The Philosophies of Enlightenment - Term Paper Example

Even though the Enlightenment period is often characterized as the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment was an ideological and paradigm shift away from the philosophical belief in a theory known as rationalism: the thought that reason is the ultimately source of knowledge and truth. The move from rationalism put most prominent Enlightenment philosophers, like John Locke and David Hume, in the camp of the empiricists: believers in the theory that the senses are the ultimate source of knowledge and truth (Aveling). This development had a profound impact on the period’s characterization and treatment of religion. Instead of accepting religious principles as the rationalists defended them with deduction and pure reason, philosophers began to question anything that could not be ascertained with the senses. As a result, Christianity was adversely impacted by a wave of political secularization throughout Western Europe. Writers reviewed the integration of the Church and the State, moved to create a new democratic model of society, and in doing so changed the political future of the Western world. The Enlightenment saw the creation of two approaches to religion in this period, after the rise of the empirical school of epistemology. On one hand, many thinkers adopted rational supernaturalism, which refers to the belief that Christian revelation could still be rationally defended. This can be reasoned by thinking of revelation as beyond the realm of rationality. These thinkers argued that miracles, as they are presented in the Bible, indicate the existence of a divinity like the Judeo-Christian God, but that reason and rational thinking are the only way one can come to believe in their existence and in their source (Lewis). Like other Christians, the rational supernaturalists believed several divine moral sanctions and divine principles could be produced from understanding revelation. On the other hand, some more radical thinkers took up a position known as deism, which argues that after God created the universe, his involvement in human affairs has been minimal. Deists were generally hostile to the belief that revelation was beyond reason, and attributed most, if not all, of Christianity’s problems (as “superstitions”) on the belief that revelation reveals any essential doctrine about God. These changing attitudes coincide with shifts in the realm of science as well, with the start of a “scientific revolution” around this period focusing mainly on discoveries in the physical and astronomical sciences (Lewis). The shift from religion to science was pushed along by the excitement that discoveries by Newton and Galileo generated. It was made apparent that natural science could also order the natural world. Political thinkers reasoned that if Newton’s metaphysics and natural science could order the natural world, then certainly political reasoning could order the political world (that is, the state) just as well. These shifts led to an inevitable shift in the political philosophy of the Enlightenment, reinforced by the process of secularization by the efforts of liberal Christians, deists, and rational supernaturalists. The move from rationalism to empiricism left Christian theologians still committed to the old ways of thinking to fend for themselves against the new Age of Reason thinkers who left nothing unobservable in their philosophy and who defended only those aspects of religion that could be rationally defended. These developments resulted in the secularization of Western Europe during the Enlightenment period, and therefore a profound change in the ideological landscape for the coming centuries. These lines of thought would culminate in American independence, and a Constitutional precedent for the rest of the world to follow (Sherman and Salisbury). The French Revolution can accurately be recounted as one of the most important events in the history of Western Europe, and perhaps even in the history of the world. France was an inherently different state coming out of the decade-long revolution, which led to the creation of novel political forces in the new democratic system. Because of the rise of the representative democratic system, citizens took a more active role in the political responsibilities of the state. The revolution began with disputes over political reforms, and the financial irresponsibility of some of the Kings (Fitch). The people’s demands for reform took the form of a democratic response to the government’s wrongdoings, and individuals believed it was time for an institutional change to the Old Regime whereby the people would have more power to direct the political affairs of the state, instead of entrusting it to an incompetent monarchy. Divided between three social groups, France during the period of the Revolution, was controlled primarily by the Church and by the nobility, both of whom enjoyed special rights under the existing system, and paid little in terms of taxes. Both groups were conservative in their political leanings. The third class, made up of workers, peasants, and the bourgeoisie, paid heavy taxes and favored radical change because of the radical financial and social disparities between these groups in the French society. Taken together with the financial problems the government was facing at the time, the Revolution began out of a demand for fundamental shifts in governmental policies, not just simply reforms. Ultimately, the French revolution deeply affected the lives of all French people: ending slavery and all feudal claims and establishing a freedom of religion and the largest army in Europe (Fitch). Even though the French Revolution arose because of a myriad of different economic, political, and social factors, there are certain groups that surely played larger roles in both inspiring and bringing about the end of the Revolution. From a general perspective, no one in particular is really responsible for the beginning of the Revolution, since the origins of the conflict can be securely rooted in the social and class structure of the late 18th century French society (Sherman and Salisbury). However, if any group in particular was essential to the start of the Revolution, it would have to be the incompetence of the French monarchy, and its mishandlings of the financial affairs of the state. The context in which Queen Marie Antoinette made her famous statement “Let them eat cake”, even if the statement is misattributed to her, reflects the great disparity between the interests of the monarchy (and the Church and the nobles) and the rest of the French people. King Louis XVI came to the throne during a financial crisis due to overseas wars. Deeply in debt, the French government had no money to provide basic services for its citizens, but the King still managed to spent large amounts of money on luxuries. Because the government could not turn to sources of revenue other than taxes, the government devastated internal economic growth by punishing peasants and other members of the lower classes. Nobles and the clergy were exempt from taxes. This mismanagement of financial policy on the part of the monarchy led inevitably to unrest in the country that sparked the Revolution. Although the people were the drivers of a revolutionary course of action, ultimately the corrupt and incompetent French monarchy brought destruction upon itself for instituting ineffective public policies not only to curb its spending but also to pay off its debts through taxes. The Industrial Revolution was a technological shift that really began in Great Britain during the 18th century and is still