The Age of a New World View: AP World History

The Age of A New World View: AP World History

In dialectical and functional thinking this age may be human histories most significant. The Renaissance gave us the creative burst to remove ourselves from the self‐imposed “nonage”/doldrums that was the Middle Ages. The Renaissance gave us the knowledge that human beings had extraordinary talents above and beyond religious submission. The critical stage came in the form of the Reformation, which saw human beings change the very entity that had yielded them into submission for nearly 1000 years. The change that occurred was remarkable, responding to the changes societies engaged in warfare and exploration competing with each other in both venues. Slowly simmering in the backwaters of the Reformation was a new movement that was emerging in response to both the Renaissance and the Reformation; a new World View. The ages mentioned had empowered people to think, and they had done so creatively and critically. What was left was the revolution that would bring about synthesis‐the advent of a new order; an order developed out of the wake of old orders. Brand new ideas and concepts were emerging in response to the combination between classical antiquity and Ren/Ref thought processes. The ages of creativity, criticism and discovery will lead to the age that will bring about a new world order, an order based on human intelligence, observation and rationality.

The Scientific Revolution:

Science is described as the precise knowledge of the physical world based on the union of experimental observations with sophisticated mathematics. Science had been subordinate to the past, to religion and to darkness. The advent of modern science and the subsequent social scientific thought is the basis for the modern world.

Scientific Thought in 1500:

The Aristotelian Universe: According to Christian theology the Prime Mover that enveloped the system became the “God” figure. This feature made Aristotle the only respected opinion amongst developing Christians and by the age of Scientific exploration the views of the Aristotelian universe will as much a part of church dogma as those ideas that Martin Luther challenged.

. Aristotle (384 ‐ 322 BC), who studied under Plato, believed the heavens were more perfect than the Earth and that everything in the heavens was unchanging. He explained planetary motion as being uniform circular motion (motion of a constant angular speed on a circle) because cyclical motion brought an object back to its original starting point and therefore the object was unchanging. Aristotleʹs Universe consists of 55 concentric crystalline spheres to which the celestial objects were attached. The Earth is at the center and the last sphere is that of the Prime Mover. The Prime Mover caused the outermost sphere to rotate at a constant angular velocity. This movement was then imparted to the other spheres. The major problems with Aristotleʹs model were its inability to explain varying planetary brightness (as the planets were supposed to never change) or the retrograde motion of the planets. To explain this, Aristotle created epicycles.

Aristarchus of Samos (~250 BC) is the first recorded person to develop a sun‐centered solar system. Although Copernicus is regarded as the father of this model, it is recorded within his published works that he was aware that Aristarchus was before him. Aristarchus not only was before his time in terms of the sun being the center, he also proposed that the Earth rotates as it revolves around the sun. Aristarchus was not well received however because Aristotleʹs model had a very strong following and the introduction of Ptolemyʹs similar proposal a little afterwards made Aristotleʹs hold even stronger.

The Ptolemaic Universe: Ptolemy (~200 AD) fully believed in the Aristotelian model of the solar system and simply made some further refinements upon it to account for the detailed motion of the celestial sphere. Epicycles upon epicycles were needed, however in many models, the epicycles no longer revolved around the deferent (center), but instead a point displaced from the center. Eventually the Prime Mover was replaced by God and its sphere by heaven to accommodate the constant theme of centering scientific study around religion.

Aristotle on Elements:

Aristotleʹs theory of the basic constituents of matter looks to a modern scientist perhaps something of a backward step from the work of the atomists and Plato. Aristotle assumed all substances to be compounds of four elements: earth, water, air and fire, and each of these to be a combination of two of four opposites, hot and cold, and wet and dry. (Actually, the words he used for wet and dry also have the connotation of softness and hardness).

