CH 18TOWARD A NEW WORLDVIEW, 1540-

1789

Intellectual Change

As Europeans were fighting in wars, revolts, conquests of 16th and 17th centuries, another revolution was occurring.

Intellectuals overturned classical and medieval concepts of how the universe was put together, what the basis of authority should be, how to understand the world.

18th century- more peaceful and prosperous than Europe had seen in a long time

Authorities more tolerant.

I. Scientific Revolution

I.A. Scientific Thought in 1500

Scientific thought in the early 1500s was based on ancient and medieval ideas.

European notions about the universe were based on Aristotelian principles.

A chief feature of this view was the belief in a motionless, static earth at the center of the universe.

Ten crystal spheres moved around the earth.

I.B. The Copernican Hypothesis

Copernicus overturned the medieval view of the universe.

He postulated that the earth revolved around the sun and that the sun was the center of the universe,

This heliocentric view was a departure from the medieval view endorsed by both Catholic and Protestant churchmen.

I.C. From Brahe to Galileo

Scholars from Brahe to Galileo refined and collected evidence in support of Copernicus’s model.

Brahe built an observatory and collected data.

Galileo discovered the laws of motion using the experimental method.

I.D. Newton’s Synthesis

Newton synthesized the integral parts into a whole.

Newton integrated the astronomy of Copernicus and Kepler with the physics of Galileo.

He formulated a set of mathematical principles to explain motion.

At the core of Newton’s theory was the universal law of gravitation.

I.E. Causes of the Scientific Revolution

Medieval universities had provided the framework for the new view.

The Renaissance stimulated science by rediscovering ancient mathematics.

Better ways of obtaining knowledge about the world, including improved tools such as telescopes and sextants, improved the scientific method.

Bacon advocated empirical, experimental research.

Descartes emphasized the deductive reasoning and was the first to graph equations.

I.F. Science and Society

The Scientific Revolution helped create the international scientific community.

As governments intervened to support and direct research, the scientific community became closely tied to the state and its agendas.

The Scientific Revolution resulted in the development of the scientific method.

The Scientific Revolution created few new opportunities for women.

The Scientific Revolution had few economic and social consequences for the masses until the eighteenth century.

II. The Enlightenment

II.A. The Emergence of the Enlightenment

The overriding idea of the Enlightenment was that natural science and reason could explain all aspects of life.

The scientific method can explain the laws of nature.

Progress is possible if the laws are understood and followed.

II.B. The Philosophes and the Public

Many writers made Enlightenment thought accessible to a wide range of people.

Fontenelle stressed the idea of progress. Skeptics such as Bayle believed that nothing could

be known beyond all doubt. Locke stressed that all ideas are derived from

experience. The French philosophes were committed to the

fundamental reform of society. Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers

was fundamental. Voltaire challenged traditional Catholic theology.

II.C. The Enlightenment Outside of France

Historians have identified distinctive Enlightenment movements in eighteenth-century Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Poland, Hungary, and Russia.

Different areas followed different strands of Enlightenment thinking.

David Hume (1711-1776) was the most important figure in Scottish Enlightenment.

II.D. Urban Culture and the Public Sphere

The European market for books grew dramatically in the eighteenth century.

Popular titles addressed a wide range of subjects. The illegal book trade included titles denouncing

high political figures. The nature of reading changed. Conversation and debate also played a critical role

in the Enlightenment, with Parisian salons setting the example.

Elite women exerted considerable influence on salon culture and on artistic taste in general.

The new public sphere celebrated open debated informed by critical reason.

II.E. Late Enlightenment

After 1770, a number of thinkers and writers began to attack the Enlightenment’s faith in reason, progress, and moderation.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was devoted to individual freedom, but saw rationalism and civilization as enemies of the individual.

Rousseau believed in a rigid division of gender roles.

The Social Contract (1762) made an important contribution to political theory.

Immanuel Kent (1724-1804) argued that serious thinkers be granted the freedom to exercise their reason publicly in print.

II.F. Race and the Enlightenment

Enlightenment thinkers developed new and highly influential ideas about racial difference.

A primary catalyst for new ideas about race was the urgency to classify nature.

“Race” began to be used in similar way to “species.”

Thinkers such as Hume and Kant helped popularize new ideas about race.

These ideas did not go unchallenged.

III. The Enlightenment and Absolutism

III.A. Frederick the Great of Prussia

Frederick II built on the accomplishments of his father.

He fought successfully to defend Prussia from external threats.

Frederick allowed religious freedom and promoted education and legal reform.

He was unwilling to change Prussia’s social structure and rejected calls for civil rights for Jews.

III.B. Catherine the Great of Russia

Catherine deposed her husband Peter III and became empress of Russia.

Catherine imported Western culture to Russia, supported the philosophers, and introduced limited legal and penal reform to her adopted country.

Pugachev’s rebellion put and end to Catherine’s efforts to reform serfdom.

Under Catherine, Russia continued to expand.

III.C. The Austrian Habsburgs

Joseph II (r. 1780-1790) and Maria Theresa (r. 1740-1780) introduced reforms in Austria.

Maria Theresa introduced measures aimed at limiting the power of the papacy in her realm, strengthening the central bureaucracy, and improving the lot of the agricultural population,

Joseph II pursued reforms aggressively when he came to the throne in 1780.

His rapid reforms sent Austria into turmoil and after Joseph’s death; his brother was forced to repeal his radical edicts.

III.D. Evaluating “Enlightened Absolutism”

The leading European monarchs of the later eighteenth century all claimed that they were acting on the principles of the Enlightenment.

There is general agreement that such monarchs did spread the cultural values of the Enlightenment,

Absolute monarchs believed in change from above and tried to enact reforms.

Recent monarchs have argued that absolutists were primarily interested in strengthening the state, not in pursuing humanitarian goals for their own sake.