Scientific Revolution/The Enlightenment

Scientific Revolution/Enlightenment (late 1600’s – 1700’s)
1700’s – Age of Enlightenment/Reason
I. Scientific Revolution
a. Medieval view – the world revolves around the Church 
b. Causes
i. Philosophy - “any kinds of thoughts”, different from theologians, branches include mathematics, astronomy, and physics - “natural philosophy”, study of the way nature works
ii. Renaissance – they rediscover ancient mathematics – more efficient mathematical system = calculations that allow them to track things, planet etc., also patronage was very important. AKA The Age of Discovery, Columbus, colonization, navigational skills for which they need math [telescopes, barometer, thermometer, clocks, microscopes, etc.] colleges and navy/merchants work together to help foster trade etc.
iii. The Scientific Method – Francis Bacon, formalized principles of Empirical Experimental Research, Rene Descartes - French mathematician and Philosopher, looked at the Principles of Deductive Reasoning 
c. Copernicus – (1473-1543) – didn’t want to challenge the church The Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres stated that the earth revolved around the sun, the sun being the centre of the universe, and the stars didn’t move, they only appeared to move because the earth does  humans are now insignificant 
i. Both Marin Luther and Calvin condemned Copernicus as well as the Catholic Church 
ii. In 1616 the Catholic church prosecuted anyone who believed in Copernicus 
d. Brache (1546-1601) – Europe’s leading astronomer in the 1600’s, built the best observatory in Europe and later proved the basis for Copernicus’ theory
e. Kepler(1571-1630) – student of Brache, first non religious astronomer, first to mathematically prove the theory
i. He comes up with the three laws of planetary motion
1. Planted move elliptically
2. The motion is not unitary in speed
3. The length of time it takes the planet to revolve around the sun depends on how close it is to the sun 
f. Galileo (1564-1642) – got in the most trouble, developed the laws of motion, acceleration experiment, gravity, objects will fall at the same rate independent of their weight, objects in motion will remain in motion until it is stopped. He validated Copernicus’ view by using a telescope. Demonstrates that the moon and other celestial bodies are not perfectly round. His views are largely supported in northern Europe where there are lots of protestants, but the Catholics had already condemned him a heretic  
i. 1632 – Dialog concerning the two chief world systems (Ptolemaic and Copernicus) – they forced him to issue a public retraction and for the last 10 years of his life he spent under house arrest 
g. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – empiricism (the inductive method) – one of two major systems of reasoning, use it for scientific experimentation 
i. Observation, hypothesis, test 
ii. “renounce notions and begin to form an acquaintance with things”
iii. Bacon + Descartes = scientific method 
h. Descartes (1596-1650) – cugito ergo sum 
i. Deductive Reasoning – gives us the greatest literary misnaming of all time  “It’s deductive, Watson”, no its inductive
ii. Algebra and geometry 
iii. Cartesian Dualism – refers to all material is divided in to either physical or spiritual material. (there is the spiritual and the STUFF)
1. Spiritual can only be looked at using deductive reasons and physical and only use inductive 
2. Inductive + deductive = scientific method
i. Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) – Universal Gravitation 
i. Mathematical Principles of Philosophy (1687) – becomes the foundation for the Enlightenment 
ii. Deism - watchmaker theory 
j. Physiology – study of the human body, four humors
i. Vesalius
ii. William Harvey (1628) – On the Movement of the heart and blood – the circulatory system
iii. Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)– perfected the microscope, first to see cells, writes 
about cells 
iv. Royal Societies – of science 
***All this leads to the Enlightenment. But Science is not yet highly Secular ***
II. The Enlightenment (Age of Reason)
a. Reason can explain all aspects of life
i. Reason was a reflection of God’s ability to reason
ii. “God helps those who help themselves” 
iii. The people who believed in reason were also religious they believed that God had made the world and was leaving it to tick
b. Deism – The belief that God was the Deistic Creator – The Watchmaker
i. The universe isn’t governed by God, but by a natural law that God created 
c. Spinoza – a philosopher  God = Nature 
d. Many people now put their thoughts into government and society
i. Treatise – scholarly papers
ii. John Locke (1632-1704)
1. 1690 – Two Treatises of Civil Government 
a. His justification for the Glorious Revolution in England
2. He believed that in a state of nature people were good, but were corrupted by society and government
a. Government’s job is to protect the people, given the right to by the people to rule them (life, liberty, and property)
b. “Consent of the Governed”
i. If the government doesn’t protect them, they have the right to change the government 
3. Essay Concerning Human Understanding
a. Refute Descartes
4. Believed in Tabula Rasa 
e. The more education  the more progress 
f. Toleration – people needed to be tolerant of other ideas 
i. Allow all ideas and the best will rise to the top  people needed as much information as possible “Intellectual Survival of the Fittest”
g. Fontenelle (1657-1757) – wrote amazing treatise, skeptical of absolute knowledge, also organized religion
h. Bayle (1647-1706) – the Critical and Historical Dictionary – advocates complete and total toleration of ALL ideas  he is also skeptical of absolute truth and organizes religion 
i. Philosophes – group of enlightened philosophers in France who helped popularize the Enlightenment
i. They were the intellectual elite, wrote treatises, etc.  
