Science of Society

Enlightenment II

The Self:
stable, coherent, knowable
reason: universal/eternal/timeless truths - objective
science
The True = right/good/beautiful

Autonomous individual - self-reflective use of reason (cf. Kant, Rousseau)

I. The Arts
novel - psychological, domestic (cf. letter-writing, diaries)
Goethe, Sorrows of Young Werther
Rousseau, La nouvelle Heloise
music
theater
visual art

Aesthetics: to perceive fine distinctions

Enlightenment as education
Progress

Enlightenment I

egalitarianism
hierarchy
The Estates

  1. First Estate: nobility
  2. Second Estate: clergy
  3. Third Estate: commons / citizens / peasants / merchants / cities (as corporations)

Germanic Law

Rights < Duties

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
impostors: Moses, Jesus, Mohammad
pantheism: Nature = God
materialism (+ atheism?) positivism

Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment? (1784)

Collision course:  
Enlightenment I

efficiency in government
reason, science applied to administration (a.k.a. absolutism)
 
  • demographics
  • economics
  • commerce
  • agriculture
  skilled bureaucracy
centralized administration
Enlightenment II question authority
 
  • independent use of reason
    Kant: Sapere aude!
    Rousseau: Emile
  • literacy
  • education
  • liberty

Three sides to any given conflict

The Estates

  1. First Estate: nobility
  2. Second Estate: clergy
  3. Third Estate: commons / citizens / peasants / merchants / cities (as corporations)

Public Opinion: the Fourth Estate

Age of Revolutions
  • Geneva, 1768
  • Denmark, Jan 1772
  • Sweden, Aug 1772
  • Poland, Aug 1772 (partition)
  • Russia, 1773-74 - Pugachev revolt + peasant rebellion
  • Bohemia, Spring 1775
  • France, May 1776 - dismissal of Turgot marks end of reform
  • England, July 1776 - North America + Wilkes revolt in Parliament, London
  • Geneva, 1782
  • France, 1789