The Social Contract and a Case of the Majority Not Winning

In Rousseau's Social Contract, he touched on many important ideas of the enlightened era. The most prominent one was the concept of the general will. The general will is the will of the people which will do the best for the people. It is whatever will do the best for the greatest number of people even if the people do not want it. The government has the duty to the do the best actions for the people. This idea of general will is very different from the will of the majority. The will of the majority is what the most people want; it's a case of majority wins. In this will, the majority's will might not always be the best for the people. In majority will, there is no concept that the best action will take place even if the people don't want it. 

 

Using this image, the majority will is the lower scale. In a majority will, this group would win. However, in the general will, they would only win if their idea was the best course of action. The higher scale could also win if they had the best course. 

In the general will, there can be cases of error. When there are partial wills, they alter the general will. Partial wills occur when factions rise. The factions break up the general will into smaller portions, thus the state is broken up into smaller pieces. By making all factions equal, the general will remains balanced. When the factions are balanced the best action will take place, not the popular one. 

Rousseau also commented on freedom. Everyone wants freedom but what some may not know is there are two types of freedom. The first is positive freedom. This freedom allows you to do things. It grants you freedoms, such as freedom of speech. Negative freedom, however, is freedom from things. By denying such acts as murder, the government takes away your right to murder but grants you the freedom to be safe. Although the government is taking away a freedom, it is granting the better freedom of safety. Another example is that one cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Although, your freedom of speech is not completely free, it protects you from danger. 

The Social Contract and the Enlightened Absolutists

One philosophe of this time was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He wrote The Social Contract. In it, one point he argues is that there is no justification for slavery. For instance, since slavery often arises from prisoners of war, Rousseau points out war is between states not people. Because of this, in war people should not be able to take other people as prizes. Rousseau states it is society that is the origin of slavery. He goes on to argue that societal institutions are bad. However, he is pro-education. How could this be? 

Simple, he was against societal institutions because they came from the monarch and not from a contract between people. Rousseau's idea of a social contract was between people and not between people and the government. Because education could be a contract between people, he was in support of it. 

One other major idea of Rousseau was the idea of the general will versus the majority.  Rousseau supported the idea that the majority should not have the final say on matters but rather the general will should. This meant that whatever is best for the majority of people should be followed not what the majority of people want. He reasoned this because some people were not enlightened enough to make their own decisions. 

With all this Enlightenment actions happening in western Europe. It is easy to forget Eastern Europe. However, they participated in the enlightenment too. Furthermore, eastern Europe featured many "Enlightened Absolutists". Three of them were Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great and Maria Teresa.  

Catherine the Great was actually pretty great. She overthrew her husband to become empress of Russia and had three main goals as ruler. The first was to bring Western European culture to Russia. She was very successful. She brought western art and literature to Russia and improved education. She even supported Volaire and his Encyclopedia. She fully supported the Enlightenment in Russia. Her second goal was domestic reform. Here is where she struggled. Originally she was against serfdom and wanted to improve the legislative system. However, when Emelian Pugachev lead an uprising of serfs, Catherine swiftly defeated him and decided peasants were dangerous  and therefore gave nobles complete control over their serfs.

In her third goal, Catherine was extremely successful. This was territorial expansion. Her armies were  able to easily defeat the Turks and her expansion threatened to disturb the balance of powers in Europe. To make the disruption less, Catherine made a deal with Prussia and Austria to divide up Poland between the three of them.

Partition of Poland

The next enlightened absolutist was Frederick the Great. Like Catherine, he also supported the Enlightenment and its culture. Furthermore, he encouraged the Enlightenment to be spread to his subjects. Frederick improved Prussia's schools and allowed scholars to publish their ideas. He improved the legal system and soon Prussia's officials became famous for their honesty and handwork. However, this does not mean Frederick was pro-peasant. He never abolished serfdom and even extended the privileges of the nobility. Furthermore, he continued to allow the oppression of Jews in Prussia. One other thing, Frederick did was expand Prussia. In 1740, he invaded Maria Theresa's German providence of Silesia. This doubled the population of Prussia and made it more powerful than any other of the German states. 

The last enlightened absolutist in the post is Maria Theresa. After loosing Silesia to Russia she was determined to make her state stronger. She did this in three ways. First was she limiting the papacy's influence in Austria. Second, she reformed the administration. She strengthened the central bureaucracy, settled provincial differences, and fixed the taxing system which included taxing nobles without special treatment. Third, Maria Theresa worked to fix the agricultural population which meant reducing the power lords had over their nobles. Even though she did not have the title of great, she still was pretty good. 