Aristotleʹs whole approach is more in touch with the way things present themselves to the senses, the way things really seem to be, as opposed to abstract geometric considerations. Hot and cold, wet and dry are qualities immediately apparent to anyone, this seems a very natural way to describe phenomena. He probably thought that the Platonic approach in terms of abstract concepts, which do not seem to relate to our physical senses but to our reason, was a completely wrongheaded way to go about the problem. It has turned out, centuries later, that the atomic and mathematical approach was on the right track after all, but at the time, and in fact until relatively recently, Aristotle seemed a lot closer to reality. He discussed the properties of real substances in terms of their ʺelementalʺ composition at great length, how they reacted to fire or water, how, for example, water evaporates on heating because it goes from cold and wet to hot and wet, becoming air, in his view. Innumerable analyses along these lines of commonly observed phenomena must have made this seem a coherent approach to understanding the natural world.

In the Aristotelian view the elements that made up matter moved by their weight the light elements Air/Fire moved upward whereas the heavy elements Water/Earth moved downward, further solidifying our universe.

The Copernican Hypothesis: Copernicus made a great leap forward by realizing that the motions of the planets could be explained by placing the Sun at the center of the universe instead of Earth. In his view, Earth was simply one of many planets orbiting the Sun, and the daily motion of the stars and planets were just a reflection of Earth spinning on its axis. Although the Greek astronomer Aristarchus developed the same hypothesis more than 1500 years earlier, Copernicus was the first person to argue its merits in modern times.

In Copernicus’ Sun‐centered (heliocentric) view of the cosmos, the planets’ occasional backward, or retrograde, motion comes about naturally through the combined motions of Earth and the planets. As Earth speeds around the Sun in its faster orbit, it periodically overtakes the outer planets. Like a slower runner in an outside lane at a track meet, the more distant planet appears to move backward relative to the background scenery.

Copernicus’ model also explains why the two planets closest to the sun, Mercury and Venus, never stray far from the Sun in our sky. And it allowed Copernicus to calculate the approximate scale of the solar system for the first time. That’s not to say Copernicus’ model was without problems: He still clung to the classical idea that the planets should move in circular orbits at constant speeds, so like Ptolemy, he had to jury‐rig a system of circles within circles to predict the planets’ positions with reasonable accuracy.

Despite the basic truth of his model, Copernicus did not prove that Earth moved around the Sun. That was left for later astronomers. The first direct evidence came from Newton’s laws of motion, which say that when objects orbit one another, the lighter object moves more than the heavier one. Because the Sun has about 330,000 times more mass than Earth, our planet must be doing almost all the moving. A direct observation of Earth’s motion came in 1838 when the German astronomer Friedrich Bessel measured the tiny displacement, or parallax, of a nearby star relative to the more distant stars. This minuscule displacement reflects our planet’s changing vantage point as we orbit the Sun during the year.

Copernicus realized the gravity and complex nature of his discovery, he waited until he felt he was near death before publishing his momentous “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, largely for fear of the religious controversies it was sure to yield.

Images and portions of text courtesy of Stephen Hawking.

Tycho Brahe: (courtesy of Michael Fowler Uva.)

Tycho Brahe, born in 1546, was the eldest son of a noble Danish family, and as such appeared destined for the natural aristocratic occupations of hunting and warfare. However, he had an uncle Joergen, a country squire and vice‐admiral, who was more educated, and childless. Tychoʹs father had agreed with the uncle before Tycho was born that if Tycho was a boy, the uncle could adopt and raise him. He changed his mind and reneged. Then, when a younger brother was born, the uncle kidnapped Tycho. The father threatened to murder the uncle, but eventually calmed down, since Tycho stood to inherit a large estate from the uncle.

When Tycho was seven, his uncle insisted that he begin studying Latin. His parents objected, but the uncle said this would help Tycho become a lawyer. At age thirteen, Tycho entered the University of Copenhagen to study law and philosophy. At this impressionable age, an event took place that changed his life. There was a partial eclipse of the sun. This had been predicted, and took place on schedule. It struck Tycho as ʺsomething divine that men should know the motions of the stars so accurately that they were able a long time beforehand to predict their places and relative positionsʺ. Perhaps this predictability was especially appealing to one whose personal life was evolving in rather an uncertain way. One of the advantages of being a rich kid was that he could immediately go out and buy a copy of Ptolemyʹs Almagest (in Latin) , and some sets of astronomical tables, which showed the positions of the planets at any given time. Ptolemy himself had made such tables, and they had been revised in Spain by a group of fifty astronomers in 1252, brought together by Alfonso X of Castile. These were called the Alfonsine tables. Tycho also bought a recent set of tables based on Copernicusʹ theory.

