History
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HST363_3_Enlightenment.pptxThe Enlightenment
Human Progress and the Individual in the Economy
Topics
Progress
Scientific Revolution: Knowing & Mastering Nature
Enlightenment: Knowing & Improving Society
Property
The Individual
The concept of “laws of nature”
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
Fg= G m1m2/r2
What does this “mastery” of nature mean?
Mastery of nature means…
…that humans can figure out God’s order in the universe so as to be no longer at the mercy of nature—to control nature, and free humanity from the bonds of nature.
This is the broader historical significance of the Scientific Revolution.
The Enlightenment Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Dare to Know!
This meant that you, as an individual, should question established norms, ideas, and institutions to see if they stood up to the test of reason.
Individuals have agency
And so, Europeans set out to “know” everything.
L’ Encyclopédie of Diderot & d’Alembert
L’ Encyclopédie: Diderot & d’Alembert
l‘Encyclopédie
Published serially between 1751 and 1772
75,000 entries
18,000 pages of text
17 volumes of articles and 11 volumes of illustrations (engravings)
l‘Encyclopédie
Bakery and harnessmaking
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l‘Encyclopédie: Taxonomy of Knowledge
Memory (History)
Sacred, Ecclesiastical, Civil, Natural
Reason (Philosophy)
Metaphysics, Sciences of the Spirit (Theology), Human Sciences, Natural Sciences (Math & Physics)
Imagination (Arts)
The Enlightenment & the State
“Science” challenged prevailing conception of universe and its order, therefore it also challenged prevailing conception of the state.
Two Views:
Absolutist state “bad” by definition and to be viewed with the utmost suspicion
State itself, if properly constructed and run, could be an instrument of enlightenment and a guarantee of the general welfare
Cameralism, Polizeistaat, Enlightened Absolutism (Catherine II, 1729-1796; Frederick II, 1712-1786; Joseph II, 1741-1790)
All rested on some concept of a “social contract” and view of human beings and their place in the world
Humans as inherently sinful and therefore in need of strong direction/government vs. humans as sinful, but capable of exercising reason so as to avoid liberty turning into license.
Nature vs. Nurture—tabula rasa
“rights” vs. “privileges”
Property (labor theory of value/ownership)
Property
And it all rested on a conception of property unique to the West:
Idea of private individual ownership based on “improvement” or the application of labor
Labor theory of value (something has value because of the human labor added to it, including land)
Nature is a waste, and those who improve it can rightfully claim it as theirs.
Labor theory of value is the standard conception of value until well, into 19th century.
Individual
From Privileges to Natural Rights
Revolution in France and its Spread
As in England, emerging ideas about the individual and property did not sit right with the notion of royal absolutism, precipitating a revolution.
American revolution about this on paper, but also simply colonial rebellion.
Limiting the state
State’s main role is to enforce contracts; individual rights exist to facilitate this.
Ending collective identities and privileges based on birth: from social estate to individual merit
The Economy
All of these things (universal laws of nature and society, private property vs property as a public good, individual as opposed to collective identities) at play as economics (political economy) emerged as a discipline.