Wikipédie, Voldemort, and kinda-rude Rousseau

Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts

Was Denis Diderot's encyclopedia the Wikipedia of the eighteenth century? The 17 volume Encyclopedia intended to teach people how to think critically and objectively. Diderot, along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert wanted to gather all knowledge and write it down. The collection included exaltation of the sciences and industrial arts, questioning of religious, immortality, and the meaning of life, along with open criticism on intolerance, injustice, and some social institutions. The main, intended theme of Encyclopedia was that humans could use reason to expand human knowledge and to make social, economic, and political progress possible. In collecting and editing the information, Diderot intended to educate the masses on how to think critically and use that reason in order to better their world. 

The question then arises of the objectivity of Encyclopedia. Diderot included open criticisms on things he thought to be wrong with society, government, etc. Did he intend for readers to agree with his criticisms, and initiate reform? Or did he simply intend to give readers the most knowledge he could, and leave it up to interpretation? Regardless of his intentions (which, for the record, I think are genuinely to spread knowledge and increase society's ability to use reason), Diderot surely inserted opinions into Encyclopedia. 

It is these inserted opinions that make Encyclopedia and Wikipedia comparable. Wikipedia is a collection of information in knowledge put together by many different contributors and editors, and is used by many as a primary source for information. Encyclopedia, however, is less general - written for the most part by one man, the information in Encyclopedia is somewhat opinionated, whereas Wikipedia is the combined opinions of many different contributors, sorted out by numerous objective editors.

Voltaire and deism

Deism is defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme creator who does not providentially intervene in the universe. The rise of deism coincided with the Enlightenment as both focused on the belief that man's ability to use reason was sufficient to acquire knowledge and make progress. Voltaire made deism a bit more specific - he believed in a god that was distant, who acted as a "clockmaker." This distant god, according to Voltaire, built an orderly universe, putting all the gears together, and then stepped aside and watched it run. 

Voltaire believed that religious intolerance led to fanaticism and savage inhumanity. The last chapter dealt with religious wars - Voltaire believed that if each nation was tolerant of the religious preferences of its population, religious war would cease to occur. Voltaire wrote various works which praised England and its scientific progress. He glorified science and reason - he believed that knowledge and man's ability to think critically would lead to individual betterment and the improvement of social institutions. 

Voltaire, however, was pessimistic. He believed that human beings were unable to govern themselves (which differs from Rousseau's social contract theory, which advocated that the sovereignty lied in the population, and that general will was absolute). Thus, Voltaire advocated that the best hope for government is a good, tolerant monarch.

Rousseau's social contract theory

To briefly summarize, Rousseau believed that a social contract existed not between government and general population, but between the individuals who make up society. Rousseau advocated that general will and popular sovereignty were the fundamental bases of government, and that the sovereign power lies in the common interests of the people, not in the monarch. These common interests were not always the majority - compromise and fairness was key in Rousseau's social contract theory.

Rousseau passionately advocated for individual freedom - he believed civilization to be confining. He believed that stereotypes and gender roles were a form of natural law, and that these ideas were undebatable. He especially advocated that women should assume a passive role in marriage and please her husband, care for her children, and keep out of politics.

Philisophes, People, Progress, Pessimism, and Power

The philosophes were a group of French philosophers who believed they were enlightened while everyone else was left in the dark. They believed that only the public, or the upper class, were capable of achieving enlightenment where as the general population, aka, the people could not hope to reach the light. 

(Diogenes was a philosopher who went around holding a lamp "looking for an honest man")

According to Locke, people are born as blank tablets and it is the job of societal institutions to write the important things one should remember on these slates. This idea later lead to the separation of church and education in France, since the Church began to have too much influence on what was written on people’s tablets. 

The philosophes are much like the progressivists, who also consisted of a small group of people who believed their ideas were better than everyone else’s. However, the progressivists appear around three to four hundred years after the philosophes. How did the philosophes represent progress? Well, during the Renaissance scholars looked toward Greece and Rome to re-build the glory that once existed and re-use the ideas of past philosophers and thinkers. However, during the Enlightenment, philosophers, such as the philosophes, were thinking of their own ideas instead of looking back at antiquity. Instead of rebuilding what once was, they were building upon the foundation that Greece and Rome laid. 

Philosophes also had a more pessimistic view than thinkers of the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, the individual was believed to have great potential. On the other hand, philosophes had the pessimistic view that everyone else (society and the people) sucked, but they were optimistic that their own ideas could change and progress society for the better. 