At age sixteen, the uncle sent Tycho to Leipzig, in Germany, to continue his study of law. He was accompanied by a tutor, the twenty year old Anders Vedel, who himself later became famous as Denmarkʹs first great historian. However, Tycho was obsessed with astronomy. He bought books and instruments, which he hid from his tutor, and stayed up much of each night observing the stars. When he was seventeen, he observed a special event‐‐‐Jupiter and Saturn passed very close to each other. (This was on August 17, 1563.) He found on checking the tables that the Alfonsine tables were off by a month in predicting this event, and the Copernicus tables off by several days. Tycho decided this was a pathetic performance by the astronomers, and much better tables could be constructed just by more accurate observation of the exact positions of the planets over an extended period of time. He decided that this was what he was going to do. Vedel realized Tycho was a hopeless case, and gave up trying to tutor him in law. The two remained good friends for life. Meanwhile, the uncle died of pneumonia after rescuing the king from drowning after the king had fallen off the bridge to his castle returning from a naval battle with the Swedes. When Tycho returned to Denmark, the rest of his family were quite unfriendly. They despised his stargazing, and blamed him for neglecting the law. He decided to return to Germany, and fell in with some rich amateur astronomers in Augsburg. He persuaded them that what was needed was accurate observation, and (as telescopes had not yet been invented) this meant rather large quadrants to get lines of sight on stars. They set up a large wooden quadrant, part of a circle with a nineteen foot radius, that took twenty men to set up. It was graduated in sixtieths of a degree. This was the beginning of Tychoʹs accurate observations.

One unfortunate incident during his stay in Germany suggests that Tycho inherited his fatherʹs rather hot‐headed ways. Tycho lost his temper in a quarrel with another student over who was the better mathematician, this led to a duel in which part of Tychoʹs nose was cut off. the lost piece was replaced by a gold and silver alloy, and Tycho always carried around with him a snuffbox containing some ʺointment or glutinous compositionʺ which he frequently rubbed on his nose, possibly to keep it stuck on (The Sleepwalkers, p 287 ‐ see references at end)).

At the age of twenty‐six, in 1570, Tycho returned to Denmark. He lived for a while with his family, then with an uncle, Steen Bille, who had founded the first paper mill and glassworks in Denmark. He was the only family member who approved of star gazing.

In 1572, another astronomical event took place that changed Tychoʹs life. On November 11, walking back from Steenʹs alchemy lab, Tycho noticed a new star in the sky that was brighter than Venus. He did not believe his eyes. He called some servants, then some peasants, to reassure him that it was really there. The new star was so bright that it could be seen in daylight. It lasted eighteen months. It was what is now called a nova, a rare event. The crucial question from the astronomical and theological point of view was, where exactly was this new star? Was it an event in the upper atmosphere, that is to say, below the moon, what was then termed in the sublunary region? If so, that would be o.k., because this region, below the moon, was where change and decay took place. On the other hand, if it was out there in the eighth sphere, the fixed stars, the edge of heaven, that contradicted Aristotelian and Christian dogma, because that sphere had remained unchanged since the day of creation, and was supposed to stay that way. Maestlin in Tubingen, and Thomas Diggs in England, leading astronomers, tried to detect movement in the new star by lining it up with known fixed stars, using stretched threads. They could see no movement. Tycho had just finished building a new sextant, with arms five and a half feet long, a massive bronze hinge, a metallic scale calibrated in minutes (sixtieths of a degree) and a table of corrections for the remaining tiny errors in the instrument he had detected. His technology was far ahead of the competition, and he was able to settle the argument. The new star did not move at all relative to the fixed stars. It was in the eighth sphere. Tycho published a detailed account of his methods and findings the next year. He hesitated some time before publishing, because book writing seemed a bit undignified for a nobleman. Similarly, when some of the other young nobles asked him to give a course on astronomy, he refused, and only changed his mind when the King told him to do it.

