\,t- e- e

The rMoment of Cr tici m

The critical culture of , , and Diderot

Patrick James Bishop

April 1995 Politics Department University of Adelaide

t\ tti'--\ Äv1 o.,.d.,-.;1 '.1., Contents

Abstract I Statement ü Acknowledgements üi

Introduction 1.

Chapter 1 Liberalism and criticism 6

Chapter 2 Critics of Scholasticism 23 Chapter 3 Enlightenment and paradox 47

Chapter 4 Critiques of the Enlightenment 64

Chapter 5 Montesquieu 85 Life 85 The Persian Letters 86 Legacies 101 Chapter 6 Voltaire 105 Life 105 Cøndide 113 The Philosophical Dictionary 120 Critical cultivations 127 Chapter 7 Diderot 130 Life 130 Rameau'sNephrw. 137 Jacques the FøtøIist. 1.44 'A book reading itself' 153

Chapter 8 Comte, an end to a critical culture? 157 Life 158 'System without spirit' 159 Authority, not speculation 1,72 Chapter 9 The idea of criticism L77 Conclusion 194 Bibliography 202 Abstract

Western liberal culture does not readily lend itself to a liberal defence. The problematizing of modernity has developed through various critical stances taken against the Enlightenment. Religious/ counter- Enlightenment or communitarian arguments centre around a contention between and faith. The work of pre-Enlightenment figures, while developing a tendency towards the secular, perhaps because of the context of the dominant orthodoxy, cannot be seen as a direct political confrontation of the theistic world view. Nonetheless, philosophical concepts and methodologies that are influential in the Enlightenment have their origins in this context. It is in the Enlightenment that the value of reason is asserted. While a number of images of the Enlightenment have emerged, it is argued that the best generic understanding of Enlightenment thought is to be found in seeing enlightenment as an attitude to thought, developed through critical reason. This argument is developed further in an analysis of Montesquieu's Persiøn letters, Voltaire's Candíde and his Philosophical Dictionary, and Diderot's Rømeøu'sNephal andløcques theFøtnlist. These works could not be described as systematic philosoPhy, they are important for understanding the spirit of an age dominated by the enterprise of the Encyclopediø. These Enlightenment thinkers are shown to have practised a critical and self-critical method in texts that are often humorous,light, and playful. Their work is driven by a commitment to reason and a passion for justice and respect for humanity, as well as an awareness of the paradox of the use of human reason. From this anaiysis the idea of criticism and the methodology of the Enlightenment are investigated to show how an Enlightenment attitude remains relevant to the discussion of modern dilemmas. Their methodology is juxtaposed to the work of the nineteenth-century French thinker, Auguste Comte, in particular his General oiew of positiztism, though this is often seen as the continuation of the Enlightenment tradition, Comte's concern to establish a new orthodoxy as the basis for a rational social overturns the Enlightenment attitude to thought and represents a disjunction with the Enlightenment's critical spirit.

LIT

Acknowledgement

This thesis was completed in the Politics Department at the University of Adelaide with the financial support of an Australian Postgraduate Research Award. The thesis was supervised by Paul Nursey-Bray. I benefitted from comments made by Lenore Coltheart, Paul Corcoran, Wayne Cristaudo and Frank Moriarty in Adelaide, Barry Hindess at the Australian National University and Cecil Courtney of Christ's College, Cambridge. The postgraduate seminar program in the Department provided a welcome opportunity for discussions with other members of staff and fellow postgraduates. I would like to thank all who contributed to a good working environment. Inlroduction I

Introduction

The term "enlightenment" performs two functions in this thesis. As "the Enlightenment" it is the term usually applied to European thought of the eighteenth-century. In the context of this discussion this broad term has particular relevance to the work and lives of three philosophes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and . An important exception to the French character is a brief discussion of the German philosopher, . As 'enlightenment' it is a term applied to a manner of thinking that develops from an historical period in which human reason is established as the organising principle of a secular society. The context best able to accommodate the necessarily fallible exercise of human reason is a critical culture. 'Critical' in the sense of 'making judgements'; 'culture' in the sense of being 'a particular form or type of intellectual development.' These definitions are elaborated in the central argument of the thesis. Despite the apparent political success of liberal institutions that generally conform to the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers, liberalism cannot defend itsetf as an inheritor of ideological supremacy. In chapter one I argue an ideological construction of liberalism is in fact against the central features of liberal thought: any claim for a victory runs counter to its central tenets. The aspirations of Enlightenment thinkers for a public culture of criticism might offer a source of a potentiai defence. Chapter two traces antecedents of Enlightenment thought in the work of Descartes, Leibní2, and Pascal. The first two are influential in their methodological influence on Enlightenment thought but their metaphysics are targely rejected. Rejection of their appeal to God's authority, characteristic in Enlightenment thought, is also a rejection of the certainty with which Descartes and Leibniz could assert a theistic world view. Pascal's conception of the limits of human reason contains the same paradox that Enlightenment thinkers must contend with in their human- centred exploration of reason, that in championing reason they must also recognise the limits placed on reason by human fallibility, albeit from a Introduction 2

theistic perspective. The power of the scholastic orthodoxy is also a theme of this chapter, as all three thinkers were subject to accusations of heresy despite their declarations of faith. Chapter three is an account of the paradoxes of the Enlightenment, as developed in the self-awareness of a thinker like Kant and a discussion of that awareness by Michel Foucault; through the incorporation of Rousseau's thought and through the views of defenders of the Enlightenment, such as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay. While Kant's phitosophy is more systematic than that of the philosophes discussed in this thesis, his essay "What is enlightenment?" is discussed because it represents a contemporary distillation of the spirit of the Enlightenment. In this chapter the idea of enlightenment as an attitude to thought, a critical perspective, is identified as opposed to the Enlightenment as a set of characteristic ideas. Chapter four presents some critiques of the Enlightenment, particularly the work of Alasdair Maclntyre and his contention that the Enlightenment was a project that failed. Maclntyre juxtaposes Enlightenment reason and reason embedded in particular ethical or moral contexts. Maclntyre errs in not allowing for an understanding of the Enlightenment as having produced its own legitimate (to the extent that any such constructions can claim legitimacy) ethical and moral context. It is a theme of the thesis that a commitment to enlightenment, as an attitude to reason, is constitutive of a critical culture, a culture that encomPasses Maclntyre's work. The following three chapters involve an analysis of three of the most popular works of the Enlightenment: Montesquieu's P¿rsiøn Letters, Voltaire's Cøndide and his Philosophicøl Dictionnry. The other two books considered are the more enigmatic and private works of Diderot, Rameøu's Nephew and lacques the Føtølisú. Perhaps because these works could not be described as systematic philosoPhy, they expand our understanding of the spirit of an age dominated by the enterprise of the Encyclopedia, or by the subsequent Revolution. While each writer holds multiple positions and develops a different style, their work reveals the nature of a culture they both inhabited and created. The purpose of these central chapters is to draw upon the words and lives of the philosophes themselves to break down a view of Enlightenment thought as a monolith of or as an overarching, hubristic, doomed project. Through an analysis of texts of Introduction 3 characteristic lightness and playfulness, Enlightenment thinkers are shown to have practised a critical and self-critical method driven by a commitment to reason, but also by a passion for justice and a respect for humanity which involved an awareness of the paradox inherent in the exercise of human reason. Despite the conferral of orthodoxy on their texts by their inclusion in the canon of Western political thought, these authors were eccentrics in terms of their own society. Chapter eight is a discussion of a nineteenth-century French thinker, Auguste Comte, in particular his General aiew of positivism, often seen as the continuation of the Enlightenment tradition. Comte is identified here as a key figure in a disjunction within this tradition, though his influence is often underestimated. His position at the foundation of the self- awareness of social science as a discipline is significant. His legacy is not often reflected upon but, with the collapse of a Marxist alternative, the emerging society appears Comtean. The view of Comte aS one of a series of thinkers who sought to save humankind through the divinizing of their particular existence and imposing this law as the new order of society, makes his contribution doubly worthy of attention.l Comte's concern to establish a new orthodoxy as the basis for a rational social science overturned the Enlightenment attitude to thought developed in opposition to orthodoxy. This important disjunction in the critical spirit of the Enlightenment is lost if "Enlightenment thought" is treated as a seamless tradition. The final chapter, an exposition of the idea of criticism derived from the writings of tlne philosophes, offers an understanding of how an Enlightenment attitude of criticism remains relevant to the dilemmas of modernity. As an example, the attitude to thought is shown to be useful as a critical tool in exposing prejudices, even within Enlightenment thought. An historical appreciation of the attitude of enlightenment as offering "a way Out", an "exit" frOm pervasive orthodoxy draws enlightenment into a number of important critical relationships. Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay both characterised the thought of the Enlightenment as a shift from the

1 Eric Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Reaolution ]. H. Hallowell ed., Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1'975,p.1'59 Introduction 4

"spirit of system" to the "systematic spirit". They identify in the first "system" as the object of inquiry. For the scholastics scientific inquiry was directed towards explaining Revelation - a system that was already known through faith. The "systematic" in the second describes the manner of inquiry. Thus, for Enlightenment philosophes one's manner of inquiry should be systematic in revealing what was not already known. This distinction must also be viewed in the context of Enlightenment thought as a response to an existing "system." This entailed, for Enlightenment thinkers, rejection of the belief in the system purported to be ordained by God; recognition that the only faculty to understand our world is reason; recognition that human reason, being fallible, is incapable of producing a system worthy of faith. Yet, at the same time, our inquiries into our nature must follow the path of reason and be tested through reason, leading to the apparent paradox of a need for faith in reason. While this spirit does not apply to the same extent to counter- Enlightenment thinkers, they were not necessarily defenders of "system" either. Counter-Enlightenment thinkers were as much disenchanted with scholastic orthodoxy as were the philosophes. It would be a mistake, for example, to see in counter-Enlightenment nostalgia a move to conserve contemporary political regimes. I would characterise the two movements of thought as janus-like, each responding in different ways to the decaying scholastic orthodoxy. In the shared fascination for "origin", common not only to Rousseau, Vico and Herder, but also to Voltaire, Montesquieu and Diderot, is a shared attempt to understand their current state. While Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment thought have more in common than either position has with scholasticism, the relationship between the two positions has an impact on the shape of critical culture. Enlightenment thinkers asserted a human role in the construction of the social world through reason. This required a method and produced a culture that relied on the vitality of critical relationships developed in opposition to religious orthodoxy. The Enlightenment viewed as an age of criticism, produces many critical positions, including those of Voltaire, Diderot and other contributors to the Encyclopediø, ímportantly Rousseau, and the earlier work of Montesquieu. Nineteenth-century attempts to formalise the use of reason into a positive "social science" lead to the utopian and revolutionary attempt to introduce a social religion. In turn, Introduction 5

this led to a reintroduction of a dependence on "System" which, rather than maintaining the critical spirit of Enlightenment, undermines it. This shift is important to recognise in our understanding of the legacy of the Enlightenment. The critical legacy of the Enlightenment, therefore, should not be conflated with the origins of social science. The Enlightenment application of reason to the problems created by the collapse of theistic order relied on the use of reason in the context of a critical culture. Nineteenth-century rationalism required the construction of a new, sociological, context for its practice of reason. To view these developments as lying within a continuous tradition seriously misconstrues the nature of Enlightenment thought. White social science can be Seen aS developing from an Enlightenment confidence in reason, that confidence emerged in opposition to the formation of dogmas. The development of social science in the early nineteenth-century, based on the principle that social cohesion depends on shared beliefs, was directed towards the development of new dogmas. It may well be that society will be more stable in a time when orthodoxy is strongest but this does not mean that the discipline of social science should seek to establish orthodoxy. On the contrary,if it is to be true to an Enlightenment heritage, it must be self-critical. Ironically, it is often the Enlightenment origins of modernity that are seen as its fatal flaw. This thesis presents the argument that it is an Enlightenment attitude to question the nature of social organuatlon at its most fundamental level - to question the very possibility of "the social" as a category for analysis. It is later developments in social science that make an unchallenged fetish of "the social". Given these two "origins" of social science, the discipline contains two possible streams, one aimed at challenging dogma, the other directed towards constructing rational dogma. The argument is not only about the eighteenth-century shaping oÍ a critical culture and identifying sources of this characteristic of the 'French Enlightenment', but suggests that this critical culture is accessible in different times and places. In order to suggest the contemporary accessibility, I use at all times the readily available English translations of the work of the philosophes, except where it is necessary to clarify meanings within the original French when these translations conflict with my own interpretation on significant points. Liberulism and

1

Liberalism and criticism

In the late twentieth century we live in mass society and are part of what has been termed "maSS culture". The particular shape, style and complexity of this society is dependent on twentieth-century technology.l In contrast, the culture being considered in this thesis developed in the eighteenth century and where it still exists, it exists under the constraints of a technological society. Some however see it as dominant and far from defending it, would rather be rid of its "oppression".2 The culture grew up around a belief in reason in opposition to superstition and the supernatural. A belief in reason made practitioners sceptical of existing tradition and directed their enterprise toward finding truth. Scepticism about tradition, however, does not stop the formation of culture. In the art, literature, drama, science, and philosophy of both the followers of reason and their critics a cultural tradition emerged. Its means of formation, however, leaves the culture to fend for itself, its defence resting on its openness to constant reformation. The role of criticism in cultural creation will be elaborated throughout this thesis. In such a culture ideas about social reality are never fixed. The changing world means intellectual life must attemPt to respond directly to these changes if it is to remain relevant. Today some trumpet the success of the idea of liberalism and declare the "end of

1 Hannah Arendt, "The,Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Its Political Significance" in Between Past and Future Faber& Faber, London, 1954, pp.197-226 This area of study has a long history. Most recently Ernest Gellner has considered the implications of such a soìiety following the breakdown of Soviet power in Conditions of Liberty, Hamish Hamilton, London, 7994 and Geoff Mulganin Politics in an Antipolitical Age, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1994 considers a resPonse form a "left" perspective.

2 At its most crude this can be seen in the chants that emerged in the so-called "curriculum debate" in United States' universities: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, western culhrre's gotta go." Liberslism and criticism 7

history."3 Others, formerly staunch advocates of liberalism, now either repudiate its ideas, saying they have "no claim on reason" , ot retreat from its universalism.S Empirical evidence can be mustered in support of either position. The demise of in former Soviet and Eastern European countries and their aspiration for market economies lends credibility to the Fukuyama thesis but, for those of us living in the West, there is a more than uneasy feeling about the sterility of political responses to present and emerging problems.6 With increasing unemployment, a problem seemingly incompatible with the economic rationalist orthodoxy, modern democratic institutions and the market economy provide few opportunities for formulating solutions. We are also witnesses to the resurgence of religious fundamentalism, in theocratic states such as Iran; allied to ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe in response to the removal of authoritarian controls; or in the West with the growth in fundamentalist Christianity. While Cold War rivalries are dissolved, new tensions emerge. In the West these threats are often masked by the liberal premise that modern western society is secular in character and therefore theoretically unconcerned with the religious beliefs of its citizens. Given these political circumstances our means of evaluating change needs careful attention. It is not at all certain that the conditions for what I shall characterize as "critical culture" can be sustained. Modern western society is broadly liberal, where the term liberal can be used in at least three categories - theory, ideology andprøctice. The term is made more complex by the different colour that the word has on different sides of the Atlantic as well as other geo-political

3 Francis Fukuyama "The End of History?'' in The National Interest Summer, 1989, pp. 3-18. See also his The End of History and the [¿st Man Penguin, Harmondsworth, 7992

4 ]ohn Gray Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy Routledge, London & New York, L989, pp. vii-viii and pp. 239-266

5 John Rawls "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical" in Philosophy and Public Affairs Spring, 1985, vol. 74,no.3,pp.223-251

6 See for example Mary Ann Glendon's discussion of the impoverishment of political language in the USA in Rights TaIk Th.e Free Press, New York, 1991 Liberalism ønd críticism 8

variations, such as the division between North and South, or in the Australian context where it is used to name the conservative political party. From this complex picture it can be readily demonstrated that there is a large gap between the theory and practice of "liberal" societies. To what extent, for instance, do such self-defined states actually ensure equal citizenship rights, regardless of social class, race or gender? Nonetheless there is some sense in which such societies are partial products of liberal theory. This is best seen in the wide spread of liberal institutions and the broad acceptance of associated assumptions and practices in politics and society.T This wide acceptance leads to the attribution of an ideological status to liberalism by its opponents that has led to a "liberalism" which is more a creation of anti-liberals. Holmes points out this construction is created through what he terms "antonym substitution."8 For the anti-liberal, he argues, liberal scepticism is juxtaposed to moral wisdom and not to the original antonyms in liberal thought, false certainty and enthusiasm; private property is compared with charity not princely confiscation; rights are opposed to duties when, for the liberal, the opposites were tyranny, slavery and cruelty.g In such an environment any critical role for liberalism is significantly curtailed and most critical perspectives of society emerge as dismissals of liberalism. The North American terrain is somewhat different. Despite the fact that the USA could be said to have a stronger claim to being a liberal society, given its constitutionally enshrined rights, the term has a more radical or sharply reformist edge.lo Judith Shklar, in an attempt to bring clarity to the definition of a much used word, insists the term "liberalism" refer to a political doctrine. She establishes the definition in opposition to a philosophy of life "such as has traditionally been provided by various forms of

7 Stuart IJall Politics and ldeology Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1986, p.36

8 Stephen Holmes The Anatomy of Anti-Liberalism Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 7993, pp.187 -9

9 ibid. pp.253-4

10 Witness George Bush's taunt to Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign to "use the "1" word." Liberqlism and criticism 9

revealed religion and other comprehensive Weltenschøuungen". She argues: "Liberalism has only one overriding aim: to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom."11 Shklar recognises that this doctrine is associated with what she calls "psychological affinities".