Additionally, the ideas of the philosophes would have been viewed as heretical during the Renaissance. For example, many philosophers leaned toward secularism (some were even atheist). A philosopher, Voltaire, used inductive reasoning by observing that wars during the Renaissance arose due to religious intolerance and concluded that “religious intolerance lead to fanaticism and savage action.

Voltaire or Voldemort?

The philosophies of the philosophes would later influence the French Revolution. This can be seen through the views of three men: Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau. Montesquieu believed in a separation of powers in government. Voltaire called for more civil and political liberties. And Rousseau wanted direct small scale democracies. Separation of powers within elite groups was believed to be an improvement on absolutism. Notice, the Montesquieu wanted separation within elite groups rather than the “people.” As I stated previously, the masses were believed to be unable to reach enlightenment and were too easily influenced. Much like a dog, they would follow whatever a leader tells them to do. 

On the other hand, elite groups had a my way or the highway attitude. This would result in a lot of conflict. This can be seen in Voltaire’s pessimistic attitude that “the best one could hope for in the way of government was a good monarchy, since human beings are very rarely worthy to govern themselves.” Volatire’s ideas could be seen as a branch of deism. He saw God as “the great clock maker.” 

starts the machine, the world, and allows it to run on its own, seen in our free will. 

Philosophes had an opinion on every aspect of life. These ideas then turned into action through their influence in society. 

people Kant think for themselves

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a people thrive by obeying their national authority. However, they can succeed even more with an education, which is what the Enlightenment was trying to provide. When a people fight for their freedom, it is either justified that they do so or unjust that their liberty was ever taken away in the first place. Every person has the ability to think for themselves, and society has no right to hinder this ability. Social order is a basic right for all humans, yet it does not stem from nature but from human conventions.

Immanuel Kant was also a fan of the Enlightenment. In Enlightenment and Revolution, he encouraged people to think for themselves. He urged people to free themselves from their self-incurred tutelage. By this he meant that man is plagued by a lack of resolution and courage, not by a lack of reason. Man must overcome this in order to make use of his understanding of the world.
Ex) Becky very often knows the answer to Mr. Yarnall's questions, but just never feels like answering or else she would have to explain her reasoning- a very tedious job.

Kant also recognized that it is natural for a person to take external direction as a child, but as an adult, that person should be able to rely on his or herself. Many people continue to rely on others, due to their own laziness and cowardice.

The third paragraph discusses how kings made the people rely on them for everything and made them feel as if they couldn't function without someone telling them what to do. People have the tendency to give up after trying and failing once. It is much easier to get someone to do something for you than it is to do it yourself.

However, Kant recognized that not everyone in society could afford to spend time expanding their minds. Their was a difference between the public and the masses. The poor were to focused on bread-and-butter issues to fully take part in the Enlightenment. Similar to the Renaissance was that the Enlightenment took place mostly in the upper class.

According to Kant, laws are the shackles of an everlasting tutelage. These are the same chains that Rousseau was referring to in the beginning of his book. A life of tutelage under laws that tell you what is right and wrong leaves you no room to think of yourself.
For years, no one questioned the long-held belief that the earth was the center of the universe because if they did, they would be committing treason against the church. People believed that the church and the authorities were always right, even though they never showed any evidence to back up their statutes. The Enlightenment's goal was to get people to investigate the world for themselves, and not believe something to be true just because someone says it is. Both Rousseau and Kant talk about throwing and shaking off this yoke of tutelage. They were the rebels of their period, questioning the power of the church, authorities, and government.

The Tale of the Scientific Revolution

Once upon a time, there was a man named David Hume. He was a Scottish philosopher during the Scientific Revolution. Hume believed that miracles did not occur unless “the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish…”. He was skeptical that a miracle could happen in reality. His skepticism stemmed from his involvement and history with the ideas of the Scientific Revolution. Hume challenged many religious ideas on the basis that if they could not be experienced or tested, they did not exist.

This line of thinking was established during the Scientific Revolution. The Revolution changed many aspects of intellectual life. Scientists found a new way to look at the universe and everything in it. The Scientific Revolution only occurred due to three causes.