By 1575, Tycho was famous throughout Europe, and he embarked on a grand tour, visiting astronomers in many cities. He decided it would be nice to move down to Basle, in Switzerland, a charming and civilized town. King Frederick II of Denmark (whose life had been saved by the uncle) was very upset at the thought of losing his best astronomer (and astrologer), and, after offering Tycho various castles, which didnʹt prove persuasive, offered him a whole island, flat with white cliffs, about three miles long, called Hveen, near Hamletʹs castle of Elsinore. Denmark would bankroll building of an observatory and house, and the inhabitants of the island, who worked forty farms grouped around a small village, would become Tychoʹs subjects. The reason a king of a rather small country had quite so much wealth at his disposal was that the Protestant Reformation had placed the Churchʹs lands and resources in his hands.

Tycho hired a German architect and built his Uraniborg (castle of the heavens). It was surrounded by a square wall 250 feet on a side. It had an onion dome, like the Kremlin, but an Italianate palace facade. It had rooms for huge precision instruments, fantastic murals, a paper mill and printing press, an alchemistʹs furnace, and a prison for tenants who caused problems. In the library, Tycho installed a brass globe five feet in diameter he had made for him in Augsburg. This was a highly polished accurate sphere, and the positions of the stars were engraved on it as they were measured over a twenty‐five year period. In Tychoʹs study, a quadrant was built into the wall itself, with a mural of Tycho painted on to the wall.

The quadrant was centered on an open window through which the observations were made. Several clocks were used simultaneously to try to time the observations as precisely as possible‐‐ an observer and a timekeeper worked together. His very large staff and several sets of equipment permitted four independent measurements of the same thing simultaneously, greatly reducing the possibility of error. The precision of measurements, which had held at ten minutes of arc since Ptolemy, was reduced at Uraniborg to one minute of arc. The observatory was full of gadgets‐‐‐statues turned by hidden mechanisms, and he had a system of bells he could ring in any room to summon assistants. There was a constant stream of distinguished visitors: princes, savants, courtiers, even King James VI of Scotland. The hard‐drinking Tycho threw tremendous feasts for his visitors, at which occasionally silence was ordered to listen to the musings of a dwarf called Jepp, whom Tycho believed had second sight. He also had a tame elk, which died one night stumbling downstairs after too much strong beer (I am not making this up). He had many children, but under Danish custom they were all considered illegitimate, because his wife was a peasant woman.

Meanwhile Tycho abused his tenants in an appalling fashion. He made them work and provide goods to which he was not entitled, and threw them in chains if they gave trouble. Unfortunately for Tycho, King Ferdinand died in 1588, of too much drink, as mentioned by Vedel in the funeral oration. The new young king, Christian IV, wrote several letters to Tycho which were unanswered, and Tycho flouted even the high court of justice by holding a tenant and all his family in chains. Finally, measures were taken to reduce Tychoʹs income to more reasonable proportions, and as the years went by, Tycho was getting bored on the island, so in 1597, he got together his family, assistants servants, Jepp the dwarf and most of his equipment, and started to move across Europe in search of a suitable new place to set up an observatory. All his instruments could be dismantled and transported, because, he said, ʺAn astronomer must be cosmopolitan, because ignorant statesmen cannot be expected to value their servicesʺ (The Sleepwalkers, p 299).

Once outside Denmark Tycho decided to give the young king a second chance, and wrote him that he would be willing to come back, but the king must understand that the terms had to be more agreeable to Tycho. The kingʹs response can be summarized as ʺForget itʺ. Over the next two years, he stayed in several German towns, then in 1599, the entourage arrives in Prague, Bohemia, where the Emperor Rudolph II appointed Tycho imperial mathematicus, at a salary of 3,000 florins a year, and gave him the castle of his choice.

Brahe however, lacked the ability to compute much of the mathematical domains of the universe that he observed . For this he turned to the brilliant young mathematician Johannes Kepler.

Kepler’s Universe:

Kepler took Copernicus’ heliocentric view of the universe and removed the requirement that the planets move in circular orbits at constant speeds. But that was only after he exhausted every combination of circular motions he could conceive.

This became the first of his three laws of planetary motion. He next tackled the problem of the planets’ varying speeds. He determined that a planet travels most rapidly when it comes closest to the Sun and moves slowest when farthest away. His third and final law of planetary motion gives the precise relation between the distance of a planet from the Sun and how fast it completes an orbit.

