 18 th century – the age of Enlightenment  Everywhere, a feeling that Europeans that at last, people had emerged from a long twilight  Forward looking thinkers, and writers known as ‘philosophes’  Forward looking monarchs, Enlightened despots

 Optimistic beliefs in historical advance of reason, science, education, social reform, tolerance, and enlightened government

 The ideas of the 18 th Century were drawn from the scientific revolution of the 17 th  Carried the ideas of Bacon and Descartes  Carried the ideas of Natural Law and Right  Belief, in a non religious way, that life gets better as time goes on

 Faith of the age in the natural faculties of the human mind Philosophes French for philosopher In the 18 th, meant to approach any subject in a critical and inquiring spirit

 Social or literary critics  All written under censorship  To protect people from ‘harmful’ ideas  France, the center of the enlightenment, had both censorship and large reading and writing public  It discourage writers from openly or explicitly questioning

 Examples: customs of Persians, double meanings, innuendos, jokes  Paris the heart of the movement  Mingling of people of ideas in Salons, conducting by women

 Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquei, and Voltaire

 Major Works:  Discourse on the Sciences and Math  Criticizes education  Not progressing us to anything good  Education just makes us decieve ourselves and others – we try to fit in  Leads to individuality, makes us self interested consumers  Teaches us ‘reason’

 Puts flowers on our chains – just hiding inequality  Where ever science and math flourished, luxury and leisure flourish  They are born from our vices, and do nothing to improve the moral well being of society

 Don’t contribute anything to love of country, friends, or the unfortunate  Science does not give any guidance for making people more virtuous citizens  We learn to hate ourselves because the masks we have to wear  To cope, we hate the people below us

 Science is based on a sense of a need for luxury  Science becomes a means for making our lives easier and more pleasurable, not morally better  Bacon and Descartes avoided this corruption

 Discourse on the Origin of Inequality  He creates his own state of nature  Humans physically strong, but simple, very independant  Hobbes had it wrong, he tried to create the state of nature without stripping what humans have learned  All he did was strip laws

 For us to understand the state of nature, there can be no laws, property, understanding of threat, minimal language skills  Natural man is isolated, timid, peaceful, mute and without the foresight to worry  Humans have two principles – self interest, and empathy  But we have reason

 We have adaptability – leads to progress ie fire  Humans forced to settle down, but roughly equal

 Series of events move us from the ‘noble savage’  Organize into temporary groups – hunting  Very basic language  Next is small families based on love  If we stayed here, there would be no inequality  But, agriculture and metallurgy change this

 Crucial point develops – we start to make comparisons to others –develop self image  Things become valuable  Division of labour  Distinct social classes, workers, rulers  Leads to invention of private property  Unnatural, but education teaches us its legit

 Some people left out of property grab – see it as illigetimate  Great Deception – rich convince the poor private property needs to be protected  All accepted their chains

 Very difficult work of his  1 st step – make us all equal  Give up the ‘natural right’ to property  Help us to distinguish between needs and wants  Help us to resurrect empathy  Everyone has enough so they don’t have to sell ourselves

 When we see each other as equals, we are able to see one another as citizens  We’ll look forward to what people say

 Outlines how governments could exist to protect equality of citizens  Concept of general will – difficult to interpret  Based on the well being of the whole, protects the rights of all individuals  Protected by a sovereign, protects the public good  Not the collection of individual wills  Ultimately my will, and general will merges  Example – majority- collection of individual wills

 If you have: lack of prosperity, no population growth, legislative body silent, disparity, religious faction – no social contract  If the one is being sacrificed by the many – no social contract