Reading Notes Week 2: Introduction, Part A

"The Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas" 

The quarrel between “ancients” and “moderns” those who believed, respectively, that old ideas or new ones were likely to prove superior to any alternatives- proved especially virulent in France and England during the late 17^th and 18^th century (91).

Ancients feared that individualism would lead to alienation, unscrupulous (unethical), self-seeking, and lack of moral responsibility. They uphold established values, not to invent new ones.

Individualism was promoted by the moderns. They believed in broad education for women, and intellectual and geographical exploration. 

 Both Moderns/Ancients believed in reason as a dependable guide. Both believed in not taking any assertion of truth on faith, blindly following the authority of others; instead, one should think skeptically about causes and effects, subjecting all truth-claims to logic and rational inquiry.

Dr. Johnson’s famous Dictionary defined reason as “the power by which man deduces (arrives at by reason, drawing a conclusion) one proposition from another, or proceeds from premises to consequences.”  These definitions mean that revelation does not come by divine inspiration or by order of kinds but by simple reasoning powers of the ordinary human mind.

Some believe that Reason, would lead being back to eternal truth. Others believe reason provides a means for discovering fresh solutions to scientific, philosophical, and political questions.

Philosophy thinkers defined “I think, therefore I am” as what it meant to be human.

Rene Descartes declared the mind as a source of truth and meaning. Philosophers after Rene believed the concept’s implications, realized the possibility of the mind’s isolation in its own construction.

David Hume, the idea of individual identity is a fiction constructed by our own minds to make discontinuous experiences (a sudden experience that alters the way we think about a thing) and memories seem continuous and whole.

Isaac Newton’s demonstration of the order of natural law greatly encouraged this line of thought, leading many to believe that the fullness and complexity of the perceived physical world testified to the sublime rationality of a divine plan, however the planner did not necessarily supervise our day to day operations of his arrangements’ he might rather, as a popular analogy (similarities, likeness) had it, resemble the watchmaker who winds the watch and leaves it running ( 92)

Deists/Enlightenment thinkers

Deism encouraged the separation of ethics from religion, as ethics was increasingly understood as a matter of reason. Deists justified evil in the world by argument that God never interfered with nature or with human action.

Enlightenment thinkers argued against deism, believing that human beings could rely on their own authority-rather thank looking to priest or prices to decide how to act well in the world.

Alexander Pope’s pointed out “On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, /Reason the card, but Passion is the gale.” 93 One could hope to steer with reason as guide, but one had to face the omnipresence of unreasonable passions. 

18^th century as the tides turned. literacy rates grew and belonged almost entirely to the two upper classes.  Reading and writing, these two forms of commerce generated new wealth, and with it, newly wealthy people who felt entitled to their share of social power. (reason/individualism)

·       European entitlement, privilege over other races.

·       Abolitionist movement would behind to question whether slaver could be ethical (Story of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko)

·       Among privileged classes, men had man opportunities: for education, for service in government or diplomacy, for the exercise of political and economic power. Both men and women generally accepted as necessary the subordination of women, who, even in the upper classes, had few opportunities for education and occupation beyond the household.  Story of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, articulated her own passion for thought and reading, and became and advocate for the right of women to education and a life of the mind.

"Humanity and Nature" 

Deism assumed the existence of a God provided evidence of Himself only in His created works. The natural order however incomplete our grasp of it- remains a comfort. It suggests a system, a structure of relationships that makes sense at least in theory; rationality thus lies below all apparently irrational experience (97). 

"Convention  and authority"

 Were those who possessed the ability to read and write the only human beings to exercise authority?   Does authority only reside in tradition? Until the late 18th century, virtually all important writers attempted to ally themselves with the authority of tradition, declaring themselves part of a community extending though time and space (97,98).

"What is enlightenment?"

 Critical thinking is a legacy of enlightenment. Learning to stop and reflect on the arguments we hear, analyzing them for gaps, errors, exposing their unstated assumptions and evaluating their evidence(. 

"a person who dares to think for himself trampling on prejudice, tradition, conventional wisdom, authority" (101).