Whether the skeptic seeks personal tranquillity in retreat or [to] calm the warring factions around her, she must prefer a government that does nothing to increase the prevailing levels of fanaticism and dogmatism. To that extent there is a natural affinity between the liberal and the skeptic.l2 These psychological affinities she distinguishes from "logical consequences", directed against the assumption that the problem posed by toleration for traditional religion leads liberalism necessarily to be "atheistic, agnostic, relativistic, and nihilistic."13 These definitional arguments take Shklar's definition of liberalism out of the ambit of ideology. Any statement of the failure of liberalism to live up to or articulate its ideology is antithetical to the overriding doctrine of liberalism which is, by definition and aspiration, non-ideological. While, at its core, liberalism can be understood through its theoretical commitment to the pursuit of personal freedom, there are certain social forms that this pursuit has generated. This can be seen in a broad sense as a "liberal outlook", understood as a commitment to the "fundamental equality of all human beings." In the light of this belief inequalities are seen as a "social artefact" that should be open to critical scrutiny, in fact "no view should be held unless it has in fact withstood critical scrutiny." The critical view extends to a general scepticism towards the certainties contained in religious dogma.14 A liberat outlook underlies the liberal institutions of toleration, free speech and equal citizenship rights. These institutions do not

11 ]udith N. Shklar in "The Liberalism of Fear" in Liberalism and the Moral Ltlt N. Rosenblum ed., Flarvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1'989, p.21

1,2 ibid. p. 25 13 ibid. p.2a 1.4 Barry op.cit. p.2 Liberalism and criticism l0

constitute the core of liberalism but are generated by a doctrine that aims to secure the conditions for political freedom. They are opposed to the construction of a fully developed ideological framework - the details of the social outcome being open to re-interpretation in line with the general principle. It is, of course, quite possible to recognize where attempts are made to concretize the way of life that is deemed to be compatible with liberal principles. It is also quite correct to identify these attempts as ideological constructs and therefore incompatible with the overriding principle of liberalism. It is, however/ setting up a false dichotomy to argue that every proposition of what constitutes a good life is necessarily ideological. Thus when Shklar speaks of the Iiberal split between public and private "the important point for liberalism is not so much where the line is drawn, as that it be drawn, and that it must under no circumstances be ignored and forgotten." This prohibition upon invading the private reaim marks the limits of coercion compatible with the liberal doctrine. The limit, Shklar points out, was originally a matter for religious faith. With liberal scepticism towards religious dogma and belief this limit is susceptible to change through the process of critical scrutiny. Shklar points out, for example, that the sense of privacy alters "in response to the technological and military character of governments and the productive relationships that prevail." Thus the line between public and private, while not "erasable", shifts, leaving liberals free to "espouse a very large range of philosophical and religious beliefs" 15 White at its core liberalism remains a political doctrine it can be seen to shape a broader culture incorporating other political doctrines. The political traditions of liberalism and socialism for example can be shown to have borrowed from each other throughout their history. As L.T. Hobhouse said "in the give and take of ideas with socialism, [iberalism] has learnt and taught more than one lesson", to which Kymlicka adds: "there are still lessons to be learned and taught."16 While a "liberal" culture encompasses broad ideological differences it

15 Shklar ibid. pp.2a-5 16 Will Kymlicka Liberalism, Community and Culture Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, p.97 Liberalism and criticism II

is not coextensive with the cultural context of western liberal societies. Milan Kundera, writing in Czechoslovakia in 1984, identifies as a specific value "Europe,"

I want to stress a significant circumstance. The Central European revolts were not nourished by the newsPapers, radio or television, that is by the "media". They were prepared, shaped, realized by novels, poetry, theater, cinema, historiography, iiterary reviews, popular comedy and cabaret, philosophical discussions - that is by culture.lT

Going on to identify the ways in which the culture of political freedom has been oppressed in central Europe, Kundera also notices its comparable, but unacknowledged, decline in the West. FIe recounts the impact of the invasion of Prague and then tells of his subsequent visit to France

I tried to explain to French friends the massacre of culture that had taken place after the invasion. "Try to imagine! All of the literary and cultural reviews were liquidated! Everyone without exception!" That never happened before in Czech history, not even under the Nazi occupation during the war. Then my friends would look at me indulgently with an embarrassment that I understood only later. When all the reviews in Czechoslovakia were liquidated, the entire nation knew it, and was in a state of anguish because of the immense impact of the event. If all the reviews in France or England disappeared, no one would notice it, not even the editors. In Paris, even in a completely cultivated milieu, during dinner parties people discuss television programs, not reviews. For the culture has already bowed out. Its disappearance, which we experienced in Prague as a catastrophe, a shock, a tragedy, is perceived in Paris as

17 Milan Kundera " The Tragedy of Central Europe", New York Rniew of Books vol. 31, no.7 April25,79U, p.33-38 Liberalism and criticism 12

something banal and insignificant, scarcely visible, a non- event.18

The picture Kundera paints is perhaps too bleak and the division between "culture" and "media" too sharp, but he identifies a culture that is critically active, even revolutionary, through an attitude to thought and writing. It is a fluid culture/ one where its participants are of divergent views and practice but linked through the common values in judgements of literary, theatrical, poetic and intellectual works. While a political doctrine does not define culture, the way in which a political doctrine is realised is vitally related to its culture. This relationship means that an analysis of a society based on its political doctrine alone will fail to present an accurate picture of that society. The danger for the social analyst is that the articles of a political doctrine provide a more readily analysable set of relationships than does a diffuse culture of which a political doctrine is only a part. Thus a political doctrine might be more clearly understood through a more diffuse analysis of culture than through a detailed examination of doctrine. There are of course potential dangers in what might be called a "cultural" approach. In an attempt to break down the old division between "left" and "right" Kymlicka argues that the various debates between theories of justice can be accommodated on an "egalitarian plateau," by defining the social, economic and political conditions of equal treatment. This egalitarian plateau can then be used to assess which one of the theories is closest to a common standard.l9 This approach has merit in. that it opens up the scoPe for theoretical positions that cut across an oppositional left/right dichotomY, in particular some feminist and communitarian arguments. It also resolves the polarization that left/right debates often display.20 While

1,8 ibid. 19 W. Kymlicka Contemporøry Political Philosophy Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, p.5 20 This does not mean that debates cannot polarise over different issues, a problem raised in the discussion of the liberal-communitarian debate below. Liberalism snd titicism 13

Kymlicka's "plateau" recognises the broader cultural dimensions in which the arguments are developed it might assume too much. Though most theories of justice espouse an egalitarian premise the definition of, and the importance given to, a commitment to egalitarian values varies. Therefore the measure itself is a sliding scale. More significantly, f.or those with a strong commitment to egalitarian principles, Kymlicka's attempts at accommodation of diverse views of justice can provide a forum for the anti-egalitarian. The identification of an egalitarian plateau does not, in itself, constitute a defence. In considering the cultural context of liberal thought it is clear that the political doctrine of liberalism is not necessarily allied to a particular set of economic arrangements. In the context of ideological argument there is a tendency to treat liberalism and as synonymous. While it is true that capitalism has been favoured by liberals, when the term liberal is used here it does not rule out other forms of economic arrangement. As minimum conditions of a liberal economy I would argue that it would have to include a market and exclude a complete command economy. It is clear that capitalism does not exhaust all the possibilities encompassed by these minimum conditions.2l There is some ground to support this approach from within recent liberal theory. Kymlicka, for example, points to arguments that Rawls' "difference principle" might be best fulfilied not under welfare capitalism but through market socialism.22 Defining liberalism as primarily a political doctrine that does not exclude diverse cultural values, asserting the centrality of the notion of personal freedom and eschewing an ideologicai identity means that culture compatible with liberalism cannot be characterised by a single philosophical belief, nor even as secular. It is established rather as a doctrine that accommodates a broad range of beliefs. The means by

21 See for example Alec Nove The Economics ot' Feasible Socialism George Allen &

IJnwin, London, 1983 22 Kymlicka op,cit, p,91 Rawls himself points out that his principle does not specify a particular economic regime. ATheory of lustice Oxford University Press, Oxford,7972, p.274 Liberalism and criticism 14

which a range of beliefs are included is through toleration and, more interestingly, for this thesis, as a preliminary to critical engagement. A culture develops which holds as an important value that all beliefs can be subject to critical appraisal. It is important therefore to make the following distinction. While a doctrine aimed at securing personal freedom can be identified as liberal, the culture in which this doctrine operates could be identified as "critical culture". To identify a culture as "liberal" would mean that the conditions of and the mechanism for securing politicat freedom were both known and immutable. It would also exclude beliefs that are critical of liberalism and deny significance to political doctrines other than liberalism. By recognising the relationship between liberalism and a critical culture the fluidity of the political doctrine of personal freedom can be fully explored. The nature of this relationship, however, Presents problems for advocates of a critical culture. There is a problem with classic liberal defences of liberal institutions especially when subject to a non-liberal threat - non-liberal as derived from a different tradition of political thought where notions of toleration, freedom of the press and equal citizenship rights are not the focus. This position should be distinguished from that of anti-liberals, or what Holmes calls "the political arm of the Counter-Enlightenment", those who, as part of the European social theory tradition, engage directly with liberal argument. Being a permanent feature of the emerging liberal landscape, they appear "fundamentally undecided as to whether they have come to destroy liberalism or to fulfil it."23 Liberal institutions, as they developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were religious toleration, freedom of the press and the abolition of servile civil status. Modern liberal institutions represent extensions of these elements. The commitment to religious tolerance develops into the "harm principie" - "the principle that peopie should be free to act as they wish provided they do not harm

23 S. Holmes "The Permanent Structure of Anti liberal Thought" in Liberalism and the Moral Lrl, N. Rosenblum (ed.) Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1989, p.227; j. Dunn quoted by KymlickainLiberalism Community ønd Culture Clarendon

Press, Oxford, 1,989. p.1'27-8 Liberalism and criticism 15

others." The free press extends to a more general freedom of expression and the prohibition on civil slavery extends to "a concept of equal citizenship rights due to everyone without regard to social class, race or gêride¡."24 In this view traditional arguments - sociøI peøce, prudence and ineffíciency - in support of liberal institutions do not work unless the non-liberal changes his or her outlook first. The sociøl peøce argument fails "in that its force pre-supPoses that those addressed by it attribute a high value to social peace and are thus at any rate to that extent already secularized."2s The prudence argvment - that if you fight to impose your belief on others and fail you will, in turn, be subject to their belief - falters in that it depends on there being a balance of forces within the society and therefore brings no comfort to powerless, unpopular minorities. Barry points out that because it is the essence of liberal laws and policies to protect minorities these cannot also be said to provide general support for them. Indeed, the non-liberal would have to accept liberalism first before accepting this justification. The argument for efficiency seeks to show that persecution is pointless. It fails to achieve the ends of the persecutors. That is, persecutors may only succeed in coercing an outward observance and not the actual belief in the persecuted. But, "[m]ost contemporary adherents of Islam are descendants of people who originally adopted it at the point of the sword, but the quality of their faith today is no less for that. The same goes for many Protestant and Catholic areas in Europe." While the initial submission to the belief is obtained by coercion and may not be sincere, for subsequent generations/ or even within a generation, through the performance of ritual and ceremony associated with the religion, those originally coerced to believe come to hotd these beliefs as their own.26 With the failure of these traditional liberal arguments to serve as adequate defences in the face of non-liberal attacks of liberal institutions, Barry turns instead to the principle of neutrality - "that states should, as a matter of justice, be neutral between different ideas

24 Barry op.cit. p.1 25 ibid. p.a 26 ibid. p.5 Liberalism and criticism 16

of the good land should] in their laws and public policies . . . avoid doing anything to favour one idea of the good over others" - to find a possible defence. He nominates the work of Bruce Ackermann, Ronald Dworkin, and John Rawls as prominent advocates of the principle of neutrality which, to Barry can be seen as a generalization of the postwar US Supreme Court's stringent interpretation of the constitutional requirement that Congress shall make no law establishing a religion.2T The argument for an ethical justification of the principle of neutrality is derived from the considerations of distributive justice. The justification begins with a society made up of individuals who have "an ordered set of wants, derived from biological needs, conceptions of the good and So on," Society can also be seen as the means whereby resources are distributed. The problem of justice is how those resources are allocated among the claimants and the starting claim for this justification is that "a primø føce just distribution would be equal."28 While the three theorists mentioned above give different answers to the question of what justifies a departure from equality,2e they all agree on the negative point of what cønnot count as a good reason for allocating a smaller share of resources, namely that these resources be used to pursue unworthy ends. The principte of neutrality, when combined with the egalitarian premise common to Ackermann, Dworkin and Rawls, leads to equal citizenship rights. Flowever, while the principle puts al1 belief systems and conceptions of the good on the same footing, it is not in itself neutral. To accept that this is the way things ought to be organised would demonstrate acceptance of a broadly liberal outlook. All justifications for the defence of liberal institutions require that the non-

27 ibid. p.6 28 ibid. p.7 29 B. Ackerman Social lustice and the Liberal Støte Yale University Press, New '1.977;1. F{aven, 1980; R. Dworkin Taking Rights seriously Duckworth, London, Rawls A Theory of lustice op.cit. Liberalism and criticism l7

liberal be "injected with a large dose of liberalism"3O before the defence of liberal institutions would be accepted.

Very tikely we are headed for a new Dark Age, and nothing phitosophers of a liberal persuasion can do will prevent it. But given the choice between trying to persuade non-liberals to accept the principle of neutrality and trying to discredit their beliefs, I think that the second is clearly the better strategy.3l While Barry might have identified a strategic defence of liberal institutions, and his concerns may be well founded, his strategy does not constitute either a liberal defence or response. There is another possible liberal resPonse, in recognising the principles of justice are "rooted in a culturally specific ideai of mutually independent citizenship",32 and justifying them because they have penetrated far and wide. While this process has been based on the unjust practices of colonialism; liberal , market relations, and , have been fundamental to a widespread 'commonsense' through which is developed contemPorary expressions of international justice.33 Using the same argument Barry maintains against the argument for efficiency, O'Neill points out that "the retrospective view of one whose consciousness has been changed shows only that it has been changed, not that it has been raised; that certain beliefs have been made accessible, not that they have been justified."3+ Despite a wide knowledge of and even acceptance of liberal institutions in non-liberal cultures, the liberal has a continuing problem, namely they lack an adequate resPonse to justifications of cultural difference. There is also the problem of those who claim protection for their actions on the basis of a cultural right who are

30 Barry op.cit. p.1.4 31. ibid. 32 Onora O'Neill "Ethical Reasoning and Ideological Pluralism" in Efftics 98 |uly 1988, p.715 33 ibid. 34 ibid. Liberalism and titicism 18

actually 'rogues' within their own culture. Most religions are humane and tolerant, it is however open to those who contravene their own doctrines to claim in a liberal context a cultural right to do so. The response here need not be liberal or "western" but in the context of the culture the action contravenes, provided the response is humane. Barry's pessimism is countered by the possibilities of 'transnational justice', opened up by O'Neill's argument.3s Both positions, however show the parlous state of liberal institutions and the ideas on which they are based when confronted by the non-liberal. From a different perspective John Gray has said of liberalism that the poiitical morality that is constitutive of liberalism cannot be given any statement that is determinate or coherent and it has no claim on reason. The various projects of grounding liberalism (conceived as a set of universal principles) in a comprehensive moral theory - rights based, utilitarian, contractarian or whatever -. . . are found wanting.

He goes on to conclude that "no set of arguments is available which might ground liberalism and privilege liberal society over its rivals." Not that Gray laments the failure of liberalism as an ideology, "since liberal political phitosophy expresses a conception of the task and limits of theorizing that is hubristic and defective." But if we accept , as I have argued earlier, that the ideological construction of liberalism is contrary to its central doctrine of personal freedom, liberal thought can be shown to be neither "hubristic" or "defective." The reason Gray gives for his "clearing away the rubble of grand liberal theories" is to "protect the historical inheritance of liberal society from the rages of a fevered ideology which, throughout western society, and especially in America, threatens to squander that inheritance." This would appear to be a conservative liberalism.36 Is it possible to hold, with Gray, that the ideological construction of liberalism represents a threat to its inheritance without repudiating the entire project and retreating to a

35 O. O'Neill "Transnational |ustice" in David }{eld Political Theory Today Polity, Cambridge, 7991., pp.27 6-3M 36l. Gray op.cit. p.víi Liberalism and criticism 19

conservative position? A 'conserved' environment where liberal principles are debated provides little defence. The origin of liberal principles as a political outcome of the Enlightenment make its culture ill-equipped to defend itself in terms of tradition alone. Emerging in a period of cultural flux its authenticity is dependent on the ability to apply reason to particular cases, to argue persuasively for or against particular sets of social relationships. A conservative defence of liberal principles as social rules that should be valued would lead to the atrophy of critical culture. While the liberal political doctrine focuses on the individual it functions within a culture which Kundera presents as threatened by apathy. The individualist focus of liberalism and the quest for has led to a perceived disconnection between the development of liberal institutions and the culture that fostered them. While a classical liberal such as F.A. Hayek identifies the development of principles of liberalism squarely with those of seventeenth century liberals3T this is primarily due to his focus on løissez-føire economics. An alternative focus on other thinkers in the eighteenth century reveals the development of a more complex cultural milieu in which the principles of liberalism developed. The nature of this environment is the subject for this thesis, which contests the view that we turn to the eighteenth-century only to identify the source of the malaise of liberalism, the beginning of the 'end of history', where we find only sterile answers to our passionate questions. The 'crisis of modernity' is a catalogue of such questions:

Are we more free or less free than our grandparents? Have we fought off the rule of masculine paternalism, only to be smothered by the neutered mush of bureaucracy? Is our society ever more civilized or ever more barbaric? In overturning cultural rigidity and parochialism, have our arts become more creative and profound or simply more meaningless? Are the democratic nations more, or less capable of conducting their aÊflafts? Are we as a nation better

37 F, A, Hayek The Constitution ot'Liberty Routledge&Kegan Paul, London, 1960 and I-aw Legislation and Liberty vol.l, Routledge Kegan Paul, London,1973 Liberalism and criticism 20

educated than ever before or simply better certified? Has technological and military might made the West more secure/ or are we less secure than ever? In our secular sophistication, are we more realistic and pragmatic, or are we/ as Lippmann lamented, "sick with some kind of incapacity to cope with reality?" And, depending on our answers to these questions, do we stilt believe in all those fine eighteenth century words: "due process," "equal protectionr" and especially, "that all people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights . . .".38

That Cahoone chooses to introduce the last three ideas with an ironic 'fine words', while the questions and the dilemmas remain, suggests a need to reappraise views of the legacy of the Enlightenment as platitudes, cloaked in an air of unreality, of disconnectedness. The scornful caricature of Entightenment thought understood as mechanistic rationalism does not adequately reflect the insights of thinkers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, or Diderot, devoid as they are of the tendency to provide either/or answers. These questions challenge our capacity for critical engagement, not in the light of some overarching dilemma resolvable only in terms of ideological allegiance, but in terms of the pørticular dilemma. Kant's motto for the Entightenment charges that we "dare to know!", Voltaire states "I write in order to act." It is this self-aware, critical nature of Enlightenment thought that needs to be explored to enhance both our understanding of eighteenth-century thought, and the possibilities of our own critical culture. Wariness of Enlightenment reason takes several forms, but these critiques are generally pursued in a manner consistent with the culture of the Enlightenment. This is not to deny the possibility of a criticism of Enlightenment that can reject Enlightenment PresuPPositions. To jettison all Enlightenment influence, however, is to fall back on older forms of justification in the exemplary life of historical figures such as Socrates, Christ, or Mahommed. A critic who rejects Enlightenment

38 Lawrence E. Cahoone The Dilemmø of Modernity:Philosophy, Culture, ønd Anti' Culture State University of New York Press, Albany, 1988, p.4 Lìberalism and criticism 2I

methodology must either be willing to live the life these figures advocate, without compromise or equivocation - or find a new authority. In terms of theoretical responses the cluster of problems that revolve around. the question of modernity are unresolved.39 Indeed, the question of what constitutes modernity itself is still unsettled. The position is further confused by the existence, since its inception, of the critique of modernity as part of the modern spirit.

If there is something new in postmodernism it is not the radical critique of modernity, but the redirection of this critique. With postmodernism, ironically enough, it becomes obvious that the critique of the modern, inasmuch as it only knows its own parameters, can only aim at expanding the interior space of modernity, not at surpassing it for it is the very gesture of radical surpassing - romantic utopianism - that the postmodernism calls into question.4O

Thus challenges to modernity, while identifying specific problems with modern life, appear uncertain when attempting to venture beyond modernity. In general terms these areas are the anti- and níhitism of the post modernists, the nostalgia of the communitarians and. the attempted development of a specific feminist ontology. Each of these projects attempts to break out of a particular construction of modernity and yet their anti-(as opposed to post) modernity makes them appear unattractive. That the way in which these oppositional projects are offered and the means by which we assess them is still modern surely adds to our wariness. On the other hand, when modern culture experiences a threat from an external source, for example the rise in religious fundamentalism, the participants in a robust debate within modernity become allies. The state of sociai and intellectual flux makes ideological positions in

39 See for example ]. Marsh, j.D. Caputo and M. Westphal (eds.) Modernity and its Discontents Fordham University Press, New York, 1992 40 A. Wellmer, The Persistence of Modernity D. Midgely trans., Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991, p.vii-viii Liberalism and criticism 22

general fragile as the social conditions in which they emerged either no longer apply or their analysis as an historical phenomenon has been rendered problematic through the passage of time. This means that dogmatic adherents to particular ideologies either devote more energy to defend a crumbling model or espouse an unconvincing faith.at In the light of these challenges to ideology it is not at all clear that what has become the common condition for theoretical critical engagement, criticism applied under the rubric of various ideological positions/ can be sustained. This thesis develops two arguments, first that there is a disjunction in 'the Enlightenment tradition' between the thoughts (and actions) of those who seek to overturn dogma and those who set out to create a new dogma. Secondly, that the Enlightenment attitude to thought, characterized as anti-dogmatism, is still a relevant mode of critical inquiry today. This is directed not only against religious dogmatism but against a dogmatism of social scientific inquiry. The philosophes drew on preceding critical developments in intellectual life to advance their aspirations. Aside from an engagement with the classical tradition they also hark back to thinkers in their recent past to find both the confidence to assert the use of reason and critical engagement. A view of these underpinnings develops a picture of the intellectual terrain the philosophes inherited.