Basing his work on the meticulous and exceedingly accurate naked‐eye observations of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, Kepler tried for more than a decade to match the positions of Mars to some sort of circular motion. Only after he ran out of possibilities did he try to fit the observations with another type of curve called an ellipse, the next‐simplest form after the circle. He found that the positions of Mars matched almost perfectly with an elliptical path, and that the other planets followed suit. This became the first of his three laws of planetary motion. He next tackled the problem of the planets’ varying speeds. He determined that a planet travels most rapidly when it comes closest to the Sun and moves slowest when farthest away. His third and final law of planetary motion gives the precise relation between the distance of a planet from the Sun and how fast it completes an orbit.

Kepler’s achievements: (building off Copernican achievements and laws)

1. 1. Orbits of planets are elliptical 2. 2. Planets do not move at a uniform speed in their orbits 3. 3. The time that a planet takes to complete its orbit is proportional to its distance from the sun.

Galileo used these ideas to challenge the thought of the day. Many scholars trace the birth of modern science back to Galileo Galilei (1564‐1642), who used instruments to observe nature and experiments to understand it. Like Copernicus, he began training for a career in medicine, but later switched to a subject more to his liking, mathematics. Galileo long accepted Copernicus’ idea that Earth and the other planets orbited the sun, but he was the first able to prove it based on his observations with a telescope.

Many people think Galileo invented the telescope, but that’s not true. Spectacle makers in Europe had probably discovered how to make distant objects appear closer well before Galileo. The first telescope to arouse interest, however, was made in 1608 by the Dutch optician Hans Lippershey. When Galileo heard of it, he quickly made his own and turned it on the heavens.

Within a few months he had discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter—destroying the Greek idea that Earth was the center of all motion—and the phases of Venus— overturning Ptolemy’s concept that the Sun and planets all orbited Earth. He wrote of his sensational discoveries in Italian rather than academic Latin so the general public could read about them. His observations improved our knowledge of the universe we live in and helped turn science into an experimental endeavor. For his efforts, and their devastating effect on the religious dogma of the time, he was forced to recant his findings before the Inquisition and spent the last decade of his life under house arrest.

Quote on page 597‐momentous.

Newton’s synthesis: Certainly one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Isaac Newton (1642‐ 1727) had a profound impact on astronomy, physics, and mathematics. Born prematurely and after his father’s death, Newton had a difficult childhood. His mother remarried when he was just three, and he was then sent to live with his grandparents. After his stepfather died, his mother brought him home to Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, where she wanted him to become a farmer. An uncle recognized his scholarly talents, however, and he eventually made it to Trinity College in Cambridge.

Many of his great ideas came in 1665‐66, when he spent time back at Woolsthorpe while Cambridge was closed because of the plague. Among his many achievements were the invention of the reflecting telescope—the basic design behind all large telescopes used today; the invention of a branch of mathematics known as calculus, a critical tool throughout science; the elucidation of the three laws of motion; and the development of the law of universal gravitation. Until the coming of general relativity in the 20th century, Newton’s theories were the basis for all cosmological models. When still in his mid‐twenties, he was named Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge—the post now held by Stephen Hawking.

The force that keeps us all glued to the surface of Earth, gravity dominates any discussion of the evolution and fate of the universe. Surprisingly, for all of its impact, it ranks as the weakest of the four fundamental forces in nature (the others being the electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces). But the others pale when you talk about the universe as a whole because the two nuclear forces act only over very short distances, while most large objects are electrically neutral and therefore unaffected by the electromagnetic force.

Isaac Newton first described gravity and had the insight to realize that the force that holds us to Earth (and makes apples fall) is the same one that keeps the planets in their orbits around the Sun. He deduced the mathematical nature of the mutual force and correctly hypothesized that gravity acts across the entire universe. Albert Einstein modified this view of gravity by arguing that the gravitational force is a manifestation of the curvature of space‐time. Although Einstein’s idea is necessary for describing the evolution of the universe as a whole, Newton’s theory works well enough when gravitational forces are not extremely strong.