ii. Most Famous = Voltaire (1694-1778)
1. Strong deist, challenged the catholic views, believed in human reason 
2. Also called for social change – his ideas helped lay the foundations for the French revolution
3. Believed in religious tolerance – said they should crush religious intolerance
4. Organized religion had moved away from the message of Jesus and become corrupt 
5. Didn’t Advocate Democracy, but Enlightened Despotism 
6. Influenced a number of rulers who saw themselves as being Enlightened Despots – Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Joseph II of Austria, and Napoleon…
7. He believed in equality before the law, but not of the classes, didn’t believe in bigotry 
j. Montesquieu (1689-1755) – member of the French nobility, but hated the absolutism of Louis XIV
i. In 1746 – The Spirit of the Laws - he comes up with the idea of Checks and balances in Government – Executive, Judicial, Legislative – should be equal in power and check each other 
ii. Liked the idea of the British Parliament System 
iii. Supported 13 Parlements in France – 13 state supreme courts manned by nobles to check the power of the monarchs 
k. Rousseau (1712-1778)– The Social Contract – consensus of a majority should rule a nation
i. General Will of the People – an Absolute Monarchs can abuse this idea 
ii. But Rousseau doesn’t say how you find out what the majority rule it…no elections?
iii. Man in a simpler state of nature was good – “The noble savage” – what corrupts man is the materialism of civilization… 
l. Diderot (1713-1784) – The Encyclopedia (1765) – a compilation of the political and social critiques of the Philosophes - wanted to teach people to think critically and objectively 
m. Beccuria (1764) – On Crimes and Punishment French, wanted the punishment the be relative to the crime, thought the death penalty should only be used in the for the most extreme threats against the state, was also opposed to the use of torture to extract confession
i. Frederick the Great banned torture, Catherine the Great restricted torture etc. 
III. Economy
i. Quesnay (1694-1774) – physiocrat – advocated Laissez Faire in agriculture 
1. Let people who own land keep and it and make profit on the produce
ii. Adam Smith (1727-1799) - The Wealth of Nations (1776)
1. Expansion and refinement of the arguments the physiocrats were using in France
a. The Government should be neutral in its dealing with business, the invisible hand of business should be left to rule  the natural laws of supply and demand will prevail
2. Believed the Government should not be involved in the Economy - any participation would mess up the laws of supply and demand
a. The government by definition CANNOT not be involved
IV. Women
i. Salons
ii. Madame de Geoffeu – major salon organizer and patron of Diderot so he could write his encyclopedia 
iii. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) - leading advocate of women’s education and political involvement 
V. Later Enlightenment
i. Toleration
ii. Reason
iii. Skepticism
b. D’Holbach - System of Nature Humans are machines completely controlled by outside forces, he is a total atheist 
c. Hume (1711-1776) - Argues against natural law and faith 
i. We are limited by our human senses, we can’t hear what a dog can hear, so Enlightenment?!