41 This characterization does not only apply to 'left' or'right' ideologies but identifies a trend across the political spectrum. In Australia, for example, the conservative parties have unsuccessfully abandoned their pragmatism for an ideological faith in the . Other liberals see this attempted ideological formation of liberalism as a threat to its inheritance. See Gray op,cit, Critics of Scholasticism 23

2

Critics of Scholasticism

Enlightenment thought does not spring spontaneously from the turn of the century. Critical or reformist thinkers directly preceding the Entightenment, in particular Descartes and Leibniz exercised a direct influence on the thought of the Enlightenment. Given the move to the secular that is characteristic of Enlightenment thought it is the role that God plays in their philosophies that requires investigation. The third thinker considered here, Pascal, represents a theistic barrier for the attitude of enlightenment. Each thinker has a role for God but these include Descartes' 'flick of the wrist', Leibniz's attempts to synthesise Protestantism and Catholicism as well as his concern for the conformity of faith and reason, and Pascal's interior Catholicism. The ideas of the eighteenth century engage with scholasticism and, because of the scholastic use of Aristotle as 'the Philosopher', with a form of Aristotelianism. A discrete periodization of ideas, even when applied ftexibly, might not recognise the continuity and discontinuity between periods and the complexity of processes of change. In severing all connecting threads we are left with no more than a caricature. In this way the Enlightenment is reduced to the image of the 'Man of Reason' confronting the pedantic schoolman at an apparently radical disjuncture in history and thought. In reality the relationship between the two is more subtle and its significance more wide ranging. Situated in a long tradition of the application of human reason to the problems of social organisation, the Enlightenment promotes an increasingly secular view of the world in which the need for reference to God's grace is replaced by an expansion of the area of ethics and politics. In looking at the intellectual life of important thinkers immediately preceding the Enlightenment, however, it is clear that this shift is based on philosophical projects that, although sometimes Critics of Scholasticism 24

deemed heretical by the established church, were still theistic in character. Their critical stance in relation to the scholastic tradition, itself a fusion of Aristotelian rational thought and Christian doctrine, put pressure on the potential cleavage between the religious and the secular, or so it seemed with the developments in science made by Enlightenment thought. The re-emergence of faith in various guises in the subsequent experience of political life indicates that perhaps the cleavage is not so clear cut. Certainly, the fusion of the two traditions is more tenacious than a rendering of Enlightenment thought as the "Age of Reason" allows. The , the humanism and the of the Enlightenment are built on the works of philosophers who were a part of a theistic world; within that broad theistic context there was considerable diversity and much of the thought that influences the Enlightenment is dependent, to some extent, on the Will of God. Regardless of the theistic, if not orthodox, formulation of their phitosophies, Descartes and Leibniz open ways for Enlightenment secularisation. They also represent the beginnings of the contention between faith and reason that is developed in Enlightenment thought. In their contemporary, Pascal, we find a warning of the hubris of scientism and a most poetic (rather than instrumental) notion of the limits of human reason. This focus on the role of faith for the critics of scholasticism allows the exploration in later chapters of how this role is accommodated, modified or overlooked by the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The three philosophers discussed in this chapter do share one common feature with their Enlightenment successors. Ail of them could have held posts within the academy and while they chose not to for different their absence from the academy frees their thought from scholastic orthodoxy. This freedom of thought (even if it did lead to problems with publication) attracts Enlightenment thinkers and provides an impetus for change. In general, I shall argue, it is important not to equate pre-Enlightenment rejection of ecclesiastical authority as a rejection of God. The beliefs challenged are religious beliefs manifested as the orthodoxies of the day. Critics of Scholøsticism 25

Descørtes $96-1650

It is from Descartes that modern thought gains its individual focus. In doubting all that we know in order to find out if there is anything of which we can have certain knowledge, Descartes reaches the famous conclusion of the cogito. In the provision of an argument establishing his own existence he also establishes, for those who follow his meditations, the possibility of the existence of every individual as an "I". By virtue of the argument the individual exists not by the grace of God but as a "thinking thing".1 With such a move, God, as a source of grace at least, has ceased to be a necessity for the continued existence of the individual. This is a dramatic moment - individual existence is explained as self-contained, isolated from religious or secular authority. Rather than this being the decisive moment for the declaration of atheism, Descartes' project is specifically directed against what he argues is the spurious authority derived from the unclear ideas of the scholastics. Descartes' clash with theological authority can lead to confusion on this point. Descartes was certainly cautious about the theological implications of his work. This is not because he feared God's ire, but rather the ire of God's worldly authorities. Given the implications of his argument for scholastic authority, this is hardly surprising. However, it does not make Descartes an atheist, indeed Descartes believed he had been called by God to his task.2 R.H. Popkin even argues that Descartes is a Catholic philosopher who "conquers scepticism".3

1 René Descartes "Meditations on First Philosophy" (Meditations) in The Philosophical Works of Descartes vol.l, E.S. Haldane and G.R.T Ross (trans.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1972, pp.137-799 2 R. Schacht Classical Modern Philosophers Descartes to Kant Routledge, London and New York, 1984, p.6 3 R. H. Popkin The History ot' Scrpticism from Erasmus to Descartes Van Gorcum & Comp. n. v.,1.960, pp. 17 4 -276 Critics of Scholasticism 26

Cottingham cautions against sweeping condemnations of scholastic philosoph/, notoriously captured in the caricature of the schoolmen puzzling over the question "how many angels can dance on a pinhead?" FIe points out that "scholastic thought ranged over a wide variety of important issues in logic, language and philosophy of physics; when Descartes challenged the schoolmen he had to contend with a formidable philosophical system of considerable sophistication and power."4 However, by the early seventeenth century that "system" had produced a culture where "skill in jargon-manipulating [andl the juggling of authorities had become the paramount road to academic advancement."S In Descartes' time the scholastic style of university was in decay. As an example, Cottingham quotes the Senate of the University of Utrecht's response to the Ca¡tesian lectures given by Regius:

The professors reject this new philosophy for three reasons. First, it is opposed to the traditional philosophy which universities throughout the world have hitherto taught on the best advice, and it undermines its foundations. Second, it turns away the young from this sound and traditional philosophy, and prevents them reaching the heights of erudition; for once they have begun to rely on the new philosophy and its supposed solutions, they are unable to understand the technical terms which are commonly used in the books of the traditional authors and in the lectures and debates of their professors. And lastly, various false and absurd opinions either follow from the new phiiosophy or can be rashly deduced by the young - opinions which are in conflict with other disciplines and faculties, and above all with orthodox philosoPhY.6

This complaint against Cartesean ideas does not confront the substance of Descartes' doctrines, instead criticising it at the level of the

4 |ohn Cottingham Descørtæ Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 7986' p.4 5 ibid. p.5 6 The Senate of the university of utrecht quoted by Cottingharn op.cit. p.4 Critics of Scholasticism 27

"technical terms used in the lectures and debates".T Nonetheless the caricature of scholasticism obscures rather than illuminates the power that could be exerted through the universities on thought deemed heretical. In their dealings with unorthodox philosophical ideas the Scholastic s begøn with a demand for unquestioned respect for their authority. Despite Popkin's claims, the way in which Descartes goes about his philosophical meditations means it would be hard to characterise Descartes as a religious philosopher like Pascal.s In terms of its impact on the history of philosophical thought, and of the argument itself, the establishment of the individuat in the cogito lies at the centre of Cartesian thought. While not in itself an atheist argument, atheism is certainly a possible consequence. Descartes himself makes numerous, apparently sincere, declarations of faith and his biographer referred to his "profound respect for God." Nonetheless, he was charged in his own time, and ever since, with insincerity and it is pointed out that his approach to physics was dependant on a belief in God.e But, if we accept Descartes' advice to his followers, "never to attribute to me any opinion unless you find it expressly stated in my works, and never to accept anything as true in my writings or elsewhere, unless they See it to be very clearly deduced from true Principles,"l0 then there would seem to be no reason for adopting Descartes' professed faith. Disciples of Descartes "would reject all ideas that could not be verified by the natural light, regardless of what Descartes himself may have believed.."11 This advice or warning appears in a particular context. Descartes is responding to the pubtication of Regius's Fundømentø

7 ibid. p.5 8 Pascal was not immune from the accusation of atheism and his religious beliefs also make some suspect his status as a philosopher. Colemanop.cit.,Pp.l-2

9 ibid. p.95 and fn.28 10 Descartes "The Principles of Philosophy" (PrincipleÐ inThe Philosophical Works ot' Descartes vol.l, E.S. Haldane and G.R.T Ross (trans.), Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, 1972, p.21,4 11 Wayne Cristaudo The Metaphysics of Science and Ereedom Avebury, Aldershot,

1,99L, p.29 Critics of Scholøsticism 28

Physicae in which Descartes says the author "had apparently said nothing regarding physics and medicine which he had not derived from my writings . . . yet because he had transcribed badly, changed the order, and denied certain truths of metaphysics upon which the physics ought to rest, I am obtiged to entirely disavow his work . . .".'t.2 Descartes here is concerned with the incorrect dissemination of his id.eas and its consequence for the clarity of his argument. This can be seen, as Cristaudo suggests, as both warning to plagiarists and indication of his true position on faith - a clever use of the "mask" whereby Descartes denies his declarations of faith.13 Leaving aside the question of the sincerity or otherwise of Descartes' repeated Profession of faith, what is the role of God in Descartes' argument ? In the Meditøtions Descartes offers two philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God. In his introduction, addressed to The Very Søge ønd lllustrious, The Deøn ønd Doctors of the Sacred Føculty tf Theology of Paris, he argues that the application of philosophy to the existence of God is the work's purPose. In offering "natural reason" instead of the necessarily circular argument of the faithful (It is by God's Grace that the faithful come to know of the existence of God) he states his aim is to provide an argument to convince the infidel of God's existence.l4 There is nothing controversial, in terms of the prevailing orthodoxy, about the arguments for the existence of God that Descartes offers, the arguments closely following that of Anselm.15 Descartes' arguments for the existence of God are, paradoxically, far more problematic for the strict methodological Cartesian (as opposed to religious) philosopher. Cottingham points out that if it is accePted that the two arguments for the existence of God avoid the circle objection, they do not constitute a vindication of Descartes' system of knowledge - the premises on which

L2 Descartes (Principles) p.21a 13 Cristaudo op.cit. pp.5-8 14 Descartes (Meditations) ppJ33-7 15 Swinburne ascribes the traditional version of the ontological argument to Descartes but says it was "probably originally by St Anselm." R. Swinburne, The Existence of God revised ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, p.9n. Critics of Scholasticism 29

the arguments rest not being of the kind of simplicity and distinctness that "while I continue to attend to them I can be sure of their truth."16 But these arguments do not only serve as a blind to the theological doctors of the Sorbonne. The argument for the existence of God appears to have a particular role in confirming the soundness of individual reason. In the Medítøtions Descartes also raises the possibility of a deceitful creator in the spectre of the malin génie. Popkin characterises this move aS introducing a new level of doubt in which "Descartes overthrew the mathematical intuitionism of the Reguløe as the found.ation of all certainty."17 The raising of this sPectre, bringing with it the crise pyrrohnienne where, in doubting all you doubt nothing, is resolved through Descartes' arguments for the existence of God. This follows from the argument that God, as the highest conceivable being, can lack no perfection. Descartes concludes that God cannot deceive as any deception would amount to an imperfection. In establishing this characteristic in God the individual can be certain that, on attaining a clear and distinct idea of reality, he is not deceived. Thus the clear and distinct idea contained in the co7íto, that I am a thinking thing, is confirmed by God in the role of a non-deceitful creator. What is the impact of this particular role for God? For the faithful the question of God's existence does not arise. If it did it could be answered by faith through the circular argument for the existence of God. According to Descartes' stated intent the argument for the existence of God is provided only for the infidel' These, largely borrowed, arguments are not, aS we have Seen, developed through the strong scepticism applied in the cogito argument. However/ any Cartesian disciple who does appty scepticism to the question of faith or to his arguments for the existence of God is saved from becoming

16 Cottingharn op.cit. p.72 IT Popkin op.cit. p.783 In the Regulae written in't624 Descartes insisted that "Arithmetic and Geometry alone are free from any taint of falsity and uncertainÇ" and that intuition, the undoubted conception of an unclouded and attentive mind is most certain, and deduction "cannot be erroneous when performed by an understanding that is on the least degree rational" ibid. p.182 Critics of Scholasticism 30

dependent on a faith, not in God, but in Descartes by the placement in t}ne Medítøtíons of the arguments for the existence of God. In the order of Descartes' argument, God only enters the metaphysical picture after the certainty of the ego is established. Descartes' use of the cogito argument is not without precedent in the religious sphere. Cristaudo cites the comparison Gerhardt Kruger makes between Augustine and Descartes and their respective use of the cogito argument.

lB]oth see human beings before God. But this seeing, for Augustine, receives its measure from God, while in Descartes it derives from the human spirit. For one God is the original 'truth itself'; for the other the self-conscious. 18

It is this shift that makes Descartes' argument highly suspect to the orthodox, tantalising to the heterodox and eventually appealing to the humanist and atheist spirit of the Enlightenment. An "unbelieving" Cartesian need not bother with the question of God, it being possible for the atheist simply to jettison God from Descartes' argument and still retain the clear and distinct idea that he, as thinking thing, exists. Nonetheless, the placement of the arguments for the existence of God in Descartes' argument exposes a potentiøl in this position to undermine faith. It does not, however, represent a direct attack on faith. That is, while agreement with Descartes' declarations of faith are not a direct requirement for believing his argument, the argument is not premised by a rejection of faith. One may have to reject certain orthodoxies and even accept the consequences of ecclesiastic condemnation but it does not demand a personal denial of faith. The question of the role of God or at least faith in God's existence, however, presents a dilemma for a secular reading of the Meditøtions. If, as Descartes argues, it is God's lack of deceit which means we can be certain of our clear and distinct ideas, then to deny God's existence, or even this particular role for God, removes the possibility of certainty. To be less than certain qualifies the status of "clear and distinct". Thus, paradoxically, a Cartesian argument that can replace God with the

18 Cristaudo op.cit, p.25 Critics of Scholasticism 31

human ego, even if it is condemned by the theological authorities, has more force in a culture where people are accustomed to having faith in God's existence. Descartes' argument does not require an open repudiation of faith, but, through its attack on orthodoxy, diminishes the primacy of faith. But this comes with a cost: as faith is undermined so is the certainty with which "I" can come to know clear and distinct ideas and indeed how clear and distinct those ideas can be. The question of certainty remains a problem for the Enlightenment philosophes. The Cartesian view is not the Enlightenment view. Even if we accept that the Cartesian human being is independent of God, that 'being' is confined to the corpse. Without God's grace humanity is also alone, expelled from communion with God. Cartesian humanity has no need of community; of ethics; of politics. A detachment from God is possible given the location of the self within the self but it is a bleak prospect. The history of Cartesian thought shows that, despite its condemnation by Pascal, who believed Descartes would tempt people away from a belief in an active Christian God,le his thought was eventually popularised through its assimilation with Catholic orthodoxy, becoming, as Gay says, not an invitation to but a bulwark against atheism.2O In the Cambridge Platonists, Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, we find first acceptance and then rejection of Descartes' thought. More (who corresponded with Descartes in the late 1640s) "began by cautiously weicoming Descartes' philosophy (as providing , for example, a defence of the immortality of the soul) but gradually came to see Cartesian cosmology as providing the royal road to atheism."21 These ambiguous dealings with Descartes' philosophy on the part of the church and by phitosophers shows that the thought of

19 ,Pascal said "I cannot forgive Descartes: he would fain have managed to dispense with God throughout his philosophy; but he could not help letting Him give a fillip to get the world going. That done, he has no further use for Him." Pascal's Pensées H.F. Stewart, trans., Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960, p.161 20 Peter N. Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation vol.2 The Science of Freedom Wildwood Flouse, London, 1966, p,1'47 21 Cottingham op.cit. p.104 fn28 Critics of Scholasticism 32

his time and for some time after was not conducted in a Cartesian world but one still characterized by clashes between religious orthodoxy, religious heterodoxy, , and atheism. Modern criticism has often focused on Descartes' employment of the dualism of mind and the body, although as Lloyd says: "Something happened here which proved crucial for the development of stereotypes of maleness and femaleness, and it happened in some ways despite Descartes' explicit intention."22 This dualism, it should be remembered, was not an impediment to the adoption of Cartesian ideas in a religious culture, such dualism being entirely consistent with Christian beliefs about the existence of the body and the immortal soul. Again, the culture of faith makes Descartes' argument more, rather than less, plausible. For example: the location of the connection between the mind and the body in the pineal gland, which, as Cottingham says, postpones rather than solves the problem of how psycho-physical intersection is possible, does not render his whole project risible because it is a "scientific" account of a link between body and soul that is already known through faith.23 While it may be that in the avenues of sceptical inquiry Descartes opens up faith in an immortal soul is questioned, dualism between mind and body does not itself represent a direct challenge to the religious tradition. The debate on the question of the continuity or discontinuity between Descartes and the philosophes of the Enlightenment is a lively one. Peter Gay argues (with Isaiah Berlin) that the Enlightenment was not an Age of Reason but a revolt against rationaiism. In his view the Enlightenment was in no way a claim for the omnipotence of reason but a potitical demand for the right to question everything rather than

22 Genevieve Lloyd Ttre Man of Reason University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p.39; Moira Gatens Feminism and Philosophy Polity Press, Oxford, 1991 23 Descartes "The Passions of the Soul" Haldane and Ross op.clf. pp.345-346; In a letter to Princess Elizabeth (12th May 1624) Descartes admitted he had said 'hardly anything' in the Meditations to explain what the union amounted to. Descartes never effectively answers Princess Elizabeth's questions on this matter. Cottingham op,clf, pp.1,20-27. Critics of Scholasticism 33

the assertion that all could be known and mastered rationally.2a Schouls says that the implied grain of truth in these statements is that the philosophes rejected Descartes' style of metaphysics. He argues that such a denial obscures their closeness on the matter of methodology. That methodology can be characterised in Descartes as shaking off authority through "analysis" or "doubt", and in the philosophes' thought, through "analysis" or "criticism".25 While Schouls is right to point out the methodological continuity, the distinction between 'doubt' and 'criticism' displays a change in the culture in which authority is to be challenged. To doubt is an individual notion. In the cogito the individual is contained within the self-conscious. It establishes the "I" as independent not only from God but from society. Criticism, on the other hand, is an individual activity dependent on a community of readers. It requires the production of literary work in a form that witl engage its readership and of judgement of ideas by criteria hetd in common. It could be said that Descartes' Meditøtions is also a literary work but it invites the reader into introspection. The philosophes are sceptical not only of Cartesian metaphysics but all metaphysics. In their challenges to certainty, they inhabit a methodologically Cartesian culture, the questioning of the roles of God and Faith being a focus for the developing political position of the philosophes. The action of criticism is not directed towards a schema for explaining the existence of the self but rather an activity of reason driven by passion. It is the attempt to allow the play, or interplay, of reason and passion that characterizes much of Enlightenment thought.

Leibniz ],646-17!6

Gottfried Wilhetm Leibniz lacks the seminal status of Descartes and yet, in terms of influence on the way in which the criticai culture of the eighteenth century develops, his is perhaps the more influential

24 P. Gay The Enlightenment: An Interpretøtion vol.1, The Rise ot' Modern Paganism Wildwood Flouse, London, 1966, p.141 25 P. Schouls Descartes and the Enlightenment McGill-Queens University Press,

Montreal, 1.989, pp.67, 171'-4 Critics of Scholasticism 34

challenge to scholasticism. Rather than individuality or universality, Leibniz's philosophy seeks synthesis. As Cassirer says, for Leibniz "These concepts are explicable only in mutual relationship; they reflect one another, and in the reflection they beget the fundamental concept of harmony which constitutes the beginning and end of the system." This view promotes the central importance of the development of human capacity.

