High Enlightenment I summary

Summary High Enlightenment I

Summary lecture 1  materialism
French Revolution in France (political event + philosophy)

Voltaire angry (1750s)
1) Towards ancient regime
2) Mood changed towards censorship; it errored

Popularity French Royal Family
1) Louis 15th; popularity crumbles
2) Government not good
3) Financial position (tax system)

During 1750s
 Enlightenment’s thinkers take over public domain through professorship and boards

Philosophical level 1750s
1) Development political philosophy (Rousseau)
2) Natural philosophy + metaphysics
- Materialism  La Mettrie (1709-1751)

 Materialism
1) Metaphysica
= Reality consists of matter and nothing else
2) Epistemology
= All that we need in order to understand the world is the concept of matter

Lucretius (99-55 BC)
- ‘De Rerum Natura’ Most interesting text materialism
- World exists of nothing but atoms moving in a void in a constant swerve
- Governed by faith (fortuna)
- Immaterial objects (thoughts etc.)  independent substance
 Matter is needed for mental phenomena; it is a property of material objects
 If we consist of material atoms  no immortal soul  no reason to assume our minds keep
working after death
 If your body is gone, so is the ‘soul’

- Epicureanism= no cause for worry. Do not fear death deeply irrational
1) Not bad for us not to exist before we existed
2) Not existing before our existence = not existing after our existence
3) No longer existing cannot be bad for us
 If something is not bad for us, it is irrational to fear it

Epicureanism  ataraxia= the robust state of tranquillity characterized by ongoing freedom of stress
and worry
- If main cause stress= death  if removed = ataraxia

During 17th century
- Doubts about church  Lucretius as first atheist poet
- Atomism adopted by Christian scientists (Descartes’ mind, matter)

Next step in materialism
Julien la Mettrie (1709-1751)  L’Homme Machine
- Humans as machines
1

, -  Matter is not passive; it is a force as active that does move itself (electricity)
- (Descartes 2 interactive parts, Spinoza 1 substance)
- Everything strives to persevere its existence

Materialism in philosophic debate
D’Holbach
- Influential salons
- Editor clandestine philosophical manuscripts
o Christianity revealed
o Revenge of Israel

Systeme de la nature (1770) book about materialism
1) Nature consists of matter which is everything that exists
- Matter & Motion = everything that exists
- Matter= changing compound of matter
- Atoms moving providing compounds of matter with motion (Lucretius metaphysics)
Properties of matter
- Depend on material source
- All mental =real; look immaterial
- No reason not to regard them as properties of matter
- Mind is not separate substance beyond bodies

2) How could it be that this conclusion was not done before?
- Failed to confirm obvious truths
- Fooled by theological spiritualism
1. There’s an immortal god
2. There’s an immortal soul
3. There’s a free will
 No foundation is reality

 Christianity is false + harmful!
Voltaire  deist (yes false, but you need something (a myth); not harmful)

Systeme de la Nature
- No free will  only atoms
- No morality (good/evil = what we (don’t) like)
- Moral claims = expression emotional states
- Men  driven by self interest
- Man’s action  Utilaritianism
- Moral  contribute to happiness (a lot of people)

Happiness= typical 18th century
Christianity  happiness not acquired in this life (afterlife)

 We’re enslaved by theological spiritualism; knowledge sets you free (remove causes of ignorance)

Goethe hated systeme de la nature
- Nature is object of research

Sturm and Drang = new appreciation of nature
- Nature becomes spiritual place  the sublime
- In its extremes (terror, beauty)
- Romanticism

Rousseau

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, - Culture of sensibility
 Mistake to separate enlightenment from romanticism

Summary lecture 2  Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1) Protestant from Geneve
2) No middle upper-class background
o no education like that; only self-taught classical
3) Hold on to classical antiquity
o Thought of 1787= French time to surpass classical antiquity
4) Did not want to be philosopher

*Discours sur les arts et les sciences
 Culture has corrupted nature
- Living by conventions rather than nature
 People have been alienated from their original self
E.g. Germania, Canada,

 Rivarly Voltaire and Rousseau
Voltaire: culture = civilized

*Discours sur l’origine de l’inegalite
Freedom + equality
- Attack on Hobbes  humans only want to survive  war for existence
o Always limit in means, no limit in will
o Want the same thing  leave the state of nature  enter state of law
o Societies and culture into nature

Rousseau
- Mistake Grotius + Hobbes before law (in nature), no property
- Property= social construction
- War is not outcome of nature = outcome of law
- Culture does not civilize, it corrupts

Authentic selves= state of man cannot be interstated

*Le contrat social (1762)
It is
- Attempt to change language we think about politics
- Affect language of power
- Change way we reflect on society

- We cannot go back to state of nature  minimize culture
- By subjecting ourselves to ourselves  create Sovereign  volonte generale
- General will  volunte de tous
- The common good  interest for all
- Force to liberate
- Sovereignty of state= absolute
- All equally powerless as powerful

Message of le contrat social
1) Lack of representation of French politics
- 3 estates
- 1614 last time

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