Mumbling Followed by a Pause

Philosophy 

The Scientific Revolution drastically changed the perspectives of the public, those educated aristocrats and upper middle class elites. No longer did they rely on pure faith alone, the process of empiricism had proven that conclusions based on experimental data could yield concrete answers to age old questions. The Enlightenment was that change in the public mindset towards the verification of knowledge through the scientific process, and it was the philosophers (or philosophes) who were responsible for enthusiastically proselytizing the public to this method of thinking  

The philosophes were basically the Jehovah's Witnesses of mainstream society. They thought of empiricism as the cure-all method for all of society's problems. This degree of enthusiastic preaching of the scientific method was great for popularizing science, but made people uncomfortable enough for mainstream society to eventually pull a 360 towards romanticism.  

The greatest means that the philosophes were able to advocate empiricism was through the Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts, edited by Diderot and d'Alembert. It wast the the largest collected work of human knowledge at the time at seventeen volumes. Its editors only incorporated information into it that was collected through empirical processes, thousands of articles from leaders of hundreds of different areas of work.  It was single-handedly responsible for revolutionizing the way the public saw the expansion of human knowledge. It was widely read and summed up the world-view of the Enlightenment.  

In contrast, the literary summary of the modern era: Kim Kardashian West: Selfish,  the selfie photography of Kim Kardashian West

Two of the Enlightenment's greatest champions were Voltaire and Rousseau. 

If one were to imagine the two as a buddy-cop duo, Voltaire would be the uptight realistic one who plays by the rules, while Rousseau is the wacky newbie who plays by his own. Together they fought corruption and taught people new lessons about themselves. 

So advanced. And progressive, might I add. 

Voltaire 

• Early Enlightenment
• Influenced the enlightenment style of politics of many European Monarchs including Catherine the Great and Fredrick William I. 
• Did not believe in popular sovereignty or equality in human affairs. 
• Came up with political theory that equality can only be achieved in the eyes of the law in order to protect the weak from the ambitions of the strong. 

Rousseau

• Late Enlightenment
• attacked the Enlightenment's faith in reason, progress, and moderation
• rationalism and civilization destroyed rather than liberated the individual. 
• Warm, spontaneous feeling had to complement and correct cold intellect
• The Social Contract
• general will
• reflect the common interests of all people
• not always the will of the people, sometimes the long term needs of the people as interpreted by a leading body
• popular sovereignt
• common interest displaces monarch for soverignty

The Wet Blanket, a.k.a. David Hume 

Irwin Shrodinger was a  scientist who out of love of quantum mechanics and hatred for its increasing complexity, created the Schodinger's cat thought experiment to show how ridiculous the field was becoming. The experiment called for situations that would only exist under the confusing circumstances that defined quantum mechanical rules. David Hume did pretty much the same thing to Enlightenment thought by taking empiricism to its logical extreme. He theorized that "the human mind is nothing but a bundle of impressions. These impressions originate only in sense experiences and the joining of different sense experiences. Since our ideas ultimately reflect only our sense experiences, our reason cannot tell is anything about questions that cannot be verified by sense experience." As reason was a process that could not be verified by sense experience, empirical thought was therefore flawed and empiricism lost the mystical aura of perfection mainstream media had come to view it with. 

Theology also developed in this time period, with many philosophes forming deist views of Christianity. Deism was the practice of viewing the universe as a system intelligently designed by God to be able to work without his intervention. 

How Enlightened was the Enlightenment? 

The Enlightenment was the awkward teenage years of Western philosophy. It was just coming around to the ideas of popular sovereignty and science and empiricism that would rapidly advance the West into the Modern age, but was still for the most part stuck in the traditions of its unstable Medieval years. The idea of separation of power that would become so important in the age of democracy was little more than a tool for nobles of the time to reduce the power of kings in order to prevent unwelcome reforms. 

Given that intellectualism of the time was defined by the ability to practice empirical thought, peasants were considered even less capable of positive output than in previous centuries. In Western Europe, the peasantry had been freed from feudalism in the same way the African Americans had been freed from slavery immediately after the civil war, just barely and with very little improvement of living standard. In Eastern Europe feudalism was strongly enforced and more oppressive to the peasantry than it had been in the past. Such treatment of the poor contrasts that of previous eras when, though the peasantry was considered dumb and dangerous, they had more mutual relationships with their masters and were regarded as having the sort of idealized wisdom that comes with  living a life of natural simplicity. 

Women and the Enlightenment 

Notes on the Original Femi-Nazis and those Victimized by Their Reign of Terror

Dual effect on Women

• Laid foundations of modern feminism

○ Demand greater role in intellectual life

○ Influence enlightenment as salonnieres and sponsors 

• Rise of ideology of domesticity 

Concepts of Women's Rights 

• Separate Spheres 

○ Women's education should prepare them to serve men 

○ In gentleness a woman can rule because people will give into her 

○ Power of women comes from their attractiveness 

• Patriotic motherhood 
• Liberty, natural, rights, and emancipation in terms of familial control
• Women do not need education in order to have power over men, but to have  independence. 
•  independence leads to productivity and virtue 
• If men develop differently and are not all intelligent, then to not educate women is a folly. 
•  Meek wives make foolish mothers 
• Good mothers must have a sense and independence of mind that people who rely on their husbands don’t have
• If a women's role is to educate children and be good wives then they can do this best by being rational creatures and free citizens
• Women should be trained in the fields of medicine, midwifery, business, shop-keeping, and farming. 

Celebrities bringing idea to light - Philosophers on Women 

• Descartes - all women had the potential to be educated

• Locke - all women equally independent in nature

• Marquis de Condorcet - women had right to equal citizenship and education

• Rousseau - Social contract included one between men and women 

○ Men protect women and women serve men

○ Emile - separate spheres

§ Men=public

§ Women=private

§ Glorified domesticity 

Mary Wollstonecraft 

• Vindication of the Rights of Women 

• Equality of sexes

○ Society wasting resources by keeping women as "convenient domestic slaves" 

• Formulated main doctrines of modern women's movement 

• Education was key to equality and independence 

○ Advocated coeducation

• Society could progress through self-advancement and self-education

Main Idea

• Education extended, but became gender specific and women excluded from many fields 

• Economic set back because of the rise of capitalism 

• Separation of public and private ideology of domesticity largely restricted women 

Gave birth to the feminist consciousness and advocacy of rights and opportunities for women