"In our own being" says Leibniz in his essay Of the True Mystical Theology "is contained a germ, a footprint, a symbol of the divine nature and its true image". This means that only the highest development of all individual energies - not their levelling, equalization and extinction - leads to the truth of being, to the highest harmony, and the most intensive fullness of reality.26

This "new inteilectual orientation", the systemizing of that harmony, or the "best", represents a change in the expectations of the individual and that "the ideal centre of gravity of all philosophy has shifted."27 This shift is crucial for understanding the intellectual life of the Enlightenment, Cassirer advising

if one wishes to grasp the entire intellectual structure of the eighteenth century and see then its genesis, one must clearly separate the two streams of thought which converge at this point. The classical Cartesian form of analysis and that new form of philosophical synthesis which originates in Leibniz are now integrated. From the logic of "clear and distinct ideas" the way leads to the logic of "origin" and to the logic of individuality.za

For example, Riley notes Leibniz's influence in Montesquieu and Rousseau's shared view that, contrary to Thomas Hobbes, the state of

26 Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy ot' the Enlightenment trans. Fritz C. A. Koelln and

|ames P. Pettegrove, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 79ß, p33 27 ibid. 28 ibid. p.35 Critics of Scholasticism 35

nature is not violent.29 While, as we shall see, Leibniz is a target of Voltaire's satire, Gay points out, Voltaire's belief in a lawful universe puts him in company with Leibniz.30 Yet there are aspects of Leibniz's philosophy that eighteenth century thought rejects. In particular, Leibniz's attempts to systematize the conformity of reason to faith. Leibniz's work at synthesis also extended to a passionate desire for a united Europe and an end to the religious intolerance that marked the Europe of his day.3t Leibniz's Theodicy (171.0) shows the irony in this inheritance. The Prelimínary Dissertøtion on the Conformity tf Faith wíth Reøson states the belief that

since reason is a gift of God, even as faith is, contention between them would cause God to contend with God; and if objections of reason against any article of faith are insoluble, then it must be said that this aileged article will be false and not revealed: this will be a chimera of the human mind, and the triumph of this faith will be capable of comparison with bonfires lighted after a defeat.32

The need to argue for the conformity of faith with reason is due in part to Leibniz's engagement throughout the Theodicy with 's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1697). Bayle's argument was construed as supporting the heresy of Manichean dualism - that creation contains both the creations of God and the creations of the Devil.33 Such a view of creation brings the possibility that a

29 Montesquieu, OeurJres completès (Paris:Pléiade, 1949), vol'l, p.1140; Rousseau L'Etat de guerue, in PoliÍical writings, vol.1 pp293ff cited by P.RileyTåe General Wü

Bgfore Rousseau Princeton University Press, Princeton, N 1, L986, p.62 30 P. Cay The Enlightenment: An Interpretation vol.2The Science of Freedom,

Wildwood House, London, 19 66 p.'142 31 Paul Hazard The European Mind 1680-17L5 Penguin University Books,

Flarmondsw orth, 19 64, pp.251,-260 32 G. W. Leibniz Theodicy Austin Farrer ed. Open Court, La Salle,Illinois, 1985, p.97 33 Preserved Smith The Enlightenment L687-1776 Collier Books, New York, 1962, pp. 434-35 Critics of Scholasticism 36

dependence on reason over faith may be the outcome of evil. In answering what may, to modern sensibilities, seem a mere religious conundrum, Leibniz's directions about the use of reason in the secular world are clear. Reason can and should be applied to any "article of faith" and used as a test of veracity. The conformity of faith to reason means that, in using reason, one is able to discover what one should have faith in. To have faith without the use of one's reason may impart a feeling of triumph but, for Leibniz, ít represents defeat, not only of reason but of faith as well. While the philosophical and political trajectory of such an idea can lead to a shift to the modern idea where reason overturns the claims of faith, it would be wrong to ascribe such an atheist ambition to Leibniz because of the importance of God for his optimism. Confident in the conformity of reason with faith, the Theodicy is optimistic but this optimism is ultimately dependent on the supreme reason of God the creator. Leibniz says:

Now this supreme wisdom, united to a goodness that is no Iess infinite, cannot but have chosen the best. For as a lesser evil is a kind of good, even so a lesser good is a kind of evil if it stands in the way of a greater good; and there wouid be something to correct in the action of God if it were possible to do better. As in mathematics, when there is no maximum or minimum, in short nothing distinguished, everything is done equally, or when that is not possible nothing at all is done: so it may be said likewise in respect of perfect wisdom, which is no less orderly than mathematics, that if there were not the best (optimum) among all possible worlds, God would not have produced any. I call 'World' the whole succession and the whole agglomeration of all existent things, lest it be said that several worlds could have existed in different times and in different places. For they must needs be reckoned all together as one world or, if you will, as one Universe. And even though one should fill all times and all places, it still remains true that one might have filled them in innumerable ways, and that there is an infinitude of possible worlds among which God must needs have chosen Critics of Scholasticism 31

the best, since he does nothing without acting in accordance with his supreme reason.34

Here is a clear statement of the optimistic philosophy that this is the best of all possible worlds. This optimism in Leibniz, and also in the English poet Alexander Popeas permeates, with the notable exceptions of Voltaire and Dr , much of eighteenth century European thought. A.O. Lovejoy points out, "far from asserting the unreality of evils, the philosophical optimist in the eighteenth century was chiefly occupied in demonstrating their necessity."e6 This, then, is the best of all possible worlds according to Leibniz, because as a creation of God it could be no other. What we perceive as "evils" are necessities because to find otherwise would be to find fault with God, an impossibility by definition It is this idea which first underlies Voltaire's deism and is later ridiculed in Cøndide. While the ridicule is directed more at the perversions of Leibniz's philosophy that gained curency in the eighteenth century, Voltaire's parody does expose a significant problem with Leibnizian optimism based as it is on God's suPreme wisdom and in accord with an explanation of human life in the context of the existence of a "Chain of Being". This, as Voltaire Saw, leaves a static universe. While man may not know everythinS, God does. The expansion of humøn knowledge can be undertaken in an optimistic way, for Leibniz, because reason conforms with faith and because we can be assured that God has created "the best of all possible worlds". Leibnizian optimism, while encouraging human progress, is predicated by the continuity of a static order. Leibniz's metaphysics contains another notion that becomes important for the Enlightenment - the notion of harmony. Its

34 Leibniz op.cit. pJ.28 35 Alexander Pope "Essay on Man" in The Poems of Alexandet Pope j. Butt ed', Methuen&Co Ltd, London, 1963. For example, line 294 "One truth is clear, 'Whatever IS is RIGHT"' p.515 36 A. O. Lovejoy The Greøt Chain of Being:A Study ot' the History ot' an ldeø Harper&Brothers, New York, 1.960, p.208 Critics of Scholasticism 38

justification also depends on the continuity of the "system". It emerges through his engagement with the scholastic doctrine of substantial forms and is the problem of the transition from one form to another. When and how does the prey of an animal become a part of the consumer? This remnant of the scholastic tradition was, as Farrer says/ t}re bete noir of the new science, Descartes only side-stepped the problem by declaring all life, except human life, mechanical. Given that the doctrine of substantial forms "turns nature into an unmanageable jungle, in which trees, bushes, and parasites of a thousand kinds are wildly interlaced,"3T such a move, given the nature of Descartes' project, was necessary if it was to progress at all. Flowever, for Leibniz, who was also raised in the scholastic tradition, the doctrine needed more attention. Leibniz's monadoloBY, as opposed to Descartes' dualism, and the idea of attainment of harmony is Leibniz's attempt to solve the problem. The 'monad' is "nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; simple that is to say, without parts." It is an indivisable unit that, through God, has a connexion "that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe". This makes each living thing a "kind of divine machine"3s That the notion of "harmony" is important in the foundations of Enlightenment thought at first seems curiously anachronistic but Leibniz, like Descartes, set out to revolutionise the Aristotelian scholastic tradition. Intellectual transitions rarely represent a clean break with the old, critics having to engage not only with the arguments of the day but to reconcile them with their own education. This engagement gives Enlightenment thought its most recent exposition of the notion of harmony. An Enlightenment aspiration towards a new harmony, gained through reason, is, however, at odds with the continuity and requirements for faith that are part of the metaphysics of Leibniz's Theodicy. While Leibniz's project is distinct from classical Cartesian logic, it shares its roots with Descartes aS a

37 Farrer op.cit. p.1,7

38 Leibniz, "Monadology" 1171.4) inPhilosophical Writings ].M. Dent & Sons, London, 1973, pp.179-194 Critics of Scholasticism 39

criticism of scholasticism. The incomplete integration of the two streams leads, aS Cassirer SayS, to a shift from pure Cartesian and Leibnizian thinking to the emergence of Enlightenment thought. The century is pervaded with the notion that man cannot know everything, as a consequence of Leibniz's metaphysics. It is optimistic in the search for knowledge, in accordance with Leibniz's metaphysics, but the harmony it seeks, which if it were to be congruent with the underlying metaphysic should be contained within continuity, becomes for Voltaire, justification for overturning it, and for Diderot, a "grand jest". Despite the incomplete incorporation of Leibniz's metaphysic he is a strong influence on the character of Enlightenment thought. Even Voltaire, who paro dies Theodicy in Cøndide, on other occasions speaks of the "universal significance of Leibniz's total achievement."39 Admiration for Leibniz is even greater among the later Encyclopaedists, Diderot agreeing with Fontenelle that "Germany has gained as much honour through this one mind as Greece did through Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes together."4O Such personal praise is, as Cassirer points out, far from a full understanding or accePtance of Leibniz's phitosophy. With Leibniz's influence, Enlightenment thought

leads from mere geometry to the dynamic philosophy of nature, from mechanism to organism, from the principle of identity to that of infinity, from continuity to harmony. In this fundamental opposition lay the great intellectual tasks which eighteenth century thought had to accomplish, and which the century approaches from different angles in its theory of knowledge and in the philosophy of nature, in its psychology and in its theory of the state and society, in its philosophy of religion and in its aesthetics'41

The trend. in these shifts is towards uncertainty, away from Leibniz's

39 Voltaire Age of Louis XlV cited in Cassirer op'cit. p'35 40 Diderot "Leibniz" in the Encyclopediø cited in ibid. 41ibid. p.35-6 Critics of Scholastícism 40

certain continuity. The justification for the increase in uncertainty lies in the possibilities offered by rejecting continuity in favour of seeking a new harmony. This, while due in part to the influence of Leibniz's thought, amounts to a rejection of his metaphysics. Leibniz, in addressing the relationship between faith and reason and asserting the conformity of reason to faith represents a point where, perhaps for the last time, the two concepts were in harmony before they take their respective paths to excess - the extreme rationalism of positivism and the pathologies of "faith" that emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Pøscøl 1623-1662

The life of appears to be one of contradictions: a brilliant scientist who was also a strong advocate against the claims of scientism; a man most poetically aware of the human condition and also a religious fanatic; a devout Catholic who, through his Jansenism, became an enemy of the established church. An eighteenth century view of Pascal, according to Meil, was "that of a great scientist, mathematician and (potential) philosopher who unfortunately turned to religion and wasted his last years in mysticism and arid controversy," who attempted "to retain the mystic as valuable but can understand the supernatural only in terms of tension, paradox, anguish."42 Peter Gay sees in Pascal an obstacle across the path of the Enlightenment philosophes' philosophy of humanity.a3 Francis Coleman goes further and argues that Pascal's life, literary style, and philosophical thought are based on a rhetoric of contradiction: 'Oxymoron'. This rhetorical figure involves the bringing together of two contradictory terms to provide a 'point' to a statement. The word itself is a composite of two Greek words for 'sharp' and 'dull' or 'foolish'. Coleman points out that "It is a daring figure, sometimes a

42lanlr/:eil Pascal and Theology The |ohns Hopkins Press, Baltimore and London , 7969, p.ix 43 Gay The Enlightenment: An lnterpretation vol' 1 op.cit' p.75 Critics of Scholasticism 4l

d,azzling one, yet it can fall, like an acrobat, quite flat."44 The figure not only applies to the life and work of Pascal, but, in a sense, to the nature of much pre-Enlightenment thought itsetf. In the work of Descartes and Leibniz we have seen a tension between the claims of faith and reason. The way these tensions are accommodated in Descartes and Leibniz provides a perhaps unplanned trajectory to the dominance of reason over faith in the Enlightenment, resolving the contest of reason and faith through the triumph of reason. Like Descartes, Pascal is a sceptic but he views the tradition somewhat differently:

[t]o Pascal, the long skeptical tradition beginning with the ancient Greeks provided the best arguments not only for the impossibility of constructing a philosophl, but also for subduing man's natural arrogance and for 'man's misery without God' - a theme that pervades all Pascal's philosophical and theological works.45

Thus, Pascal's scepticism reaffirms his faith. Not that this leads to a resigned acceptance of the world and of the authority of the church. For example, Pascal is thoroughly enmeshed in the religious controversy of the day, hís Proaincial Letters being a defence of the ]ansenists, a strict puritanical Catholic sect and theoiogical rival to the Jesuits.46 Pascal's insight into the contradictory position of the human relation to the universe is expressed in the Pensées:

Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but a thinking reed. It does not need the universe to take up arms to crush him; a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him' But though the universe should crush him, man would still be nobler than his destroyer, because he knows that he is dying,

44 Francis X. Coleman Neither Angel nor Beqst:The Lit'e ønd Work of Blaise Pascal Routledge & Kegan Paul, New York, 1986, p'L3 a5 ibid. p.\ 46 op.cit. p.733 Critics of Scholasticism 42

knows that the universe has got the better of him; the universe knows naught of that.47

Thus, through the form of the oxymoron, human fallibility and the significant role that humanity plays in the universe are brought together and in that union of opposites a greater insight is attained. This poetic understanding of both the potential and limits of humanity for Pascal means

AII our dignity then consists in thought. We must look to that in order to rise aloft: not to space or time which we can never fill. strive we then to think aright: that is the first principle of moral life.as

These insights cannot be challenged by the advancement of science. Compare this with the more 'rational' account of the limits of human knowledge that other thinkers offet, where the ingenuity of humanity may provide an explanation of what was previously thought inexplicable - leading to a belief that humanity is, in a sense, more than human. For example says of the limits of human reason.

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such piaces as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Our business here is not to know all things but those which concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures whereby a rational creature, put in that state which

47 Pascal Pensées (160) p.83 L'homme n'est qu'un rlseau, le plus t'oible de Ia nature; mais c'est un foseau une uapeur, pensant. Il ne t'aut pas que I'unir¡ers entier s'arme pour I'ecraser: une goutte d'eau, tui¡t pou, Ie teur, Mais, quand l'uniaers I'érøseroit, I'homme seroil encore plus noble que ce qui Ie tue, parce qu'il sçait meurt, et I'aaantage que I'uniaus a sur luy: I'unioers n'en sait reín. 48 ibid. Toute notre digníté consiste donc en lø pensée. C',est de là qu'il faut nous releaer et non de l'espøce et de Ia dutée, que nous ne sçaurions templir' Traaaillons donc à bien penser: aoilà Ie principe de Ia morale' Critics of Scholasticism 43

man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need not be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.ae

In Locke's analogy it is quite possible for human ingenuity to "plumb the depths". In Pascal's imagery we find both held in a permanent tension - the insignificance of the human relationship to the universe and the power that human beings have in the universal context, through thought. Patrick Riley points out the irony contained in Pascal's Escrits sur lø Grace

[M]en after the Fall must try to will generally, though their inability to will generally (ø la Dieu) is what led to their Fall. They failed to imitate God when they were pure and must now strive to do so while corrupt.S0

Pascal's aphorism "[m]an is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would play the angel plays the beast"S1 could well stand as a warning of the potential dangers entailed in the moves undertaken in Enlightenment thought from belief in God's capacity to will generally, to human attempts to formulate a general will. A consideration of the fate of Pascal's thought prompts reflection on the nature of orthodoxy. In Descartes and Leibniz the philosophical roads can lead to atheism. In Pascal the established church could have had its scientific champion - a thinker who placed God at the centre of all his work and yet he too is treated as suspect. Orthodoxy places an increasingly narrowing constraint not only on its opponents but on its potential allies as well. The ]esuit Hardouin presented Descartes as an atheist, as might be expected, but also labelled Pascal similarly because

49 ]ohn Locke, Essay Concering Humnn Understanding Book 1 Chapter l parø 6 J.W. Yolton ed., J.M. Dent&Son Ltd, London ,1963, p.8 50 Riley adds: "No wonder Pascal hopes for unmerited grace!" The General Wü Before Rousseau Princeton University Press, Princeton, N |, 1986, p'20

51 Pascal Pensées (1.87) p.91 L',homme n'est ni ønge ni bàte: et Ie malheur oeut que qui oeut t'aire I'ange fait Ie bàte. Critics of Scholasticism 44

of his ]ansenism.s2 Hardouin was not so much concerned with the manifestation of faith in any generic sense, but the way in which certain manifestations of faith are not in conformity with an orthodoxy which is the one true faith - other faiths can only ever be masks for atheism. Other beliefs are not only species of deisms but rival dogmas whose authority is simply denied by the declaration of unorthodoxy. Hardouin's labelling of Pascal as an atheist is a long way from establishing Pascal as a secular thinker.

In looking at thinkers and authors Preceding the period known as the Enlightenment there are many other figures that are influential on the manner and style of Entightenment writing. In terms of literary influence there is none greater than Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, or Montaigne. (1533-1.592) It is Montaigne who writes to give us his most personal reflections. Even in the wide diversity of his Essøys it is Montaigne who is both author and subject. As we shall see in the analysis and discussion of the literary works of the Enlightenment philosophes their strength relies on their personal engagements rather than through observance of rhetorical and dramatic formula. Such freedom of authorship is as a direct influence of Montaigne's writing.s3 The challenges mounted against scholastic orthodoxy in the seventeenth century suggest the source of criticism that characterizes eighteenth century thought. These intellectual projects do not, of themselves, amount to, nor require, a rejection of faith. Descartes and Leibniz, brought up in the scholastic tradition recognise the poverty of the orthodoxy it had established. Like Luther in the Reformation, their attempts at reform expose severe flaws that ultimately cannot be repaired within the old orthodoxy. This does not make them thinkers of the new age, even if we can See the consequences of their arguments for the role of faith. There are implications that can be drawn from

52 Hardouin's Athei detecti (Atheists Unmasked) cited in C' Fabro God in Exile Modern Atheism A. Gibson (trans.) Newman Press, Westminster Md., 1968, p.92

53 Montaigne, Michel de The Esscys, Trans and ed. MA Screech, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1981. Critics of Scholasticism 45

Descartes' and Leibniz's thought that, certainly for Leibniz and possibly for Descartes aS well, would have led them to re-assess their positions or at least caused them some disquiet. It is this that makes claims that one can divorce the religious from their projects and still have complete understanding of their science problematic. Descartes and Leibniz held theological views which do not differ greatly from those of traditional Christian theology. Leibniz hoped that his philosophy would establish the basic tenets of Christian thought in a manner that would render it safe from scepticism. His motivation for his philosophical inquiry was also to help resolve the religious conflicts that had "plunged Europe into decades of religious wars." But, Schacht continues,

it would be inaccurate to characterize his program merely as an apology for traditional Christian theology' He did not simpty set out to construct a philosophical defence of it; and his program is of interest in its own right, even if Christian theology is completely removed from the picture'"S4

While such a statement makes Leibniz more accessible to modern sensibiiities we should not forget that, for Leibniz, and for other thinkers of his day, metaphysics were as important to his schema as any other part. This modern subdivision of intellectual endeavour has not only led to divisions between philosophy, science and theology but to a general wariness about any approach to metaphysics.ss This modern imposition on the philosophy of polymaths, who attempted to encompass their thought in a particular cosmological framework, means that their legacy is not readily understood. It is ironic that through acceptance of parts of their thought modern disciplines have acquired insights that render their theological underpinning susPect. Pascal's faith, curiously undogmatic in its paradoxes and its conception of both the capacity and failings of the human spirit, re-emerges in the

54 op,cit, p.40-41 55 Farrer points out that today "a chair in metaphysical philosophy becomes analogous to a chair in tropical diseases: what is taught from it is not the propagation but the cure;' op.cit. p.7 Critics of Scholasticism 46

paradoxes present in the secular works of the Enlightenment, which requires a faith in humanity. This was one of the ways Enlightenment thought engaged with this tenuous state of the philosophical contention between reason and faith. Before exploring other strategies, the manner in which the Enlightenment has been interpreted by its defenders and its opponents will be discussed. Enlightenment and paradox 47