d. Condorcet – Progress of the Human Mind – 10 stages of human progress 
e. Rousseau - doesn’t want us all to becomes Spok – like 
f. Kant – greatest German philosopher of the Enlightenment, but he starts compartmentalizing things 
i. Separates science and morality…erm…
ii. BED ROCK OF AMERICAN FUNDAMENTALISTS…now evolution doesn’t work
VI. Classical Liberalism ≠ Democracy 
a. Political out through of the Enlightenment
b. Individual liberty from government control
c. Equality under the law
d. Adam Smith
VII. Religious backlash against the Enlightenment
a. German Pietism – could need spiritual conversion and religious experience 
b. Methodism – John Wesley (1703-1791) – “Born Again”
c. Jansenism – catholic sect, directly opposed to an uninvolved god, didn’t life the deists, earlier had been persecuted by Louis XIV for their Calvinist ideals, also believed in predestination
d. Effects:
i. Emergence of a secular world view, primarily of the universe
ii. Enlightened despotism
iii. Educational reform
iv. Laissez faire capitalism (Adam Smith)
v. American and French Revolution
VIII. Enlightened Despots
a. Religious Toleration
b. Streamlines legal codes
c. Reduction of Torture
d. Increased access to Education
e. Frederick the Great (r. 1740-86)
i. War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
ii. Pragmatic Sanction – the Great powers of Europe said that Charles’ VII daughter would inherit the entire Hapsburg Empire
1. Frederick wasnee happy – Annexed Silesia from Austria  go to war, Frederick is good at the War game…  Prussia becomes one of the important European power because little Prussia doubles its population by gaining this piece of land
f. Seven Years War – the French Indian War in America gets the European powers included in a war
i. Maria – Theresa of Austria wants Silesia  allies -> France and Russia
1. Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 
2. Prussia outnumbered 15:1, but then Russia pull out… HAH! Peter III withdrew, giving Prussia a chance to recover… Catherine the Great (German-Prussian)assassinated Peter for pulling out…then ruled Russia for 30 years 
3. 1763- Britain and Russia settle their differences
4. Treaty of Paris in 1763 – France looses all of its American colonies to GB and Prussia gets to keep Silesia 
ii. Frederick the Great then tries to become an enlightened despot – first servant of the state…but he is an absolute ruler
a. Allows religious freedom, but limited for the Jews
b. Promotes education, especially at university level
c. Makes the judicial system more efficient
d. Frees the serfs on crown lands all the serfs on noble lands are still serfs
e. Will order and end to physical punishment of serfs by nobles, but it was hard to enforce
f. Improved t Civil Service by introducing civil service exams
g. Reduced censorship
h. Abolished capital punishment, except in the army
i. Problem was the Uncas – they were the backbone of the army 
i. They couldn’t marry commoners
ii. Couldn’t sell their land to non nobles  problems for the middle class – couldn’t rise
iii. Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796)
1. Considered to be one of the greatest rulers in European history 
2. Was in some way involved in the assassination plot, she wasn’t technically in line because Peter the Great had abolished hereditary assumption of the throne 
3. Pugachev Rebellion of 1773 – huge serf uprising he and his band of Cossacks kill many land owners scared Catherine because she needed the nobility gives the nobles absolute control over the serfs…
4. 1785- Catherine abolishes taxes on the nobles… for ever !
5. Introduced local government councils… of nobles and other things 
6. Problems – the nobles and the state and the crown benefited the most, and the serfs were even worse off 
7. Gains land In Poland, Ottoman empire, and Caucuses and Crimea 
iv. *Maria Teresa (r.1740-1780) - wasn’t exactly enlightened 
1. Eventually becomes ruler because it was given her 
2. Conservative and cautious 
3. War of the Austrian Succession 
4. Didn’t go as far as Religious toleration, didn’t believe in certain enlightenment values, but she wound up doing some of them
5. The results of her actions were enlightened, but she didn’t think enlightened 
6. Her son however, will be an enlightened despot Joseph II (r. 1780-1790)
7. He is seen as being the greatest of the enlightened despots 
8. Frees the serfs in 1781, which the serfs opposed because now instead of paying the lords in time, they had to pay the state in cash, when he dies and his brother Leopold took over, they rescinded it. 
9. Freedom and religious toleration for Jews
10. Abolished the death penalty and torture
11. Expands state schools
12. Establishes hospitals, poor house, insane asylums, orphanages
13. Tries to make everyone evil under the law
14. Austria get weak under his control and his brother has to rescind many of his reforms