ongoing in many parts of the developing world. The Industrial Revolution is characterized by the replacement of manual labor with work done more cheaply and safely by machines. It had the effect of transforming agricultural societies into industrial societies, and left a lasting impact on what and how goods are produced in the factory. Production, for the most part, moved from the home and into the factory, because of the new widespread availability of cheaper goods. Advancements in the science of machines and production during the Enlightenment period contributed to the development of more efficient machines (Sherman and Salisbury). The Revolution also centered many factors together in order to make the business enterprises even more efficient, which gave rise to the first true American cities as family members locked out of a land inheritance in rural communities went to the cities in search of work. Needless to say, the Industrial Revolution fundamentally changed societies, socially and culturally. Business was changed dramatically, and caused the first instance of modern economic growth. America and Britain, due to their mastery of industrial technology, became the world’s superpowers through the 18th and 19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution may have begun in Great Britain due to the abundance of financial resources in that country from its overseas colonies and slave trade, which created an abundance of wealth ready for investment. It may also be that during the 18th century, Great Britain’s high population density, in addition to its wealth of natural resources in metals, made it possible for industries to develop. Taken together with Britain’s stable political landscape, Britain was perhaps the perfect breeding ground for the Revolution. The shift from agriculture to industry the Revolution caused was of profound importance to civilization, comparable to the shift from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies in the early history of humankind. This transition has many unintended effects, such as the application of steam power to printing, which produced more books, which produced higher rates of literacy, which produced more mass political participation, which produced democratic models of government through the American and French Revolutions. These indirect effects are clear as we look back through the history of Europe. The creation of cities and the movement of production out of the home freed more time for leisure, and created more opportunities for poor individuals to earn more money than was previously available to their birth class, eliminating the burdens of feudal demands on individuals (Rempel). This may have in turn caused more individualistic political philosophies that went on to inspire mass migrations to industrially developed nations like the United States. .The effects of the Industrial Revolution on civilization cannot be understated. The application of scientific knowledge to practical matters like production marked the first real capitalist revolution. Living conditions improved with a growing middle class of workers, and the Western family structure we know today developed. Politically, governments continued to allow production to be the driving force of societies, inspiring laissez-faire kinds of economic policy (Rempel). Ultimately, the Industrial Revolution fundamentally changed civilization by focusing the efforts of production into the factories and urban areas, a central location for the cheap manufacturing and distribution of goods to society The 19th century was a period characterized by radical changes in ideologies and ways of thinking and can be described as the “Age of Ideology”. It was also an incredibly turbulent time in terms of the political forces at work. Enormous social and political changes were achieved during this period in Western Europe and in the burgeoning United States as they developed within the context of the Industrial Revolution. The increased productive capabilities brought on by improvements to manufacturing made two developments possible: an imperialist and colonial attitude on the part of these developed nations to the rest of the world, and political revolutions throughout the world following from the examples in liberalism set by the United States and France (Mises). As imperialism and liberalism competed with each other throughout the 19th century, the balance of power shifted repeatedly back and forth between the two approaches to domestic and foreign issues. The struggle between liberalism and imperialism really breaks down, even today, to a question of a national self-perception. Liberalism is based on equality and rights for all in the state, and the importance of individual freedom. Imperialism is based in the implied right of one’s nation to expand over other peoples in an empire through its military and political structures (Mises). Whereas imperialism is a kind of statist belief in a nation’s self-worth, and its right to control other peoples, liberalism is a belief that progress is necessary, thus admitting that there are problems with the nation. This contrast in belief is expressed in the two ideological currents of the 19th century. An example of liberal ideology in practice during the 19th century would be the American Civil War, which freed slaves in rebelling states. This internal conflict within the United States is contrasted with European expansion into Africa and Asia as a means of building its empire and living up to the demands imperialist ideologies (Sherman and Salisbury). Other examples of the impact of liberalism and imperialism, and their conflict through this time, can be found in the last third of the 19th century. Latin America, Asia, and Africa were the first colonies of the Europeans, followed by the subjugation of Native Americans to European rule. Slavery severely affected African populations. Asian countries, too well-established for direct control by Europeans, were forced to compete with the British over trade and seaports. The United States, near the end of the 19th century, became a colonial power in the Pacific Ocean, annexing places like the Philippines, the Caribbean, and the Hawaiian Islands (Sherman and Salisbury). Much of the justification for this imperialism was based in a racist and social Darwinist view of the world. This is to be contrasted with the opposite undercurrent of liberalism, which primarily fought and lost for control over the 19th century. However, social advances in terms of the American Civil War, waves of revolutions for self-governance running from 1774 to 1848, and the influence of liberal democratic thinkers like de Tocqueville. The 19th century came with radical changes in ideology. In terms of political and social change, the period was also quite chaotic in terms of sometimes radial change. The competing ideologies were liberalism and imperialism, which were based on completely different sources of justification. On one hand, liberalism was the thought that social progress was not only possible but also necessary. On the other hand, imperialism was the belief in the perfection of one’s own state and the necessary expansion overseas. Both of these ideologies focused on a nation’s self-perception, but held antithetical views. Bibliography Aveling, Francis. Rationalism. 1997. 2009 . Fitch, Nancy. The French Revolution. 2009 . Lewis, Hackett. The Age of Enlightenment. 1992. 2009 . Mises, Ludwig von. Liberalism. 1929. 2009 . Rempel, Gerhard. The Industrial Revolution. 2009 . Sherman, Dennis and Joyce E. Salisbury. The West in The World. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Read More