3

Enlightenment and paradox

That "enlightenment" is a term often applied by Enlightenment thinkers themselves does not close the case on our understanding of the Enlightenment mind as, in many instances, these self-analyses or descriptions are laced with the irony and wit that characterise their thought. Often the nature of the philosophes' work, juxtaposed to a scholastic orthodoxy, meant that from the outset their work was not immune to the charge of "shallow intellectualism".l On occasions their self-description provides little defence.2 The complexity of our understanding of Enlightenment thought is exacerbated when considering the body of scholarship that has been directed towards both its interpretation and its criticism. A corpus of detailed expositions of the works of Enlightenment thinkers defends the Enlightenment against the charge of superficiality. Scholars such as Ernst Cassirer, Peter Gay, John Brumfitt, Theodore Besterman and many others have revealed the intellectual breadth, rigour and the complexity of Enlightenment thought. From this genre comes both new images of Enlightenment thought, and new possibilities for opponents. In examining these images of Enlightenment thought I want to explore as well the kind of culture that nurtured the movement. As outlined in the preceding chapter the question of the relationship between faith and reason is far from resolved at the beginning of the eighteenth-century. I will argue that, while the thinkers of the

1 Both J.H. Brumfitt and Peter Gay cite this Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definition of Enlightenment. 2 For example, I. H. Brumfitt The French Enlightenmenf The Macmillan Press Ltd., Londory 1972,p.9 Enlightenment and paradox 48

Enlightenment were in opposition to the church, some being deists, others atheists, they established a culture that depends ultimately not on reason alone but on faith in a spirit of inquiry and in the value of critical engagement, allied to a belief in the worth of human collectivity, that cannot be encompassed under the rubric the "Age of Reason". Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self- incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Søpere øude! "Flave courage to use your own reason!" - that is the motto of the enlightenment.3

Thus Kant begins his response to the question, asked by the Berlinísche Monatschrift in 7784, "What is Enlightenment?" Later, in the same article, he responds to the rhetorical question "Do we now live in an enlightened øge?" Kant answers "No", but "we do live in an age of enlíghtenment".4 Both the question and Kant's direct engagement with it offer an understanding of the Enlightenment attitude to thought, as opposed to either "enlightenment" as a particular set of phitosophical principles or of historical prejudices. In this chapter I

3 Immanuel Kant "What is Enlightenment?"[1784] (trans' Lewis White Beck)in On History Lewis White Beck Ed. The Bobbs-Merrill Co Inc. Indianapolis,1963, p.3. Kant pointed out that the maxim of Horace was the motto adopted in 1736 by the Society of the Friends of Truth, an important circle in the German Enlightenment. Not that this is a particularly German formulation. Peter Gay quotes Voltaire saying "Dare to think for yourself" and this indicates the common heritage of these two ideas lies in the re- emergence of Stoic philosophy in the eighteenth century. Voltaire's Politics, The Poet as Reqlist Princeton University Press, Princeton, N'j., 1959, p.22. 4 Kant ibíd, p.8 Furbank explains that in the translation from German to English the term AuftIärung lnas been altered from the sense of "what is enlightening" to the noun- form Enlightenment, imposing a unity in'the' Enlightenment. P,N. Furbank "A definite article debagged" Times Higher Education Supplement 2 December 1988, p.15 Enlightenment and paradax 49

argue this attitude is a defining characteristic of the emerging critical culture. These two notions of "enlightenment" create an important, though ambiguous, relationship between what are identified as intellectual products of the Enlightenment (chiefly written texts, and the art, science, and music of the eighteenth century) and the attitude of enlightenment (something far less tangible but glimpsed in the motto above). Ambiguity is important for the way in which it energises critical culture. When we are critical of particular Enlightenment products, this is often directed towards the application of an enlightenment attitude. The Kant text provides a good example. After berating mankind for its laziness, cowardice and lack of maturity, Kant says: "the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind hnd by the entire føir seÐ.. . ."5 Even if the reader had "universalised" his earlier use of "man", this parenthetical dismissal of women outrages. We see it as immediately outrageous because we know that such dismissal of women does not accord with the facts. The notion of equality between the sexes now has the status of a cultural norm.6 Such was not the case in Kant's day. Nonetheless, proaided you had the courage to døre to knorn, Kant's prejudice could be expos ed in terms of his outn identificøtion of whøt enlightenment meøns. Kant, however, does not make this statement on the basis of reason but through repeating a prejudice. That the prejudice was common in his day does not excuse it. What we can now see is that by maintaining the prejudice he was not himself free of the kind of self- incurred tutelage he deplores, an irony which like ambiguity, has an important role in a critical culture. The courage to dare to know - to free yourself from tutelage - does mean that all our 'truths' need to be understood in terms of why we hold them. Are they a result of tutelage

5 Kant op.cit. p.3 (my italics) 6 This does not mean women have achieved full equality but that to articulate a position dismissive of women stands outside commonly espoused beliefs. The position of some Anglican bishops against the ordination of women would be an example of such behaviour. Enlightenment and paradox 50

or a result of an actual recognition either for ourselves or in ourselves of the significance of the use of such language? It is the recognition of the difference between these two attitudes that separates the enlightened from the "politically correct". "What is Enlightenment?" Here is a question so great in scope that Michel Foucault equated the attempts to answer it with modern philosophy itself. Whether or not the question is imprudent as he suggests, it still fascinates.T The proffered answers have failed to reduce its significance and indeed created a realm, which, while perhaps not co-extensive with all of modern 'western' philosophy, forms a large part of it. The question can be asked again and the answers do not lack relevance, interest, or significance. The question "what is enlightenment?" is not the same as "what was the Enlightenment?" A belief in public judgement and justification by reason, irrespective of the ascendancy or decline of particular intellectual seasons is fundamental to the notion of enlightenment which offers an "exit", a "way out" for contemporary thought.S Kant's response to the question posed by the B erlinische Monatschrift matches its "imprudence" with its audacity. His direct engagement with the question is interesting from a historical perspective. Here we see the response of a philosopher, influential in the creation of Enlightenment thought, writing about the Enlightenment as culture. This text, although minor in the context of Kant's philosophical system, is important. As Foucault says, this is a question that modern philosophy has not been capable of "getting rid of".9 Such persistence makes it all the more worthy of further discussion. Kant's motto of the Enlightenment contains more than just a statement of the value of reason. It celebrates reason in a passionate way, and in accusing many of "self-incurred tutelage", demands resolution and courage to "dare to know". Flowever, Kant specifically

7 Michel Foucault, "What is Enlightenment" trans. C. Porter in The Foucault Reader P. Rabinow ed. Pantheon Books, New York, 1.9M, p.32 8 ibid. p3a 9 ibid. p.32 Enlightenment and paradox 5l

removes the notion of "courage" from revolution or any particularly "political" action saying:

Perhaps a fall of personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be accomplished by revolution, but never true reform in ways of thinking' Rather, new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses. 10

For Kant revolution, understood as the overthrow of a despot, means little without a change in thinking. It is the act of being critical which Ieads to the initiation of political action. In the field of political action Cassirer points out the superiority of Romanticism, its superiority lying in "the breadth of its historical horizon and in its gift of the historical s€rrse,"11 though

[T]he concept of historical cultures, which Romanticism summons up against the Enlightenment and under whose banner it disputes the intellectual presuppositions of the preceding century, was discovered only as a result of the effectiveness of those presuppositions, that is to say, as a result of the ideas and the ideals of the Enlightenment. Without the aid of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and without its intellectual heritage, Romanticism could not have achieved or maintained its own position.l2

Ironically, a link rather than a disjunction between Romanticism and the Enlightenment cultural form acts as a general defence of political action which, without some prior articulation of a critical perspective, risks becoming quixotic. Further, for those with democratic aspirations, if "the masses are to change their status", it is hard to imagine a democratic society in which political action to remove oppression is not preceded by criticism and the articulation of possible changes to the social order. Kant says:

10 Kant op. cit. p.4 11 Cassirer op. cit, p.798 12 ibid. p.197 Enlightenment and paradox 52

Here is shown a strange and unexpected trend in human affairs in which almost everything, looked at in the large is paradoxical. A greater degree of civil freedom aPpears advantageous to the freedom of mind of the people, and yet it places inescapable limitations upon it; a lower degree of civil freedom, on the contrary, provides the mind with room for each man to extend himself to his full capacity.ta

In his answer to the question: wøs ist Auftlørung? Kant gives character to the age, a sense of its zeitgeist. For instance Kant is not saying that he is in some way more "enlightened" than those around him. Rather he situates himself historically, going on to say

we have clear indications that the field has now been opened wherein men may freely deal with these things and that the obstacles to general enlightenment or the release from self imposed tutelage are gradually being reduced. In this respect, this is the , or the century of Frederick."14

And, in an earlier reference to Frederick, King of Prussia (7740-1786), he presents the paradox: "Only one prince in the world says "Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!"1s Such statements, rather than lacking historical awareness are thoroughly grounded in the culture of the duy. This establishment in the Enlightenment of a mode of critical thought is an inextricable part of the continuity of western culture. A lack of awareness of its importance can open the culture to criticism that seeks to assert the primacy of other authorities, failing to recognise the act of criticism itself as recognition of the authority of enlightenment that confers 'citizenship' in a critical culture. Added to the tensions that Enlightenment thought generates is the irony that its most persistent mode of critique, the nostalgic idea of pre-

13 Kant op.cit, p.1,0 M ibid. p.9 15 ibid. p.5 Enlightenment and paradox 53

Enlightenment society, is itself a product of Enlightenment thought. This is the product of that most idiosyncratic of Enlightenment thinkers, Jean-]acques Rousseau (171.2-1778). His two most famous works The Discourse on the Origin of InequøIity and The Sociøl Contract describe utopias. The first is a golden age of natural man, the second a blend of Roman republicanism and the life of ancient Sparta.16 Even in his most republican work there are nostalgic echoes of the natural world. Book IV of The Sociøl Confiøct begins:

When we see among the happiest people in the world bands of peasants regulating the affairs of state under an oak tree, and always acting wisely, can we help feeling a certain contempt for the refinements of other nations, which employ so much skill and mystery to make themselves at once iliustrious and wretched?17

The use of the nostalgic form gives this atavistic scene an intensely personal character. Nostalgia, literally "a painful journey home", can be generated by what to others appear commonplace items - a child's toy, a certain food, even a particular smell. In its generalised political sense, however, it is more often than not employed in the invention of a "golden age", or a particular reading of a culture to create a utopian image. Such images come to play a role in the language and rhetoric of politics as they are often precursors to political action, but this was not Rousseau's intent. To give Rousseau's "anthropology" a genuine anthropological status is to miss its theoretical intent. In fact, in the preface to A Disclurse on InequøIíúy, Rousseau specifically rules out an understanding of his work as actual history, saying that he is attempting to attain knowledge of "a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, and will probably never exist." His

16 Shklar Men and Citizens, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985, p.1 17 ]ean-]acques Rousseau, The Social Contract trans. M. Cranston, Penguin Books,

Harmmondsworth, 1'9 68, p.1'49 Enlightenntent and paradox 54

purpose is to provide a sound idea of our origins so that we may judge our present state satisfactorily.tS Judith Shklar asserts that Rousseau was "the last great political thinker to be utterly uninterested in history, past or future, the last to judge and condemn without giving any thought to programs of action."19 She points out that his continuing importance is derived from "the acute psychological insight with which he diagnosed the emotional disease of modern civilization."20 A lack of genuine history is not an oversight but rather a recognition that, for the task Rousseau sets himself, history cannot provide the answer. It is as if knowledge of history alone will not prevent us from making the same mistakes. We must also seek to understand ourselves, our psychological make-up. These characteristics of Rousseau make him, paradoxically, the least susceptible among Enlightenment thinkers to the charge of a lack of historical perspective and lays a trap for those who would confuse his nostalgia with history. Rousseau's reading of the ills of society and its implications for possible remedies is so much at odds with his Enlightenment contemporaries that a claim that he is an Enlightenment (rather than counter-Enlightenment) thinker needs some justification. Cassirer for example does not make Rousseau a central figure in his exposition of the mind of the Enlightenment. As a Neo-Kantian Cassirer finds the work of Rousseau very important. In Rousseøu, Kønt and Goethe he sought to expand on Rousseau's influence on the German thinkers and in The Problem of leøn-lacques Rousseau he sought to understand Rousseau's thought as a whole. However, when identifying the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment his exemplars are "Voltaire and Montesquieu, Hume or Condillac, d'Lambert or Diderot, Wolff or Lambert". Brumfitt reluctantly excludes Rousseau from the scope of his work. He says "It is true that the last thing ]ean-Jacques would have wished would have been to be classed among the philosophes; ít

18 f.J. Rousseau in A Discourse on Inequality (Discourse) trans. M Cranston, Penguin, Harmmondsworth, 1984, p.68

19 J Shklar op.cit. p.1, 20 ibid. Enlightenment and paradox 55

is true that one can advance good reasons why he should not be. Yet in many ways he remains a man of the Enlightenment, and . . . in many others he transcends it, and can only be fully comprehended in the Iight of later developments".2t I have chosen not to deal directly with Rousseau in the central discussion of the thesis because of the complexity of his relationship with the work of other phílosophes. In the works selected Rousseau's presence is not overlooked. While Montesquieu influenced rather than was influenced by Rousseau, the relationships between Rousseau and Voltaire and Rousseau and Diderot are critical. This is seen in particular in Diderot's characterizations in Rameøu's Nephew but also in Rousseau's general wariness to the new optimism and the belief in progress evident in other Enlightenment thinkers. While Rousseau's diagnosis of the ills of society and its possible remedies is at odds with his contemporaries, his use of reason is not. Indeed Kant describes Rousseau as the Newton of the moral world.22 This does not mean that Rousseau was applying Newtonian method to the social world, but rather that the quality of his insight was of the same order of magnitude for the understanding of the social world. Kant says

Newton was the first to see order and regularity combined with great simplicity, where disorder and ill-matched variety had reigned before. Since then comets have been moving in geometric orbits. Rousseau was the first to discover the variety of shapes that men assume the deeply concealed nature of man and to observe the hidden law that justifies

21. Cassirer op.cit. p.ix; Rousseøu, Knnt and Goethe Princeton, 1945; The Question of lean-lacques Rousseau 2nd Edition, Edited and translated by Peter Gay, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1.989; J. H. Brumfift The French Enlightenment Macmillan, London, 7972, pp.7-8. 22 I. Kant Gesammelte Schriften vol. 20, p.SB cited by W. Cristaudo The Metøphysics of Science and Freedom Avebury, Aldershot, 7991,,p.11.9 n.l Enlightenment and Paradox 56

Providence . . ..After Newton and Rousseau, God is justified, and from now on Pope's maxim is true.23

So, while Rousseau is certainly eccentric, his use of reason and his profound influence on other Enlightenment thinkers justifies his inclusion as an Enlightenment thinker, and enlarges an already broad picture of the Enlightenment. In summarising his influence on the history of the idea of general will ]udith Shklar points out the irony that Rousseau,

the last defender of the agrarian republic was transformed lin nineteenth century political thought) into the founding father of the modern nation state, and the general will of the European peasantry was made to serve as the justification for industrial progress and political centralizatíon.2a

This is not altogether surprising for, while Rousseau's nostalgia is a motif used by the counter-Enlightenment, he has a far more penetrating eff ect on Enlightenment thought. He fits the Enlightenment type in his belief in reason but he is unique in the area of human life in which he chooses to exercise it. It is through Rousseau that we get the most explicit direction for the use of reason in the creation of the social world. As Patrick Riley points out, it is Rousseau's response to the problem of man's fallibiiity in the face of the task that he must perform - the creation of the social world - that leads away from the metaphysical to the realm of ethics and politics.2s Cassirer points out that

23I. Kant Werke (Hartenstein ed.). V[I, p.630 quoted by E, Cassirer inThe Question of lean-lacques Rousseau op.cit. p.72 Pope's maxim is "The ProPer study of Mankind is Man" line 296 of Pope's Essay on ManinThe Poems of Alexander Pope j' Butt ed., Methuen&Co Ltd, London, 1.963, p.51'6

24 J. N. Shklar, "General Will" in Dictionøry of the History of ldeas, P. P. Wiener ed' Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973 25 Patrick Riley Tfre General WilI Before Rlusseau, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1986 Enlightenment and paradox 57

Kant regarded Rousseau not as a founder of a new 'system' but as a thinker who possessed a new conception of the nature and function of philosophy, of its vocation and dignity. "f am myself by inclination a seeker after truth" he wrote at forty. "I feel a consuming thirst for knowledge and a restless passion to advance in it, as well as satisfaction in every forward step. There was a time when I thought that this alone could constitute the honor of mankind, and I despised the common man who knows nothing. Rousseau set me right. This blind prejudice vanished; I learned to respect human nature and I should consider myself far more useless than the ordinary working-man if I did not believe that this could give worth to all others to establish the rights of man.26

Rousseau sought to understand the constructive and destructive possibilities through an understanding of the sell a recognition that criticism is always an individual product. As Peter Gay points out, Rousseau's "one great principle" - that humanity is good, that society makes people bad, but that only society, the agent of perdition, can be the agent of salvation - is a critical tool.27 In Rousseau we find the clearest statement of the principle of criticism/ expressed in a way that Rousseau's contemporaries failed to recognise. The act of criticism, mirroring the irony contained in its founding principle, becomes the major source of redemption in a society that becomes more atheistic through the operation of the principle. For Rousseau the critical stance is taken up in the light of the following expectation: "We can succeed only if we avoid attempting the impossible and flattering ourselves that we can give the work of man a durability that does not belong to human beings."28 These complexities have implications for the kind of understanding it is possible to have of the Enlightenment, and for the kind of critique

26 Cassirer, inRousseau, Kant and Goethe op.cit.Princeton, 1945 p.1-2

27 Introduction to E. Cassirer The Question of lean-lacques Rousseau op.cit. p.27 28 I.I. Rousseau The Social Contract Book III chapter 71, op.cit. p.1.34 Enlightenment and paradox 58

that can be mounted against the Enlightenment. To develop a philosophical position (as distinct from an attitude) that could be given, uncontroversially, a generic title "Enlightenment thought" pays little attention to the outcome of the era or to the flair, originality, and inadequacies of Enlightenment thinking. For the critic of the Enlightenment to adopt such a stance, missing the complexity and breadth provided by its internal critical elements, also misses being a 'critic' and positions himself or herself as opponent. Given the Enlightenment thinker's use of the term "enlightenment" and the acknowledged prejudice within the body of Enlightenment thought, enlightenment is perhaps best understood as an attitude to thought. In this way the failure of particular Enlightenment thinkers to display that attitude can be identified without leading to a dismissal of their entire work. Ernst Cassirer suggests that the Enlightenment mind did not see the role of thought only as a means to reflect on observations but believed in an original spontaneity of thought. Thought, in this milieu, becomes not merely responsive but has the power and the task of shaping life itself. Cassirer explains, "thought consists not only in analysing and dissecting, but actually bringing about that order of things which it conceives as necessary, so that by this act of fulfilment it may demonstrate its own reality and truth."29 He argues that this attitude derived from a fundamental agreement amongst Enlightenment thinkers, irrespective of the diversity of their positions, on the role of reason in solving problems in the social world. For most it meant the attempted application of Newtonian method to the study of metaphysics. Of this tenet of Enlightenment thought, Cassirer says

For the goal and basic pre-supposition of Newtonian research is universai order and law in the material world. Such regularity means that facts as such are not mere matter, they are not a jumble of discrete elements: on the contrary, facts exhibit an all pervasive form. This form appears in

29 E. Cassirer The Philosophy of the Enlightenment trans, Fritz C. A, Koelln and James P. Pettegrove, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 1968, p.viii Enlightenment and paradox 59

mathematical determinations and in arrangements according to measure and number. But such arrangements cannot be foreseen in the mere concept; they must rather be shown to exist in the facts themselves. The procedure is thus not from concepts and axioms to phenomena but vice versa. Observation produces the datum of science; the principle and law are the object of investigation.30

While this application of a schema from physics and the emphasis on empirical data provides the modern origin of a trajectory of thought that leads to positivism, it is important to distinguish between the nineteenth-century development of positivism and that of the Enlightenment empiricists. In the positivist environment the question of God has been "dealt with", the questions of metaphysics being hived off to theology. Comte for example sees the need to reintroduce, if not a new God at least, a'rationai'religion. The Enlightenment thinker, however, had to contend with both spheres or rather, did not recognise these as distinct spheres but part of the whole. Thus, for the Enlightenment thinker, empiricism and systematic inquiry do not lead to a subordination of thought to 'system' but the reverse - the claims of a theistic "system" were challenged by thought. This means that while on the one hand it is in the eighteenth century the conception of the universe as a 'Chain of Being' gains its widest diffusion and acceptance,3l it is this idea that Enlightenment thought eventually challenges and dismantles. In Cassirer's argument, in the methodology of eighteenth century thought "the value of system, the 'esprit systemøtiqlte', is neither underestimated nor neglected; but it is sharply distinguished from the love of system for its own sake, the 'esprít de systeme'!32 From Voltaire he adds:

We must, of course, abandon all hope of ever wresting from things their ultimate mystery, of ever penetrating to the

30 ibid. p.8 31 A.O. Lovejoy The Great Chain of Being: A Study ot' the History ot' an ldea Harper&Brothers, New York, 1960, p.183 32 Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment op.cit. p.uiii Enlightenrnent and Parødox ffi

absolute being of matter or of the human soul. If however we refer to empirical law and order, the "inner core of nature" proves by no means inaccessible. In this realm we can establish ourselves and proceed in every direction. The power of reason does not consist in enabling us to transcend the human world but rather in teaching us to feel at home in it .33

It is also from the application of Newtonian method to an area previously the preserve of metaphysics that the Enlightenment gains its attitude to reason. Beginning with Pope's exhortation, cited by Kant, that "the proper study of Mankind is Man", Cassirer argues that "no century has been so permeated by the idea of intellectual progress".34 To the Enlightenment mind, reason provided sufficient power to drive that progress. This position Cassirer contrasts with the seventeenth century attitude to reason predicated on the construction of a system.3s Peter Gay's reference to the Enlightenment as not the Age of Reason but the age of criticism, 36 points our understanding of Enlightenment in a new direction. This direction however, can be obscured by his description of the Enlightenment as "modern paganism", a modification of Gay's previous characterisation of the Enlightenment as "the party of humanity".zz These nuances can become important, especially when one considers the origins of the postmodern critique

33 Voltaire cited in ibid. p.12 3a ibid. p.5 35 ibid. It is on this point that Enlightenment thought has most affinity with Descartes. See P. Schouls Descørtes ønd the Enlightenmenl McGill-Queens University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1.989, pp. 171'4 36 Gay The Enlightenment: An Interpretation vol.l. The Rise ot' Modern Pøgønism op.cit. p.141 37 "The Enlightenment in the History of Political Theory", Political Science Quarterly no.69 September 1954. This is also the title of Gay's collection of essays on the French Enlightenment first published in 1959. Enlightenment and paradox 6I

in the anti-humanist tradition of Nietzsche and Heidegger.3s Gay's move from "humanity" to "paganism" is intended to focus the activity of criticism on secularisation but there is an ambiguity in the term "paganism" as it does not immediately connote 'the secular' but rather 'not belonging to the true religion', or just 'not Christian'. Guy chooses the term "paganism" to indicate that the phílosophes' attack on the Christian inheritance is "dependent upon the paganism of classical antiquity" but also constitutive of a modern paganism.39 This opens the way, not intended by Gay's argument, for a conception of modern paganism as enshrining reason as a god. The focus of the Enlightenment is on the function of human reason, not its elevation to the status of a godhead. It is also possible to retain its humanity without rejecting tradition, as Gay is careful to point out in his exploration of t}.e philosophes' understanding of the intellectual antecedents of Enlightenment thought in Stoicism and Epicureanism.4o Referring to what he sees as the philosophes' combination of shrewd understanding and ideological myopia, Gay says "They never wholly discarded that final, most stubborn illusion that bedevils realists - the illusion that they were free of illusions. This distorted their perception and gave many of their judgements a certain shallowness." He then acknowledges and proceeds to chronicle the phílosophes' "aggressive éløn" as characteristic of the "enlightened ãge".47 In an era where ideologies are more suspect, Gay's identification of the philosophes "shallowness", combined with their "élØn" might not require the kind of apology Gay makes for their lack of ideological sophistication. The eclectic incorporation of ideas into Enlightenment culture produces a synthesis of ideas from varying metaphysics, rather than

38 Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, French Philosophy ot' the Sixties trans. M.H.S. Cattini, University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. 39 Cay The Enlightenment: An Interpretation vol.1. The Rise of Modern Paganism op.cit. preface p.xi 40 ibid. pp.31-59 41. ibid. p.27 Enlightennw nt and paradox 62

the deliberate construction of a new metaphysic. For the individual this requires courage. As Kant says, "only one who himself is enlightened is not afraid of shadows. ..".42 Nonetheless Kant places limits on the individual within the community which again led to the public and the private use of reason. There is, in the public world, a sphere where one must obey irrespective of personal reason. Thus the soldier should not debate an order but his right to make remarks on military service cannot equitably be refused him as a scholar. A citizen cannot refuse to pay taxes and yet, Kant points out, the same person does not act contrary to his duty as a citizen when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts on the inappropriateness or even injustice of these levies. The clergyman, as a representative of the church, has an obligation to teach the teachings of the church while, as a scholar, he has an obligation to make suggestions for the better organization of the church.a3 This method of meeting one's obligations while still retaining a critical perspective fits in with another motif in Kant's view of the Enlightenment, that of maturity:

It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me/ a physician who d.ecides my diet and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think. If I can only pay - others will readily undertake the irksome work for me 44

An awareness of the complexity of social orders, for Kant, comes with a maturing of thought. True or complete maturity may well be unattainable but it d.oes not stop us from recognising immaturity. Children often see solutions to problems in terms of "if only x or y were not the case then everything would be fantastic." Maturity requires the recognition that life represents a constant struggle to come to terms with complex and changing situations and that no single

42 Kant op.cit. p.5 43 ibid. p.5-6 4a ibid. p.3 Enlightenment and paradox 63

factor, no matter how sophisticated its construction, is going to provide a lasting solution. The Enlightenment, then, leaves us with a methodological commitment to criticism, and a cultural form that is difficult to defend because of that commitment. Because there is no declared metaphysical system, despite the fact that many of the attitudes of Enlightenment thought emerge out of particular metaphysics, criticism is both its creating and undermining motif. It must, to be consistent, welcome any criticism, for any original criticism strengthens the spirit of the Enlightenment. This creates a culture that would be all pervasive, but must be permanently vulnerable to critique. The effects of this paradox are discussed in the next chapter. Critiques of the EnlightenmenÍ 64

1

Critiques of the Enlightenment

A critical perspective is part of the intellectual inheritance from the Enlightenment so that there is often no clear delineation between Enlightenment thought and its critique. Assertions of what Enlightenment was, or is, should be viewed with a critical eye. If enlightenment an attitude to reason which demands the right to question everything, is the defining characteristic of Enlightenment thought, it is not criticism that is at odds with our understanding of the Enlightenment, for the action of criticism reaffirms the attitude to reason fostered by Enlightenment thinkers. The most trenchant recent criticism labels the Enlightenment a failed "project". This style is exemplified by Alasdair Maclntyre who extracts from Enlightenment thought

an aspiration, the formulation of which was itself a great achievement, to provide for debate in the public realm standards and methods of rational justification by which alternative courses of action could be adjudged just or unjust, rational or irrational, enlightened or unenlightened. So, it was hoped, reason would displace authority and tradition.l

Maclntyre argues that the Enlightenment failed to provide principles that would be found "undeniable by all rational persons". As differing rationøles were offered by the authors of the Encyclopé.die, and by Rousseau, Bentham, and Kant he concludes that the Enlightenment ideal of rational justification is impossible.

\ Whose lustice? Which ? (WIWR) University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, "1988, p.6 Critiques of the Enlightenment 65

What the Enlightenment made us for the most part blind to and what we now need to recover is. . . a conception of rational enquiry as embodied in a tradition, a conception according to which the standards of rational justification themselves emerge from, and are part of, a history in which they are vindicated by the way in which they transcend the limitations of, and provide remedies for, the defects of their predecessors within the history of the same tradition.2

Arguing from the conviction that "each particular conception of justice requires as its counterpart some particular conception of practical rationality and vice versa," Maclntyre concludes

So Aristotle's conception of justice and practical rationality articulated the claims of one particular type of practice-based community, partially exemplified in the polis, while Aquinas', like Ibn Roschd's or Maimonides', express the claims of a more complex form of community in which religious and secular elements coexist within an integrated whole. So Hume's conception of justice and of the relationship of reasoning to action was both at home in and expressed the claims of a particular form of English or Anglicizing society ordered in terms of mutualities and reciprocities of passion and interest. That Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hume were historically situated in the way that they were, themselves, members of just such forms of community, who were inescapably involved in the conflicts central to the historically developing life of those communities at those times and places, is not then a merely accidental or peripheral fact about the philosophy of each.3

Further, it is entirely consistent to be an Aristotelian, Thomist or a Flumean in present society because, he argues, such modes of social organisation still exist. Maclntyre's recognition that these modes of life exist within modern society, however, does not extend to the assertion of a cultural value for modernity or liberalism. Maclntyre's central thesis in

2(wlwR) ibid,p.7 3 ibid. p.389 Critiques of the Enlightenment 75

speech and equal citizenship rights - were unchallenged. However, in the face of a challenge the theoreticat g"p created by the competing arguments about what constitutes the "self" becomes a liability to the preservation and development of liberal values and institutions. This is particularly true when the attack comes from a fundamentalist cultural minority within a multi-cultural, ethically plural society. Counter-Enlightenment and communitarian arguments have been conducted in a manner that has not of itself been damaging to critical culture. But there have been episodes in the history of communitarian thought that have oppressed critical culture. Communitarian arguments have been used to justify the Nazi and Italian Fascist regimes and also apartheid in South Africa. These episodes are not used by adherents of the communitarian thought as exemplars; when they are mentioned they are scorned. Nonetheless there is a threat, implied or real, to the attitude of enlightenment in the authority placed on values derived from 'community'. This can and has been used to allow an inroad of irrationality. A legacy of this debate is that a construction of the Enlightenment as fundamentally anti-culture, or anti-tradition, gains an unjustified currency. To the extent that counter-Enlightenment arguments balance any tendencies for liberal thought to atomism, abstraction, or unwarranted emphasis on individualism, they participate in critical culture. To the extent that they construct the political doctrine of Iiberalism and its central aim of political freedom as necessørily atomistic, abstract, and unconcerned with sociability, they misconstrue the nature of the political doctrine and undermine critical culture. There are strong critiques of the Enlightenment which for various reasons do not engage directly with Enlightenment thought. For example, Marxist, feminist, and historicist critiques tend to be based on perceived absences within Enlightenment thought - they are critical on the basis of what the Enlightenment was not. These views can be shown to owe an unacknowledged debt to the Enlightenment, and to their misrepresentations. Marx and Engels, while influenced by contemporary French socialists tended to dismiss French thought in the phrase 'French utopian socialism' as well as characterizing it as bourgeois. For Marxist scholarship the Critiques of the Enlightenment 76

Enlightenment's status as a bourgeois phenomenon makes it suspect,2s yet the issue is a complex one. While it might be tempting to describe the Enlightenment as essentially bourgeois this approach has its dangers. The arguments of the eighteenth century did not share the interest in the idea of class struggle or the revolutionary potential of the proletariat that flourished in nineteenth century thought. Brumfitt points out the diverse means and locations whereby social reform was Proposed or occured in the European Enlightenment.

[I]n some countries, political and social reforms were to be undertaken primarily by enlightened despots; in France, the aristocracy was to make an important contribution to the ferment of ideas which characterized the Regency and the period immediately preceding it. Yet it is in the countries where the middle classes were most powerfui - England, Holland, France and parts of Germany - that the Enlightenment first took rooti it was on balance, the bourgeois who contributed most to it (though in the case of France, this could be disputed); it was certainly, for the most part, middle- class ideals that it preached.26

This eighteenth-century paradox is discussed later in relation to Voltaire's shifting political allegiances. Here I emphasise the point that class analysis is a nineteenth-century invention. The dismissal of a Enlightenment thought in a critique of class analysis is problematic because of the ahistorical disengagement with the context of Enlightenment thought. The diffusion of the class critique in Marxist influenced theory such as strands of feminism, and postmodernism, means that these problems are set aside, not resolved. Enlightenment thought is necessarily not subject to any real investigation, but dismissed or used pejoratively, as if its failure were self-evident. An example of the sort of easy dismissal that can be made is that of Di Stefano, who refers without explanation to the "[h]umanistic pretensions of the Enlightenment and liberal political

25 P. E. Corcoran Bet'ore Marx: socialism and communism in France Macmillan, London, 1983,pp.1,-29

261I{ Brumfitt The French Enlightenment The Macmillan Press Ltd., London, "1972, p.20 Critiques of the Enlightenment 71

discourse" 2T and the "arrogant" and "problematic" Enlightenment view of nature.28 Of course Enlightenment ideas are not immune from criticism - it is my argument that criticism is their essence - here we can distinguish between critical engagement and a dismissive critique. Among the paradoxes of the Enlightenment the contradictory views of the relation of women and reason led too easily to a rejection of the philosophical possibilities of paradox. In arguing for a fuller feminist engagement with Enlightenment thought Sylvana Tomaselli states:

If feminism is to retain its position as one of the more effective and successful critiques of culture of our times while building its own theoretical construct out of the culture's shared assumptions, then it seems to me it can only stand to gain by meticulously avoiding all over-simplifications and casting its net as far as possible and facing øll that is thought by and of women.2e

This very argument for a more careful examination also underlies another form of critique of the Enlightenment, based on the assumption of historical unsophistication of Enlightenment thinkers. Historicism as a belief that social relations are best understood through an understanding of historical epochs, has been directed against Enlightenment use of reason. F{owever, Eniightenment writing is not devoid of a historical sense. Voegelin states "Increasingly in the eighteenth century the sentiment grows that one age has come to its close and that a new age of Western civilization is about to be born," but the sense of epoch is not itself the invention of the eighteenth century. Voegelin identifies it first in the thirteenth century in the writing of Joachim of Flora and points out

While the eighteenth century's consciousness of epoch is a continuation of the movement that started in the thirteenth century, it is distinguished from the earlier phases of this Process by its increased intensity, by a comprehensiveness which embraces all

27 Christine Di Stefano "On Marx" in Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory ML Shanley and C. Pateman (eds.) Polity Press, Cambridge, 1'991, p'1'48

28 ibid, p.1.56 29 "The Enlightenment Debate on Women" History Workshop lournal vo1.20,1985, p.722 Critiques of the Enlightenment 78

aspects of human existence, above all by its broad social effectiveness which results in the final disruption of medieval sentiments of the Western community and Paves the way for new types of schismatic political movements.3O

Eighteenth century thought does not necessarily become 'historicist' in its approach. Foucault identifies three methods of philosophical reflection on the present preceding Kant, first where the present belongs "to a certain era of the world, distinct from the others through some inherent characteristics, or separated from others by some dramatic event ", giving as an example Plato's The Statesmøn, sitvated in "one of those revolutions of the world in which the world is turning backwards, with all the negative consequences that may ensue." Secondly, "the present may be interrogated in an attempt to decipher in it the heralding signs of a forthcoming event" aS in the manner of Augustinian historical hermeneutics. Foucault's third method is that of the eighteenth century Neopolitan Vico, "a complete humanity . . . sPread abroad through all nations, for a few great monarchs rule over this world of peoples", where, "Europe . . . radiant with such humanity that it abounds in all the good things that make for the happiness of human life." Foucault then contrasts Kant's view of History:

Now the way Kant poses the question of Auftlørung is entirely different: it is neither a world era to which one belongs, nor an event whose signs are perceived, nor the dawning of an accomplishment. Kant defines Auftlørung in an almost negative way, as an Ausgøng, an "exit" a "way out". ...He is not seeking to understand the present on the basis of a totality or of a future achievement. He is looking for a difference: what difference does today introduce with respect to yesterday?3l

Kant d.oes not share Vico's historical sense of the actions of "Providence",

30 E. VoegelinFrom Enlightenment to Rnolutionl.H. Hallowell ed., Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1975, op.cit. pp.3 - 31 M. Foucault, "What is Enlightenment" trans. C. Porter ín The Foucault Reader P. Rabinow ed. Pantheon Books, New York, 79M,p.33 Critiques of the Enlightenment 79

which Berlin sees as an anticipation of Hegel's "Cunning of History."32 Kant sees in his own age the development of a mechanism of progress but it lies in an attitude to thought rather than in a particular existing tradition. This attitude represents, for Kant, the difference between his era and the past. The future, in Kant's understanding, exists beyond the ausgang and, left in the hands of the "maturing" of thought, is largely undetermined. In this chapter I have made brief reference to critiques which have contemporary significance. My purpose is not the dismantling of these arguments - the sketches here are necessarily too brief - but to point out the way in which each fails to engage with the central paradox of Enlightenment thought, the place of criticism. A critical culture, as a product of the quest for personal freedom, is threatened by that which it most prízes, critical inquiry. When this method is directed towards the establishment of a new orthodoxy, and this I have differentiated by the term 'critique', the methodological standpoint of the 'spirit' of the Enlightenment is quenched. The doctrine of liberaiism cannot be relied on for the defence of the culture with which it has most affinity. Paradox is in a sense the nature of enlightenment. When we see what we did not see, everything we saw before that moment is now in question. When its spirit is quenched, how is it rekindled? How is criticism preserved as a method of inquiry? In the three chapters which follow these questions are asked of each of three philosophes. This approach is prompted by the desire to discover more about the critical engagement of the Enlightenment thinkers, to understand what Voltaire meant in saying "I am like one of those little streams which is clear because they are shallow"33 - thus anticipating the Shorter Oxford En glísh D ictionøry definition of Enlightenment

Shallow and pretentious intellectualism, unreasonable contempt for authority and tradition, etc.; applied esp. to the spirit and aims of

32 I. Berlin Vico and Herder'.Two Studies in theHistory ot' ldeas The Viking Press, New York,

1976, p.36.