The intensity of his study is what most find amazing, unable to grasp and solve the mathematical problems that plagued him, Newton turned his attention to Optics and returned later to the issues of physics and solved the problems mathematically through sheer will. His studies have forged modern science, they will form the basis of all scientific understanding through Einstein.

He was able to (amazingly) integrate the astronomical principles of Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler with the physical principles of Galileo into a series of mathematical laws that will become: • ∙ Physics • ∙ Mechanics • ∙ Calculus • ∙ Engineering • ∙ Gravitation

Causes of the Scientific Revolution:

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton

• ∙ Foundation of early Medieval and Renaissance universities and learning • ∙ Renaissance spirit and outburst of thought, recovery of the past (Greeks) • ∙ Need to solve navigational problems during the age of discovery. (Latitude and Longitude) • ∙ Advancements in the Scientific Method: Bacon’s assertion that knowledge needed to come not from the Aristotelian method of speculation without experimentation, but rather from experimental researcher. In other words…test it! With this one might begin to gain control over the universe. • ∙ Visions of Descartes: while serving as a young soldier for France in the last stage of the thirty years war he had a vision that Geometric figures had perfect algebraic equations and vice versa. This discovery of Analytic Geometry provides scientists with a new tool. Developed the use of deductive reasoning to arrive at the conclusions of “matter and mind”. Cartesian dualism. • ∙ The development of Protestantism during the reformation. This allowed for the church to loosen its grip on parts of Europe, parts where science flourished. All disagreed with Copernican’s original thesis, yet it was clear that the protestant influence was much more tolerant. Protestantism relaxed itself much quicker, Catholicism took much longer to evolve tolerance to science.

Consequences of the Scientific Revolution:

• ∙ New class of thinkers • ∙ Promotion of thought • ∙ Technological advancement • ∙ Virtue of science/reasoning and thought • ∙ Continuation of the dramatic changes in Intellectual Europe.

The Enlightenment: AP World History

The ideas expressed in the Scientific Revolution had social impacts as well. The movement to follow known as the enlightenment was a movement designed to apply the scientific principles, which were designed to comprehend the universe and her functions to societies. Could societies be not understood using rational principles the same way that the Universe was? The movement was entirely secular…how can we create better societies and better people using the framework of the Scientific Revolution.

Intellectual Movements in Europe:

High Middle Ages‐movement towards Secularism

Renaissance‐movement towards rebirth and rediscovery of the past

Reformation‐movement towards reforming the flaws of the church and synthesizing new faiths

Age of Discovery‐a period of phenomenal economic, geographic, social and political change

Scientific Revolution‐a movement in the wake of the reformation, which attempted to apply laws to universal understanding and scientific growth.

Enlightenment‐a movement designed to apply the rational systemic understanding of the scientific revolution to social and cultural institutions.

The emergence of the enlightenment:

Like the Renaissance it has no specific date of origin. Emerged in the wake of Newton’s work Principia in 1687 and the death of Louis XIV in 1715. Writers of the day began the process by trying to unite the scientific ideas of the day to the masses. Such as: Bernard de Fontenelle who set out to educate on the astronomical advancements in simple understandable prose for the masses in “Conversations on the Plurality of the Worlds” in 1686. Their writings were secular and progressive. They wrote in anti‐religious tones not because of a lack of faith, but for a lack of faith in understanding problems. Faith and reason must part ways. Given the wars over religion it was becoming obvious that neither side would enforce their will or prove truth. This impacted the lack of state building from a religious perspective during the enlightenment, minimizing the impact of the church. Pierre Bayle a French Huguenot was a common skeptic he pointed out that religious beliefs were varied and often mistaken. Give doubt nothing could be known in this realm, our best hope was open‐minded toleration. John Locke also instituted the new age with his remarkable philosophies. His most significant from the Essay on Human Understanding in 1690 pointed out that people are a product of their experiences “Tabula Rosa” and are born a blank slate, a slate which is authored as we progress as individuals. Systematically founding not only the discipline of Sociology but also solidifying the need for worldwide education. His second work from the same year “Second Treatise of Civil Government” set forth the political principles, which will shape the revolutions of the 18th century. All are born with certain unalienable rights such as “Life, Liberty and Property”.

