Enlightenment By: Emily, Christine, Jess, Austin & Val

Defining Enlightenment

Historical Parallels ●Post- Thirty Years’ War (France & Britain) ●American Revolution ●Glorious Revolution (England) ●Corruption of the Monarchy & the Aristocracy ●Western Philosophy ●What human attitudes did these historical movements express?

Tenet 1 ● The belief in progress opened the doors to scientific innovation ●SHIFT: Rebirth → Innovation

“Innovations that Changed History” ●“Whether it is early man’s first use of fire or the birth of the space shuttle, innovations have always been the major catalyst behind humankind’s success” (Andrews). ●Andrews states that innovations have led to great creations and contributions to the world. He demonstrates that thinking and believing in a better world drove people to do great things.

Connection ●“Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much…” (Pope). ●The Enlightenment Era was dedicated to questioning customs, morals, beliefs, rationalities, and science. Pope is trying to explain that although this new age has brought on smarter thinking, there is still ignorance in the way people are thinking. But he is also saying that discovery isn’t bad. It can lead to better reasoning. The belief in progress leads to the thinking, good and bad.

Tenet 2 ● The rise of science allowed society to progress through rationalism ● SHIFT: revelation → reason ●“The candle (of Reason) that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our purposes” (John Locke)

“Newton” William Blake, 1795 ● Shows that this breadth of knowledge isolated society from the rest of life. ● Blake was a premiere Romanticist poet and visionary

Connection ●“Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great:” (Pope) ● Shows the enhancements science has made in creating darkly wise humans

Tenet 3 ● The birth of free thinking created a large circulation of ideas ● SHIFT: Humanism → Questioning traditional ideas

Baruch Spinoza ● “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” ● This shows that society believed that having knowledge and being able to freely think enlightened them. ● Blake was a Dutch rationalist philosopher and religious thinker

Connection ● “With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,” ●This shows the transition that free thinking has created for man. This breadth of knowledge… ○ allowed them to have opinions

Tenet 4 ● Free thinking led to the rise of satire and irony ● SHIFT: Horatian → Juvenalia o Horatian: gentle ridicule o Juvenalia: harsh criticism

A Modest Proposal ●Jonathan Swift expresses his unease in taking reason and scientific progress too far and forgetting the human side of policy ●“I […] offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children […] computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, […] one-fourth part to be males; […] the remaining hundred thousand may, […] be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune […]. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; [for] the family […] alone, the fore or hind quarter will [be] reasonable” (Swift)

Connection ● “With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; [...] Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;” (Pope) ● Enlightenment satire is passive-aggressive o Skeptics found fallacies in the Enlightenment’s doctrine (Juvenalian) o Stoics didn’t speak out against the Enlightenment’s beliefs (Horatian) ● Satirists expressed their opinions, but not explicitly

Tenet 5 ● Individualism, relativism, and rationalism take root in society. ● SHIFT: religion → reason

John Locke ●John Locke, a political genius and relative creator of the original constitution, expresses the change in views that were heavily brought about during the change from oppression to equality. ●“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man”. (Locke, ch. 2, section 4-5)

Connection ❖ The poem highlights the change in social reform by showing that, in order to examine how God views you as a person, you first have to know how you view yourself. This is an idea that came during the Age of Enlightenment and leaned to focus society more on social values set by the everyday worker rather than the religious undertone that most people took as their self-worth in the Renaissance Era. ❖ “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man” (Pope, 1-2).

Tenet 6 ●Deism transforms the religious beliefs of society. ●SHIFT: God → Supernatural deity not interacting with humankind

Bendedict de Spinoza ●Benedict de Spinoza, one of the most important post-Cartesian philosophers, expresses the change from a religion based on belief to a religion based on reason ●Emphasis should be on nature and reason rather than God ●The supernatural does not exist and rather our knowledge of anything comes from our human reason ●God does not interact with us ● “Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.”

Connection ●The poem highlights the transformation between a religion based on belief and a religion based on the reason of humanity. Through this excerpt of our selected poem, shows us the change of human thought from our reliance on a God for intervention and the enlightening of our human minds of our own creation of our own salvation. Through this era we view that as us humans, we are on our own and that there is no God to intervene with us but rather a God for our after life. ●“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. ( Pope, 1-2)”