33 Brumfitt op.cit. p.9 Critiques of the Enlightenment 80

the French philosophers of the 18th c.3a An attempt to defend the Enlightenment from this second interpretation, can mean losing a Sense of the age contained within Voltaire's paradox. To defend Enlightenment use of reason from its own liberating spirit is to obscure rather than elaborate the wider culture. If we take Voltaire's word play as representative of an attitude in the Enlightenment there is a stark contrast to the "project" Maclntyre porftays. What Maclntyre identifies is not so much a product of the Enlightenment uses of criticism but what has become of the culture of criticism sínce the Enlightenment. It is, after all, Maclntyre, in his critique of the Enlightenment, who reminds us that one of its greatest figures was not a philosopher but a musician - Mozart.3s The "lightness" of the Enlightenment had consequences for the way in which ideas were exchanged. Rather than being a nationalist phenomenon, Brumfitt characterises the Enlightenment as "essentially cosmopolitan"36 and says that while national feelings existed, leading for instance to resistance among French scientists to Newtonianism, cultural internationalism was even more apparent. He continues:

Vico never imagined he would get a sympathetic hearing in his native Naples, and appealed to the Dutch journals instead. When, in7782, the French Encyclopédie méthodique suggested that European culture owed little to Spain, patriotic Spaniards were understandably angered. Yet the most effective reply to the Encyclopédie's article did not come from one of them but from an Italian, Carlo Denina; and it took the form of a speech delivered in French before the Royal Academy of Prussia.3T

34 Oxford English Dictionary. The French term"Iumier¿s" and the German "øufkløter" avoid this connotation. P.N.Furbank, "A definite article debagged" op'cit. p.1'5 35 Maclntyre (AV) p.37 36 Brumfitt op.cit. p.27 37 ibid. Vico's frequent identification as a counter-Enlightenment figure (I. Berlin op.cit.l makes this an interesting example of the way in which the culture is independent of the "project"'. Critiques of the Enlightenment 8l

Perhaps the over-riding irony of the Enlightenment is that, as a radical movement, its pronouncements rapidly acquired a conservative overlay. The interest in universality generated ideas disrespectful of time or place. The assertion of human rights as "self-evident truths" made in the American Declaration of Independence is at the same time radical and conservative. The idea and intent provides a radical political shift but the rhetoric cloaks it in an immutable certaintY, the idea being rendered apparently concrete in a rhetoric that implies 'twas ever thus'. Whilst politically masterly, this shift is philosophically dangerous because it obscures the criticøl origins of the idea. When human conditions fail to meet either the rhetorical expectation or the actual intent, this cloak of immutability provides an impetus for a new radicalism, ironically directed against that most radical and potent of ideas - human equality. In a cuiture of criticism that decays into a polarised debate, the facility of Enlightenment culture to generate ambiguity and thus the play with paradox is disabled. Images of the Enlightenment constructed by both defenders and opponents contain truths about Eniightenment thought which need to be viewed as part of the same "modern" picture, like an optical illusion that contains two images that emerge then disappear only to re-emerge as the mind is drawn back to testing the alternative hypothesis.3s The retrieval of the Entightenment made by Cassirer, Gay and others is directed against the charge of "shallow and pretentious intellectualism". Their defence creates an image of the Enlightenment characterized by the secuiar use of reason, so that Gay can refer to the Enlightenment as "modern paganism". This account engages with the charge it seeks to answer but at the risk of affirming an image of the Enlightenment as entirely based on reason, which leads to the further dismissal as a 'failed

38 For example the illusion that is either a candlestick or two faces looking at each other' There are also other, ambiguous drawings which reveal a young women and a crone. To resolve such ambiguity the mind seems to test different hypotheses and each is entertained the content of the picture oscillates between the explanations. The important point is that the possibilities in these pictures are dependent on our having knowledge of, and being willing to entertain, the alternatives. Once aware of the second image, it is impossible to exclude it from view. Critiques of the Enlightenment 82 project'. Here is amPle scope for the Maclntyre critique of the Enlightenment as a project that not only failed but destroyed the vitality of social life. Such a construction of the Enlightenment also invites deconstruction, as suggested in reference to Foucault's critique. By considering the critical culture of the Enlightenment I want to shift the focus from such images in order to argue for an aspect overlooked in asserting Enlightenment secularism. I hope to bring into focus the spirit abroad in Enlightenment thought, a spirit that sustains and is sustained by a critical use of reason and creates a 'culture of criticism'. The proclamation of reason as a method does not mean either that the philosophers could themselves become purely rational or that they aimed to create a purely rational society. That Enlightenment philosophy has as its goal a quest for truth, does not preclude divergence of thought. On the contrary, searches for truth created a multiplicity of positions, though they used the same guide - reason. It is important to see in the Enlightenment both a commonality of method and an accommodation of diversity. What we ultimately make of this diversity of views depends on what our expectations are for any intellectual endeavour, not only that of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment developed a culture of critical activity. This was a time when the passion behind the assertion, (attributed to Voltaire), that 'while I disagree with what you say,I will defend to the death your right to say it', imagined a realm of rational discourse, a civil forum for the application of reason to social dilemmas. In mid-eighteenth century France, this forum did not exist and was sought in a political revolution. Our understanding of the Enlightenment's radicalism is confined by rigid ideological positions that have stifled the kind of critical culture that was the philosophes' proudest boast, whether this confinement is the result of the passage of time, the constitution of the modern state or, most paradoxically, the action of criticism itself. The cultural innovation of criticism as the primary means of change invites an understanding of the diverse intellectual life of the eighteenth century, a culture conducive to, rather than subverted by, enlightenment thought. Effective criticism requires both an author who is something less than "authority" and a readership wiliing to take on a role of "author". The "wuy out" (or perhaps more correctly "ways out") provided both by the authors and readers of Enlightenment writing has, through the accretion Critiques of the Enlightenment 83

of ideologicat belief, been transformed into a wall, a rigid construction of modernity from which there appears to be no exit. This demands not so much increasing radicalisation of political action but a radical challenge to the role of the intellect. Such a move leads to radicalism becoming a value that can, in the end, deny meaning to literatuÍe, art and culture, ultimately to humanity itself. This is the tendency towards níhilism that is the potential of the articulation of free thought This tendency can either be celebrated, as it is by postmodernists, or used to provide the arguments for the defence of various other cultural positions. A reinterpretation of the Enlightenment as a culture reveals that both the tendency to nihilism and the defence against it can be accommodated. It would be wrong to say that the culture of the Enlightenment has not contributed to the current state of its understanding. The ease with which it has been caricatured means that there is some truth in the portrayal' Enlightenment culture was adept at pointing out the flaws in the preceding intellectual traditions - but was cavalier about its own fate. But I am anticipating what must now be shown, that much of what appears new in postmodernism is present in French Enlightenment writing. In the next three chapters I explore what it meant to be a philosophe in a discussion of five works by three writers, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Diderot. I choose French thinkers because recent interpretation of the Enlightenment is read through the German tradition of Nietzsche and Heidegger and the Frankfurt 'critical theory' school, a trend followed even by French authors, whether postmodernists or critics of postmodernism.3g The selection of works is directed by the criterion of "lightness", revealed ín The Persiøn Letters of Montesquieu, Cøndide and the Philosophicnl Dictionørq of Voltaire, and løcques the Føtølisú and Rømeøu's Nephal by Diderot, rather than any more systematic attempts at philosophy. Each discussion begins with brief biographical detail to situate the writings within the author's lives in acknowledgment of the

39 The work of the Frankfurt School, in particular Horkheimer andAdorno's Dialectic ot' the Enlightenment is not considered in the scope of this thesis because it is hoped to develop a clearer understanding of Enlightenment thought through direct assessment of Enlightenment texts. Critiques of the Enlightenment 84 way both were imbued with the spirit of Enlightenment as a critical culture. Montesquieu 85

5

Montesquieu

Life

Charles-Louis de Secondat was born in 1.689, the name 'Montesquieu' one of the hereditary titles to which he had claim.l His family connections also entitled him to the office président à mortier in the Bordeaux parlement, an office he duly sold.2 After receiving a law degree from the University of Bordeaux in 7708, he studied in Paris, returning home on the death of his father in 171,3. Two years later he married Jeanne Lartigue, a Protestant, a distinct social disadvantage at the time.3 Until the publication of the Persian Letters in7721., Montesquieu filled the role expected of minor nobility and as a member of the Academy of Bordeaux produced papers on a variety of subjects ranging from a Dissertøtion on Roman Policy øs to Religion (1776) to a Discourse on the Function of Kidneys (7778).4 Unlike some other French Enlightenment writers Montesquieu, in his official capacity administered rather than occupied a prison.s Although the Persiøn Letters is important in the development of the culture of the Enlightenment,6 Montesquieu's later

1 J. Robert Loy MontesquieuTwayne Publishers, New York,1968,p.L6 2 Loy reflects: "One might conclude that a man capable of spending his life in search of the spirit of the law could find little interest in and courage for the pedestrian, every-day application of existing laws." Loy op.cit. p.79

3 J .Shklar Montesquieu Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987,p.2 4 Loy op.cit p38

5 Shklar op,cit. p.5 6 R. F. O'Reilly suggests later writers such as Samuel Richardson, Rousseau and Laclos may have learned from the "highly polished example of epistolary style" of the Persiøn Montesquieu 86

work does not develop this fictional style. The monumental work L'esprit des lois was published in 7748. In 7722 he returned to the sølon society of Paris, leaving his wife to control his estates. During his travels in Europe from 1728 to 7737 Montesquieu recorded that "When I arrive in a city,I always go upon the highest church steeple or tower, to see the whole together before seeing all the parts; and, as I leave the city I do the same, to fix my ideas."7 His empiricism leads to one view of Montesquieu as a founder of social science, but as the investigation of the Persiøn Letters will show, it is not his only perspective. Montesquieu also shared in an Anglophile strand of the French Enlightenment. Diderot pointed out that Montesquieu, like Voltaire, was a "pupil and follower of England's philosophers and great men" and that "without the English, reason and philosophy would still be in the most despicable infancy in France."8 Although Diderot was the only distinguished man of letters to attend Montesquieu's funeral in 1755,9 the latter's subsequent influence on the philosophes' circle, on the developments of a critical culture, and of social science were dramatic. In his first work his enigmatic and paradoxical traits emerge and in this style is a true "original" of the Enlightenment.

Persian Letters

Montesquieu's Persiøn Letters was published anonymously in Holiand ín7727, running to ten editions in the first year. 10 It precedes his most famous work by some twenty-seven yeals and while important themes are anticipated in it, the work should not only be viewed in the shadow of t}ne Spirit of the løws. It is important as a philosophical novel and in the

Lettus. "The structure and meaning of the Lettres persønes" Studies on Voltaire and the

Eighteenth Century vol.LXV[, 1.969, p.129

7 Montesquieu, cited by Loy op.cit, p.766

8 Diderot Guores,III, 41.6, quoted by Gay The Enlightenment: An Interpretation vol.1' The

Rise ot' Modern Paganism, Wildwood House London, 1966,p.12

9 Shklar op.cit. p.23 10 Montesqtieu Persian Letters t1721,lQL) trans. C'j' Betts, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, frontispiece Montesquieu 87

development of a style of literature, especially in its playfulness and verisimilitude, also evident in the later works of Voltaire and Diderot. Montesquieu points out how the textual gaps outside the letters created a space for readers to include their own experience.ll It also permits more than one narrative voice, allowing various positions to be advanced, and because no one character is aware of the contents of all the letters, none has 'authority'. The form is skilful, requiring an artifice that would lose its force if it appeared artificial. In the Persian Letters issues take on an immediacy that a more traditional narrative does not provide. Shklar says Montesquieu, by the very act of creating Usbek, "demonstrated that one can rise above one's normal condition of inherited prejudice and credulity and see things as they ate."12 The Persiøn Letters is constructed as a correspondence between Usbek and Rica to their home, to those they meet on a journey from Isaphan to Paris, and to each other when they are separated. There are also letters between the servants who travel in the party and the servants of Usbek's seraglio. The disjunctions between home and foreign lands, of the peculiarity of other customs, and of the costs of seeking wisdom thread through the journey of the novel. The literary use of the journey provides the legitimation of the outsider's observation of culture, and acts as a metaphor for intellectual inquiry. The theme is so common in literature, as to have been called banal.13 Nonetheless Montesquieu continues to impress readers who join his intellectual adventures and to secure admirers of his technique. Falvey locates "the unique charm of the Persiøn Lettus in the empathy which the writing engenders, in that it can give the

11 Montesquieu "Some reflections on the Persian letters" QL) pp.2ß-a 12 Shklar op.cit. p.32 13 "Despite its association with the interesting or the innovative, the motif of the voyage counts among the most manifestly banal in Western letters. From Homer and Virgil, through Dante and Cevantes, Defoe and Goethe, Melville and Conrad, Proust and Céline, Nabokov and Butor, and on up through the most "postmodern" writers, one can scarcely mention a piece of literature in which the theme of the voyage does not play some role." G. Van Den Abbeele Traael as Metøphor University of Minnesota Press. Minneapoli s, 7992, p.xäi Montesquieu 88

reader's mind, at the moment of contact, an impetus which sets it working in the manner of that of an eighteenth-century rationalist."l4 Montesquieu begins by declaring "This is not a dedicatory epistle: I am not asking anyone's protection for this book. People will read it if it is good, and if it is bad I do not care whether they read it or not." 15 This bravado (the book was not published under his name) sets the critical tone of the work. The reader expects a work in which the author is free to speak his mind, the advantage of anonymity being that one could be critical without being foolhardy. The subjects are also prepared to be candid: "They (the Persians) considered me aS a man from another world, and hid nothing from me. Certainly men transplanted from so far away could no longer have had any secrets." He gives some clue to his authorship, or at least the nature of the author, by saying that if it were known who had compiled the book people would say: "His book doesn't match his character; he ought to do something better; such things are not worthy of a serious man," noting that the author is "only the translator" and that "Critics never fail to make remarks of this sort, because it is no great strain on the intellect to make them."16 In the first letter Usbek writes "Rica and I are perhaps the first Persians to have left our country for love of knowledge, to have abandoned the attractions of a quiet life in order to pursue the laborious search for wisdom."17 Mirza recognises "What violence it needs to break attachments formed by both heart and mind!"18 The reader is then exposed to the intrigue of the Persian court which has led to Usbek, who "only wanted to speak his mind", being forced at first to feign an interest in science but now committed to following his search for knowledge.

14 ]ohn Falvey "Aspects of fictional creation in the Lettræ Pusanes, and the aesthetic of the rationalist novel" Romanic Rniew vol. LVI no. 4 December 1965 pp.2a8-261,p.267.

1.5 (PL ) p39 't6 ibid.

1,7 ibid. p.41,

1.8 ibid. p.52 Montesquieu 89

Usbek as the reluctønt seeker of knowledge is already much more human than just the rational scientist.l9 In the same letter Mizra raises the question of virtue. "I have often heard you say that men were born to be virtuous, and that justice is a quality which is as proper to them as existence. Please explain what you mean." lldizra adds that he is not looking for religious guidance saying: "I have asked our mullahs about it, but they drive me to desperation with their quotations from the Koran; for I am not consulting them as a true believer, but as a man/ as a citizen, and as a father."20 There follows a series of four letters in which Usbek replies to Mizra. The series contains the story of the Troglodytes and begins Montesquieu's engagement with constitutional problems, elaborated in his later works. In these four letters Usbek outlines a society of people who are "more animals than men", then a society brought under control by a foreign king who governs severely and is overthrown. The royal family being ousted, the people form a government, appoint ministers but these too are overthrown. Plagued by starvation of the 'have-nots', this is a society based not on "equity and virtue" but on the will of the powerful, dominated by self-interest.2I Letter twelve outlines the fate of two Troglodyte families living away from the rest of the society whose understanding of justice and virtue led them to co-operate. These families grow and become a separate society characterised by civic virtue. The others attack and attempt to steal from the virtuous, thinking they will be weak. The virtuous Troglodytes, however, fight much more tenaciously to defend each other's life. As the virtuous society grows they decide to ask the wisest of their men to be king. Saddened by the prospect he regrets that the Troglodytes are becoming weak in their love of virtue, for to submit to the rule of a king is a sign of laziness. In a further letter in the Troglodyte series, not included in the text, the question of wealth is raised by the successor to the first Ki^g and the conflict between wealth and virtue is established.22

19 O'Reilly points out this is a development over earlier, more one dimensional texts. op.cit. p.109 20 (PL) pp.52-3

27 ibid. Letters 1.7 to 74,pp.53-61 22 (PL) Appendix pp.286-7 Montesquieu 90

The story of the Troglodytes is not utopian; it is confined to the past but without nostalgic intent.23 The message is that the maintenance of virtue is always a difficult exercise. The allegory foreshadows the development of various trajectories in the work - Usbek's journey, the gaining of wisdom through his search in France, and the demise of his power in the harem, revealing a number of possible outcomes dependent on behaviour at crucial times.2a Usbek is the seeker of wisdom rather than the embodiment of virtue, for the reader is soon exposed to his manifest failures to be virtuous in the seraglio. Despite his apparent understanding of virtue, he orders the summary execution of the white eunuch, Nadir, for being alone in the presence of Usbek's wife Zashi,2s ,n" first of many acts of his despotic rule revealed in the Letters. Through the course of the book despotic power is shown to be as transitory as the civic virtue of the Troglodytes, ending with a final assertion of natural justice on the part of the presumed faithful wife, Roxana: "I may have lived in servitude, but I have always been free. I have amended your laws according to nature, and my mind has always remained independent."26 It is an independence that cannot be accommodated in the seraglio and she commits suicide, an act which ironically has been endorsed by Usbek.27 He argues that suicide is a personal choice and any condemnation of it an act of pride, that "we do not realise our littleness". Roxana's suicide, however, is justified by her commitment to a universal principle of personal freedom. The "impotence" of Usbek's despotism is evident from the outset. In ietter six, written to his friend Nessir, Usbek says "But what troubles my heart above all is my wives: I cannot think of them without being eaten up with worry." Later, in he same letter, he says:

It is not. . . that I love them. I find that my insensibility in that respect leaves me without desire. In the crowded seraglio in which

23 Norman Hampson WilI €i Circumstønce: Montesquieu, Rousseau and the French

Reo olution Duckworth, London, 7983, pp,Ç7

24 Dena Goodman Criticism in Action Cornell University Press Ithaca N.Y., 1989,p.19

25 (PL ) p.67 26 ibid. p.280

27 ibid. pp.752-4 Montesquieu 91

I lived, I forestalled and destroyed love by love itself; but from my very lack of feeling has come a secret jealousy which is devouring me.28

The "deal" made by the eunuchs of the harem - their castration intended to give them power and ensure their master's exclusive pleasure - is futile if the master's despotism will not allow him to enjoy this. The flawed and fallible nature of the characters who carry the narrative of the Persiøn Letters means they do not embody justice, allowing a judgement of the justice (or injustice) of their characters' actions. Ironically, the despot Usbek advances the following role for justice:

If there is a God, my dear Rhedi, he must necessarily be jusf for if he were not, he would be the worst and most imperfect being of all. Justice is a relation of suitability, which actually exists between two things. This relationship is always the same, by whatever being it is perceived, whether by God, or by an Angel, or finally by man.2e

In this central letter of the work, as Cassirer points out, Montesquieu expressly repeats the principle on which Grotius had founded the law of nature. Justice is a certain relation (un røpport de conaenønce) and this relation remains always the same, no matter what subject it embraces, and no matter whether it is conceived by God or an angel or man.30 Usbek continues:

It is true that men do not see these relationships all the time. Often, indeed, when they do see them, they turn away from them, and what they see best is always their self-interest. )ustice raises its voice, but has difficulty making itself heard amongst the tumult of the passions.3l

28 ibid. p.46

29 ibid. p.162

30 The Philosophy of the Enlightenment trans. Fritz C. A. Koelln and ]ames P. Pettegrove, Princeton University Press, Princeton New |ersey, 1,9ß. p.243

31. (PL) p.1,62 Montesquieu 92

Natural justice is then juxtaposed to prescribed religious law. Usbek asks the Muliah to explain the reasons behind traditions concerning the impurity of pig meat. The Mullah replies with a story of the Ark in which the pig is produced as excrement from the elephant and concludes:

When therefore we cannot perceive the reason for the impurity of certain things, it is because you are ignorant of much else, and have no knowledge of what has come to pass among God, the angels and men. You do not know the history of eternity. You have not read the books written in heaven: what has been revealed to you is only a small part of the celestial library; and those who like us, approach it more closely during this life, are still in shadows and darkness.32

Whatever Usbek and Rica's failings, this kind of happy ignorance will not satisfy their search, painfuily commenced with their departure from Persia. The theme of justice and its relationship to legislation is developed in a later letter from Usbek to Rhedi:

Most legislators have been men of limited abilities who have become leaders by chance, and have taken scarcely anything into account except their own whims and prejudices. They seem not even to have been aware of the grandeur and dignity of their task; they have passed the time making puerile regulations, which, it is true, have satisfied those without much intelligence, but have discredited them with men of sense. They have buried themselves in useless detail and descended to particular cases: this indicates a lack of vision, which means seeing things partially and never taking a comprehensive view. Some of them have affected not to use the common language but another one, which is absurd for someone making laws. How can they be observed if they are unknown?33

32 ibid. p.65 The satire against religion is not only directed against Islam but its shared "absurdity" with Christianty.

33 ibid. p.229 Montesquieu 93

Identifying the need for a reformist position towards bad law, Montesquieu immediately follows with the conservative need to respect the law.

They have often abolished unnecessary laws that they found in force, and this has meant throwing their countries into the confusion which is inseparable from change. It is true that by an oddity that is due rather to human nature than the human mind, it is sometimes necessary to change laws. But this situation is uncommon, and when it occurs they should be amended only in fear and trembling. There should be so much solemnity about it, and so many precautions should be taken, that the people should naturally conclude that laws are deeply sacred, since so many formalities are required to repeal them.3a

These tensions, increased by the reader's knowledge of Usbek's ambiguous sense of justice, are unresolved and the reader is left to contemplate the political space between these two judicial aspirations. In drawing attention to the state of international law at the time Montesquieu seeks to remove its arbitrary nature through the articulation by Usbek of the following principles. "There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked."3s And "Conquest in itself confers no rights. If the population survives, the conquest provides an assurance that peace witl be maintained and that amends will be made for the wrong that had been committed; and if the population is destroyed or scattered, it is a monument to tyranny."36 Usbek continues: "For nature, which has established the different degrees of power and weakness among men, has also often made the weak equal to the powerful through the strength of their despair." 37 The irony in these statements is clear,

3aibid. p.229 35 ibid. p.777 36ibid. p.178 37 ibid. Montesquieu 94

given Usbek's attempted conquest of the women in the seraglio and their subsequent revolt. On the subject of religious toleration, Usbek exposes the unreasonable nature of the demands for conformity of faith and uses that "unreasonableness" to point to a pragmatic solution.