The Philosophes and the Public:

Societies began to gradually accept intellectual leaders as they had accepted political and religious leaders. These Philosophes or Philosophers renewed the Greek tradition of thinking. They were determined to reach the elites in society with their ideas. They did however not seem overly interested in reaching the masses as Jean le Rond d’Alembert noted a true distinction between elites and everyone else “the blind and noisy multitude”. They realized the church still had enough power to burn them for their disagreements, however on the same token they understood that they could hide their message behind satire and ironic plays, writings.

Such as the great Baron de Montesquieu the author of the Persian letters, a mock account of a Persians perceptions of Europe. A veiled attempt at insulting the whole of Europe. Montesquieu also wrote on the subject of politics in the “Spirit of Laws” a text in which he attempted to divide the powers of government as in the English tradition so as to avoid absolutism. This however was in the d’Alembert tradition of division in that it was to be divided amongst the preferred societal elites.

The most famous of the Philosophes was the satirical, comical, critical, and brilliant Voltaire. Voltaire emerged from a middle class family to be a persecuted big mouth that dined and hobnobbed with heads of state all over Europe. He shared his incredible intellect, Sardonic wit, and criticisms with all he encompassed. Eventually settling with a wealthy Parisian women after emerging from a second stint in jail he began to write works praising England, her system, and her scientific achievements. He will eventually be appointed as the official historian of Louis XIV in 1743 where he will portray him as the dignified man of his age. He flocked towards absolutists like Louis and Frederick the Great of Prussia due to his intense arrogance and distrust of the common man in asserting that social and political equality is absurd and impossible. He viewed god as a giant clockmaker and religious premise as love your god and your neighbor.

His longtime confidant Madame du Chatelet was the most brilliant woman of the age, incredibly versatile and vibrant her massive achievements were blocked by her gender. She correctly wondered aloud how one could exclude 50% of the population from participation and equality?

The age saw the culmination of Enlightenment thought in Diderot and d’Alembert’s attempt to produce knowledge for the masses in the massive “Encyclopedia.”

The Later Enlightenment:

After about 1770 the harmonious unity of the philosophes began to erode. The new worldview was growing in strength and some thinkers began a more dogmatic approach.

Paul d’Holbach: the Baron wrote that human beings were machines completely determined by outside forces. Free will, God and immortality were myths. This aggressive atheism was a response to the change of the era it damaged previous works and left a school of thought to be picked up by Friedrich Nietzsche.

David Hume: building on the teachings of Locke, the Scottish humanist argued that the human mind is nothing but a jumble of impressions. These impressions originate only in sensual experiences and our habits joint these experiences together. Reason hence can tell us nothing. Like d’Holbach, these views damaged the ideological power of the enlightenment.

The most profound of the thinkers who attacked the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason was the Swiss Jean‐Jacques Rousseau. He was greatly influenced by Locke, Voltaire and Diderot. He was paranoid about them plotting against him however, and in the 1750’s he broke with them personally and intellectually. His greatest contribution was his representation of the personal freedom of people within a society and that was the concept of a “Social Contract”. This social contract stated that sovereignty and free will were natural rights of the populace and when ruled they must have their rights preserved by nature of this contract and any violation of this contract meant that the ruling class could be overthrown by the masses. These ideas will be monumental influences on the leaders of revolutionary movements in the United States and France.

Urban Culture and Public Opinion:

The writings of these philosophes manifested itself into a tremendous boom in the owning of books, publication of books and writing of books. Increasing 8‐10 fold per 100 years! Books unfortunately were perceived as threats by centralized authorities and were often banned and sold “underground”. This did little however to thwart the “Reading Revolution”. Women led the artistic and social movements of the enlightenment whether it be the Rococo style of decorating or the famous Salon type atmosphere of the day.

The Enlightenment and Absolutism:

A state‐by‐state examination: the greatest changes from this period came in the areas of political and social reform. What happened in the four major powers of Europe with regards to political change?

