seeks to change the world by creating a new society and not just theoretical knowledge. The philosophical context is not picking up the Kantian division, only academic, concerned exclusively with theoretical issues, but predominantly mundane, seeking to answer what man is and create a just world based on reason. Thus, Kant described the Enlightenment as the time of departure from people’s minority, and its motto was Sapere Aude (“Dare to know”).