World Class Education

Europe: The Enlightenment Elizabeth Hyde

 18 th -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