1.  Medieval intellect: Although many believe that the Middle Ages were a time of darkness, they set up the basis for intellectual thought. Universities were set up teaching a variety of subjects including philosophy. Science would eventually emerge from the field of philosophy and apply rational thinking to the world. Without these universities, science would not have emerged. 
2. The Renaissance: Many ideas and concepts from the Renaissance facilitated the Scientific Revolution. Diverse events such as humanism and the return to Greek math coupled with trade and new instruments lead to the Revolution. For instance, scientists fixed both longitude and latitude and invented new instruments in order to complete Renaissance caused trade. Additionally, the Renaissance stimulated progress on the scientific method. Two scientists lead to this modern scientific method. Francis Bacon provided the inductive thought. He believed in looking at tiny pieces and experiments and applying them to larger theories. He also formalized empiricism, which is the idea that everything comes from ones senses. Renee Descartes, however, believed in deductive reasoning. He took the general idea of a theory and applied it to specifics that took place in life. The combination of both inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning developed the scientific method. 

3. Religion: Protestantism and Catholicisms played important roles in the development of science. Some historians believe that Protestantism caused the scientific revolution. Protestants believed that it was important to think as an individual and come up with ones own ideas. They weren't suppose to just believe tradition because it was tradition. This was an important idea in science as well. Although Protestant thought was helpful to science, Protestantism as a religion was not. During the beginning of the Revolution, Protestant leaders were the biggest oppressors of Copernicus and scientific progress. Protestants in countries without close religious authority would eventually become more encouraging of science. Catholicism had the reverse relationship with science. They started out as the least oppressive of the religions but eventually became one of the most.  

The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution. What is it? Is it important? Is it real? And most importantly why did it happened while the Renaissance did not? These questions will all be answered in this blog post. So buckle your seat belts and get ready for the ride.

Simply put, the Scientific Revolution marked the emergence of modern science. It marked the beginning of moving away from speculation and to experimenting to prove theories. People like Galileo  and Newton made significant advancements in the fields of astronomy, physics, and mathematics. However with advancements came confrontations.

The biggest opponent against the Scientific Revolution was the Church. Since Aristotle's inaccurate theories were recovered in the Middle Ages, they had been incorporated into religious beliefs. For instance, Aristotle believed Earth was the center of the universe. Surrounding the Earth were spheres each in a perfect position. Beyond the tenth sphere was Heaven. This model of the universe not only gave reasonable and believable explanations but it also gave both God and humans a specific place in the universe and put human beings at the center. When this belief was questioned by Copernicus and Galileo, the church opposed them. Galileo was even put on trial for stating the earth was not the center but rather the sun. Though Galileo was put on trial by Catholics, Protestants tended to be more opposed to the Scientific Revolution because they took the Bible more seriously. 

The Scientific Revolution was very important. As stated previously, scientists during this time began testing theories instead of just thinking about them. They came up with logical and actual proof and evidence for things occurring. Furthermore, the Scientific Revolution changed the way people looked at the world. The conflict between religion and science began more prominent. People wondered what was right: religion or science? How could both coexist? This problem would only continue into the future and to modern day where debates are still continuing. 

This leads us to the big conclusion: Why the Scientific Revolution happened and not the Renaissance. 

1.) The Renaissance took Greek and Roman ideas. The Scientific Revolution looked at old ideas and made their own.

                Look at Renaissance sculptures, architecture, and paintings. They are all pretty similar to                    Greek and Roman art. How can something exist, if it does not have its own ideas. The Scientific Revolution looked at old ideas and made their own. For instance, they looked at Aristotle's layout of the universe, realized it was wrong, came up with a new one, and proved it with evidence. 

2.) Though in both movements only a few people participated, the Scientific Revolution effected or would effect everyone.

                Unlike the Renaissance, where only few people participated and only few were effected, during the Scientific Revolution a few people participated but many were effected. Because the Scientific Revolution lead to the ongoing question of faith vs. science, it not only effected people then but continued to in the future.

3.) If the Renaissance did happen, why did they not discover the flaws in science?

                  People look at the Renaissance as being this time of enlightenment. But what did it really accomplish. They studied the classics but failed to improve upon them. Furthermore, individualism probably kept people in the mind set of Earth being the center of the universe (individualism--> people are awesome--> people are center of universe). So if people did not push new ideas, did it really occur? The Scientific Revolution, however, pushed for new ideas proving it occurred.

4.) No one fought against the Renaissance.

                Think about it. Was there anyone who actually did not support the Renaissance? Was there any one who purposely fought against its ideas? No. Even the church did not have a problem with it. How could this be? All through history, there has never been an event or a movement that everyone has agreed upon. So logically if no one fought against the Renaissance that must mean it did not happen. However, many people opposed the Scientific Revolution because it challenged the way of thinking, it brought forth new ideas, and effected people. The Scientific Revolution did most defiantly  occur. 

In conclusion the Renaissance did not happen and the Scientific Revolution did. And if you still disagree....