Enlightenment and Revolution

I. Defining the Enlightenment

            A. European movement of ideas

            B. Fundamental principles

                        1. reason and science should replace tradition and superstition

2. reason can solve human problems, not just find natural laws        

                        3. optimism and belief in progress

II. Royal power and Religious Intolerance Causes a Reaction

A. Absolutist government and religious intolerance go hand in hand

1. The supreme power of Louis XIV of France

2. Edict of Nantes (toleration for Protestants in France) is revoked in 1685

B. The English reject the absolutism of King James II

1. Glorious Revolution (1688-89)

2. English Bill of Rights (1689)

3. the leader of the Republic of the Netherlands becomes king of England

III. John Locke was the first great exponent o Enlightenment principles

A. Treatises on Government (1690)

1. defends overthrowing the king in Glorious Revolution

2. politics according to reason

3. rule of reason and law instead of men

B. Thoughts concerning Education (1693)

1. developing the natural reason of all human being

IV. French Enlightenment

A. Denis Diderot's Encyclopedia (1751-72)

                        1. The new bible of reason

                        2. replacing superstition and tradition with rational knowledge

            B. Voltaire

                        1. The icon of the Enlightenment

2. critic of unreasonable laws, traditions and prejudices

                       3. religious toleration

C. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1. natural education

2 political theory of equality

V. Scottish Enlightenment

A. David Hume

1. the human mind as a natural phenomenon

2. no soul, no God

B. Adam Smith and the birth of economics

1. Natural laws of material life

                        2. interaction of self-interested people produce good of all--with the help of "invisible hand"

3. similarity to Hume's perspective

VI. American and French Revolutions and the Idea of Rights

A. American Revolution led by men of the Enlightenment (1776)

1. Thomas Jefferson and Declaration of Independence

2. American Constitution

3. Establishment of natural rights and rule of law

-key principle is personal liberty (from Locke)

B. Financial Crisis of French King is an Opportunity for Rule of Reason (1789)

1. calling the Estates General

2. Enlightenment ideas put in practice

3. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

-key principle is equality (from Rousseau)