Prussia and Frederick the Great:

A enlightened figures in that he embraced literature, culture and poetry. Overcame a rough childhood and contempt for his father, to walk in his footsteps. Gained great power for Prussia by claiming the German province of Silesia this action went against earlier treaties. Suffered greatly under the turmoil of the 7 years war, which saw Prussia align with Britain versus Austria, France and Russia. The purpose of the alliance to re‐claim Silesia and other Prussian territories, they were thwarted. (“On state building” 611) He embraced tolerance in religious and philosophical matters. His ultimate goal was to make the lives of his citizens better. He was a servant of the state. Despite his ideals he didn’t disrupt the absolutist structure, in part because of the dangerous nature of the Junker nobility in Prussia.

Catherine the Great and Russia:

One of the most interesting people of any generation was this German princess who through intermarriage, love, deceit and violence became empress of Russia in 1762 and ruled effectively for 34 years. Known for her ravenous appetite for self‐indulgence she married into the Romanov family at age 15 to the incompetent Peter III. Peter was the exact opposite of the energetic, vigorous, intelligent Catherine. When he took the throne in 1762 and pulled Russian troops from the 7 years war against Prussia she took advantage along with her family of lovers the Orlov brothers. It was they who killed him and made her empress. She like, Frederick the Great had high levels of Enlightened ideals. She had no illusions about Absolutism, but had ideas about how it should operate. She felt it should be an enlightened venture and she had three goals.

1. 1. Bring sophisticated culture of western Europe to Russia, much like Peter the Great before her. Exchanged letters with Voltaire, facilitated the Diderot Encyclopedia, wrote with artists, commissioned, etc… 2. 2. Domestic Reform: she had sincere and ambitious ideas in this regard. Better laws, leniency, fairness, religious tolerance, and improved education. Her ambitions were harmed by the Pugachev rebellion of 1773; the peasants were crushed after a huge rebellion and forced her to take a more “tough” stance on serfs. 3. 3. Territorial expansion: very successful particularly to the west in her takeover/partition of Poland and conquest of the Crimean tartars (remnants of the Mongols). This allowed her to keep her lovers and nobleman happy as they were given huge tracts of land to ensure loyalty and love!

The Austrian Habsburgs:

Traditional power politics was the ideal here. Joseph II led the charge in 1780 he was a fascinating individual he was the revolutionary emperor a tragic hero whose lofty reforms were undone by the nobles who challenged him. He continued the remarkable reforms of his absolutist mother Maria Theresa. Losing land to Prussia inspired the Hapsburgs to take tougher measures to ensure their power.

1. 1. Limiting the papal influence 2. 2. Strengthen the bureaucracy 3. 3. Improve lot of agrarian populace reducing power of nobles.

Absolutism in France:

Everywhere else it continued, but in France it gradually wore down under the Louis’ (XIV‐XVI). The enlightenment had a greater influence here than anywhere after Louis died in 1715, the role of reformer was questioned…who should do it? His grandson Louis XIV saw a strong resurgence in the power of the nobility under the leadership of the Duke of Orleans who brought huge gains to the power of the nobles. In this case the reinstatement of the legislative/judicial office the Parlement. The office’s resurgence gave them control over laws. When the heavy expenses from the 7 years war came to light Louis had to reassert himself by taxing the nobles to the tune of 5% up from the traditional 0%, this meant he had to eliminate the Parlement after they challenged his authority. He caved after this and withdrew the taxes. In 1768 he reasserted control by appointing the tough minister Maupeou as chancellor as he attempted to take power away from the nobles. Maupeou was successful in doing so against the enlightened nation. Louis died before the power really took hold and his son Louis XVI took over and was most interested in public opinion and retracted the gains and dismissed his chancellor. This placed France in a cycle of statelemated control which will lead to revolution.

The Overall Influence of the Enlightenment:

France being the center was effected much greater by the Enlightenment. Eastern Europe held on to absolutist states and even flourished. The result was Enlightened Despotism in the east a combination of enlightened ideas, confidence in absolutism and contempt for the masses. To what level they were committed to reform is a controversy? Most were very much interested in state building and dominance over the masses, but displayed enlightened tendencies, as long as it didn’t mean a usurpation of power. Laws became more humane and the welfare of all was considered, advancements were rapid in religious and philosophical tolerance.