For after all, even if there were no inhumanity in doing violence to other people's consciences, even if it produced none of the bad effects which flow from it in thousands, one would have to be out of one's mind to think of the idea. Someone who tries to make me change my religion does so only,I presume, because he would not change his own, even if attempts were made to compel him; so that he finds it strange that I will not do something that he would not do himsell perhaps not even to be ruler of the world.38

The satire in the Letters is directed at life in France, not against Persia, as Cassirer points out

[t]he comparison between Orient and Occident by no means favors the latter; the unbiased observation and criticism of the Persian reveals everywhere the arbitrary, conventional, and accidental elements in all those things which in the opinion of the Occident are supposed to be most certain and sacred. 39

Not that Montesquieu is immune from prejudice, for instance his slight against the Spanish in letter seventy-four.40 Montesquieu also uses the Persian's outsider status to expose the stupidities of the regime in France as in ietter twenty-four where Rica, Usbek's more youthful companion says :

The King of France . . . has no goldmines like the King of Spain, his neighbour, but his riches are greater, because he extracts them from his subjects vanity, which is more inexhaustible than mines. He has been known to undertake or sustain major wars with no other funds

38 ibid. p.1.66

39 Cassirer op.cit, p.1,66

40 (PL ) p.150-1 Montesquieu 95

but what he gets from selling honorific titles, and by the miracle of human vanity, his troops are paid, his fortresses supplied, and his fleets equipped. Moreover, this king is a great magician, He exerts authority even over the minds of his subjects . . . If there are only a million crowns in the exchequer, and he needs two million, all he has to do is persuade them that one crowrt is worth two, and they believe it . . . FIe even succeeds in making them believe that he can cure them of all sorts of diseases by touching them, such is the force and power he has over their minds. 41

And of the Pope, Rica points out the even greater deception: "He will make the king believe that three are only one, or else that the bread one eats is not bread, or that the wine one drinks not wine, and a thousand other things of the same kind."42 The vanity of the women in letter fifty two, who "make every effort to deceive themselves, and to escape from the most depressing thought we can have"43 and the overheard conversation of two "wits" planning their next "campaign," because it "need.s a lot of effort to keep up a reputation for being witty,"4{are examples of Montesquieu's astute and amusing observation of human foibles. As well as being a comment on the regime in general and on Parisian society, tlne Letters also contain comment on current political events. Part of letter '1.42, headed "Fragment from an Ancient Mythologist", on the face of it a parable, is a sustained satire of the financial crisis (7776-1720)under the regency of the Duke of Orléans, engineered by the Scottish financier John Law. Æ Following the publication in1751. of an attack on the Persiøn Lettusby Abbé Gaultier accusing the author of the Persiøn Letters of impiety, the 1754 edition included Montesquieu's essay Some reflections on the Pusiøn

41 Montesquieu's election to the French Academy is thought to have been opposed on the basis of this letter. Introduction ibid. pp.1.9, p.72-3 42ibid. p.73 a3 ibid. p.TIa

44ibid. p.11,6 45 ibid. pp.256-8 and notes p.335 Montesquieu 96

letters. Here any pretence about authorship is dropped as Montesquieu discusses public reaction to the text. Apart from the defence against impiety contained in the final paragraphs, he raises two questions that have caused much discussion. The first is his description of the pleasure the public had gained in finding "a sort of novel" (une espèce de romøn)46 ín the story of the seraglio that can be interpreted as a satire against absolute monarchy or despotic government in general. Vartanian notes especially

the prevalence of the erotic element in the paralleiism evident between the organisation of the sérøil and that of the étøt despotique. The sérøil represents, unlike monogamous marriage, an effort totally to eroticize life. In the Lettres persønes, it is this commanding erotic aim that not only defines the basic political struggle of the harem, but expresses what, in that struggle, is or is not ultimately in harmony with Nature, that is with human realities.aT

He agues that these elements of the novel are not designed merely to attract the eighteenth-century reader, but are part of Montesquieu's development of a philosophical problem that is influential in all his work, the problem of despotic government. The other issue raised in Montesquieu's Reflections is that of the "secret chain" which Montesquieu states is his organising principle by which "philosophy, politics and moral discourse is included in the novel." 48 The invisibility of the chain means that, on the one hand, Montesquieu is drawing attention to his method of organisation, yet his explanation does nothing to reinstate his authority as author because he still leaves the links open to each reader's critical interpretation. It was important for Montesquieu that the popularity of the Letters not be diminished - "I venture to say that the Persian Letters was laughing and gay, and for that reason, was popular"49 - and this may be one reason why the moral and

46 Montesquieu Lettres Persanes édition de P.Vernière, 3rd edition, Editions Garnier Frères, Paris,1960, p.3 47 AYartanian, "Eroticism and Politics in the Lettres Persanes" Romanic Raiew Vol. LX No l February 7969,p.25 a8 @L) p.283 49 Montesquiet Oeuures complètes (Gallimard) I p.1244 quoted by Loy op.cit. p.51' Montesquieu 9'l political structure is not clearer. It is evident that he didn't intend to explain its moral, but rather that the reader is "asked to bear in mind that the whole effect was due to the perpetual contrast between the reality of things and the odd, naïve, or strange way in which they were perceived."50 To explain this contrast in a particular way would undermine the critical value of the work. Thus in the Reflectíons, while dropping the pretence of anonymity, he is still tantalising the reader with what appears to be a frivolous work for such a serious-minded author. Shklar says that Marxists are wary of this in Montesquieu for "it puts things in question, but does not go on to a revolutionary answer."Sl This is Montesquieu's intention. Paul Valéry referred to the period in which Montesquieu was writing as "one of those rare moments for literature when the whole civilization is in the throes of disintegrâtion,"S2 and this text offers here both radical and conservative positions in its satire and its philosophy. For example, the interplay between the notions of fidelity and justice encourages the reader to bring these two concepts into a critical relationship. The text contains a series of relationships built on the bond of fidelity, tlsbek's relationship to his friends, the harem's fidelity to Usbek, the eunuchs' fidelity to Usbek and their reciprocal fidelities.s3 There are clear contrasts between the fidelity of mutual respect, the eunuchs' fidelity to the master and the even more oppressive fidelity enforced on the women in the seraglio where the slave is the master's representative in a regime that attempts to enforce fidelity to the exclusion of all other virtues. Usbek points out the impossibility of such a situation, writing to one of his wives, Zashi, accused of infidelity: "Perhaps you will say that you have always been faithful to me. And how could you have not been? How could you have evaded the vigilance of the black eunuchs. . .. How could you have broken open the bolts and doors, which keep you locked in? You give yourself credit for a virtue which is not free. . . .".54 Montesquieu, through Usbek's and Rica's words transfers the focus

50 (PL) p.28a

51 Shklar op.cit. p.31 52 Valéry Variété II quoted by Loy op.cit. p.46 fní 53 Coodman op,cit, pp. 53-78 54 (PL) pp.67-8 Montesquieu 98 from the enforced despotic fidelity of the wives in the seraglio to the libertine "equality" of Parisian wives. úl Persia the decay of the seraglio is documented in the text, ending with the defiance of the last letter, while in Paris the "equality" of the women is at the cost of the virtue of fidelity.ss In exposing the relative nature of fidelity (and of religious belief, for Usbek notes the beliefs and rituals of Christians are Mohammedan in all but names) the reader of the Persian Letters, seeing the way 'absolutes' are revealed as relative when put in their time and place, is inspired by "the cosmopolitan solicitude which desires the happiness and prosperity of all peoples."s7 Montesquieu thus reveals the tension in human affairs between relative and universal concepts such as reason, and justice. Starobinski argues that what is revealed is a triumph of universality so that "it will be possible to condemn all particular fanaticisms and all regional intolerance"Ss but when we recognise the place of this text in a critical culture we are attuned to the paradox which relocates the problem of fanaticism and intolerance in human societies. Montesquieu is not offering a universal solution but a critical insight into the human condition. O'Reilty points to Montesquieu's consistent commitment to patriarchy and the views of the nature of women expressed throughout his work.sg The charge of sexism is not easily proved when we consider passages such as Rica's observation:

It is a different problem to decide whether women are subject to men by law of nature. 'No,' a very chivalrous philosopher said to me the other day, 'nature has laid down no such law. Our authority over women is absolutely tyrannical; they have allowed us to impose it only because they are more gentle than we are, and

55 ibid. pp.92-3 s6 ibid. pp.88-9

57 Jean Starobinski, preface to Lettres Persanes Gallimard, Paris,1973, p.22 quoted in Good.man op.cit.p.67 58 ibid. 59 R. F. O'Reilly " Montesquieu: anti-feminist" Studies on Voltøire and the Eighteenth Century vol. CII 1973,pp.143-156. Montesquieu 99

consequently more humane and reasonable. Their superiority in these respects, which would doubtless have given them supremacy if we were reasonable beings has caused them to lose it because we are not.fl

The status of women is raised here in away that invites critical reflection on other assertions, and which still invites discussion. For example, the "chivalrous philosopher" is often thought to be Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Montesquieu' s friend and a populariser of Cartesian ideas, but ]eannette Geffriaud Rosso nominates Poullain de la Barre. This suggests even more strongly that Montesquieu himself was symPathetic to this idea for De la Barre "attempted to find some logic or system that would hetp him diffuse the violent nature of gender conflicts".61 In Usbek's statement about the relationship between emotion and reason in letter thirty-three, patriarchy is similarly placed in question:

Nothing is more depressing than consolations based on the necessity of evil, the uselessness of remedies, the inevitability of fate, the order of Providence, or the misery of the human condition. It is ridiculous to try to alleviate misfortune by observing that we are born to be miserable.

He then offers the surprising resolution "It is much better to prevent the mind indulging in such reflections, and to treat men as emotional beings instead of treating them as rational."62 Shklar suggests that here Montesquieu gave Usbek his most profound thought, pointing out that the happiest people (in fact the only hupPy people) in the Persiøn Letters are the brother and sister, Apheridon and Asarte, characters in a self contained story in the text.63 Their happiness is a result of their incestuous marriage, paradoxically an almost universal taboo, but blessed

60 (PL ) p.92-3 61, Montesquieu et lø femininité Libena Goliardica editrice, 1977 p.359, quoted in Christine Fauré Democrøcy without women: feminism and the rise of liberuI indiaidualism in France Indiana University Press, Indianapolis ,1991., p.67 62 (PL) p.86; Shklar op.cit p.33 63 Shklar op.cit, pp.37-38 Montesquieu 100

by their own Gabar law.64 That such a paradox produces the kind of contentment that is denied Usbek, or any of the other characters in the text, shows Montesquieu's engagement with the complexity of human experience and the inter-relationships of justice, natural law, and the legal system. In another example, Roxana's final assertion of natural justice does not suggest subordination of women in all circumstances, only in the particular oppression of the seraglio. O'Reilly sees the story of Apheridon and Asarte in terms of eighteenth century stylistic norms and compliments Montesquieu on his ability to bring the theme of the relativity of social custom into this digression.6s Like Starobinski and Goodman, O'Reilly is not led from an appreciation of the critical dimensions revealed in Usbek's reflections on fidelity to explore the full possibilities of contemporary critical engagement with the text. For instance, we can refute the charge that Montesquieu is "anti-feminist" simply by pointing to conflicting examples, and rest the case. Or we can see in the conflict an authorial invitation to further enlightenment, bringing new criteria of judgement to the task of transcending the conflict. The reader who accepts such invitations will always find another paradox: for me it is the way in which Montesquieu transfers the focus from seraglio to salon in Usbek's and Rica's reflections on fidelity, discussed above. Shklar's interpretation of the Apheridon and Asarte story, Roxana's assertion of natural justice and the comments of the chivalrous philosopher contrasted to the patriarchy examples listed by O'Reilly, lead to the question of whether the transfer device works as well for the woman reader, for it might well depend on the response to Usbek anticipating the defence Zashi will offer to the accusation of infidelity. Similarly does the erotic element of the seraglio work differently for men and women? If the reader is a woman does Montesquieu's 'universalisation', the switch from Persia to Paris, work the same way? 66 The Persiøn Letters remains an intriguing introduction to the Enlightenment, full of such opportunities to glimpse the potential of a critical culture.

64 (PL) pp.136-1.a3 65 O'Reilly "The structure and meaning of tl:.eLettres Persanes" op.cit. p.118 66 I am grateful to Lenore Coltheart for this suggestion. Legacies

Goodman argues that Enlightenment texts generally can be seen as "experiments not simply in writing but in political writing,"67 pointing out the importance of the genre speculum princips (mirror for princes) in political literature from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Basically practical documents, they only rarely, as in the case of Machiavelli's Th¿ Prince, redefine political principles and are elevated to the canon of 'western' political thought.6s In Letter ninety-four Montesquieu is critical of international law saying "In its present state, this branch of law is a science which explains to kings how they can violate justice without damaging their own interests." 69 This seems to be in direct contention with the Machiavellian doctrine. This practical form of political writing provides a tradition of political writing for the more complex Enlightenment works, but Montesquieu's Persian l¿tters represents a break with the tradition. Rather than "each adventure compounding its simple message", as is the representative style of François de Salignac de La Mothe Fenelon's Telemøque (1,699), tlne Persiøn Letters "charts both the negative paths of the breakdown of the harem, of the French monarchy, and of Usbek's wisdom and the positive trajectory of Usbek's attempt to construct a new theoretical basis for social and political order."70 The possibilities of both success and failure are canvassed, and the positive trajectory does not lead to the rule of a new and benevolent prince or a period of certainty, but to "an attempt to construct a new theoretical basis for social and political order." 71 The invitation to the reader to reflect, and act, on the possibilities of applying reason to the social order, with no guarantee of success and a warning of possible pitfatts is an expression critical thought in both senses, of making judgement and of being "attended with uncertainty or

67 Goodmanop.cit.p.5 68 ibid. pI 69QL)p.776 70 Goodman op.cit, p.79 71ibid. p.20 Montesquieu I02

risk."72 The Enlightenment is not only a world of texts, but of readers and writers. 73 Montesquieu is in a constant relationship with the reader of the Persiøn Letters, a relationship paradoxically strengthened by the destabilisation of his "authority" as author. Attempts to assess Montesquieu's legacy arethus always difficult. Patrick Riley, for example, recognises that in his identification of Montesquieu as the heir of Malebranche, he ignores Durkheim's Montesquieu as father of all modern sociology, Althusser's Montesquieu as pre-Marxian discoverer of inevitable social laws, Oakehott's Montesquieu as advocate of moderation and the rule of "recognized" law, Berlin's Montesquieu as generous tolerator of diversity and Shklar's Montesquieu as builder of a misanthropic "liberalism of feat", contrasted with Locke's "liberalism of rights".7+ Gay refers to Montesquieu's influence on Filangieri in Milan, and to giving and , their "historical consciousness," and and Jean-Jacques Rousseau "most of their sociological understanding."Ts Carl Becker reminds us that Montesquieu's Esprit des lois }:.as

been defaced by the misleading glosses of nineteenth-century interpreters. . . making him a forerunner of the objective, scientific historians, primarily interested in the facts, primarily concerned to establish, by the inductive and comparative method, the "relativity"

72 Oxford English Dictionary

73 Goodman op,cit. p.228

74 P. Riley The General WilI Before Roussuu Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J., 1986 p.140 75 Peter Gay The Enlightenment: An Interpretation vol.1 The Rise ot' Modern Pøganism Wildwood House, London, 7966, ppJß-11 In Chapter 11 (Book II)of the Social Contract Rousseau acknowledges Montesquieu's influence and, in Chapter 8 (Book III), he says "The more one reflects on this doctrine of Montesquieu's, the more one is conscious of its truth" The chapter then proceeds to elaborate, along Montesquieu's lines, the effects of climate on forms of government. f.j. Rousseau The Social Contract râns M. Cranston, Penguin Books, Harmmondsworth, 1968, pp. 98, 724-729 Montesquieu 103

of institutions and the hopeless dependence of custom on climate and geography.T6

As a corrective, he reminds us of D'Alembert's judgement of Montesquieu. "FIe occupies himself less with laws that have been made than with those that ought to be made."77 Hampson suggests the inevitability of so many "" saying

It was probably beyond the wit of man to impose logical order and consistency on such conflicting postulates . . . but no one has tried harder that Montesquieu to keep . . . all simultaneously in focus. The result was not so much an ideology as a quarry, from which his Successors took the materials for constructions of very different kinds.78

In considering this multiple legacy we can try Montesquieu's recommendation and find the highest point from which to gain a comprehensive view and then adopt the technique in the Persiøn Letters of changing the angle of sight to see as much as possible. This is in keeping with Montesquieu's paradox of the human mind: "a contradiction itself; dissolute and licentious, we furiously rebel against rules; and the law, d.esigned to make us juster, often does nothing but make us guiltier."Te The roles of paradox and diversity in a critical culture are keys to an appreciation of Montesquieu's many legacies and of his own engagement in the search for enlightenment with human passions. We can then keep in view Montesquieu's cosmopolitan spirit:

If I knew something useful to me but prejudicial to my family, I would reject it from my mind. If I knew something useful to my famity but not to my country, I would try to forget it. If I knew something usefui to my country but prejudicial to Europe, or useful

76 C. L. Becker, Tlne Henaenly City of the Eighteenth-century Philosophus Yale University Press, New Haven ,\932,p.112 77 ibid.p.775

78 Hampson op,cit, p.25

79 (PL) p.85 Montesquieu 104

to Europe and prejudicial to the human race, I would regard it as criminal.e

For Montesquieu, as with Usbek's fascination with life in Paris while his serøglio disintegrates, there are a great many possible paths in the conduct of human life. These are not avenues to utopias, but they lead us in new ways through familiar landscapes.

80 Montesquieu Pensées in Guares,II. 22'1.-2 quoted in Gay The Enlightenment: An lnterpretation vol.2 The Science ot' Freedom Wildwood House, London, 1966, p.38 Voltaire f 05

6

Voltaire

Life

While the figure of Voltaire dominates eighteenth-century Europe he also remains an outsider. Today he has one "best seller" - Candide - of all his vast literary ouþut despite Diderot's prophecy

Pile on assumptions; accumulate wars on wars; make interminable disturbances succeed to interminable disturbances; let the universe be inundated by a general spirit of confusion; and it will take a hundred thousand years for the works and the name of Voltaire to be lost.1

Voltaire's writing is very much of his time rather than with an eye to the future, and he sought and enjoyed fame, fortune - even notoriety. The lgg4tercentenary of his birth was the subject of major commemorations in Geneva, Paris and Oxford and of other celebrations and performances across Europe. This does not reflect the contemporary image of Voltaire as not a "real" philosopher, a writer who lacked the necess ary grøaitas, but recognises Voltaire as an Enlightenment figure. Here I follow this interpretation in arguing that Voltaire was a major contributor to the critical character of Enlightenment thought. Where Kant argued the need to "dare to know", Voltaire "dared to know" publicly and controversially. Voltaire was born François - Marie Arouet in1.694 and died ín 1778,2 a

1 Diderot's letter to E.M. Falconet c.15 February 7766 quoted in T. Besterman, Voltaire 3rd. ed.) Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1976, p'1'7 2 Theodore Besterman:Voltaire p..27,p.577. In giving the date of birth as 2l November Besterman points out that controversies about the actual date of Voltaire's birth date Voltaire 106

long lifetime in which he sometimes 'enjoyed'bad health and, became the greatest man of letters of his day. He died "one of the wealthiest private commoners in Europe."3 Voltaire's early life was lived in the parish of Saint-André-des-Arts on the left bank of the Seine, moving to an address on the Ile de la Cité when he was seven. FIe was educated by the Jesuits at Louis le-Grand, although his older brother, Armand, had been to the Oration seminary of Saint-Magliore, which led to his becoming a devotee of the Jansenists.a Throughout his life Voltaire retained a kind of affection for the )esuits, inspired by his strong anti-)ansenism, however, this did not save them from being the subject to his criticism.s After his return to Paris from exile in England he had residences for periods at Cirey and Ferney in France, in Geneva and in Prussia. Near the end of his life, he returned to Paris. Life in Paris was interrupted three times by exile, the first at the instigation of his father to save him from "a life of dissipation."6 The other occasions, two exiles and an eleven month incarceration in the Bastille, were at the displeasure of the Regent, Philippe d'Orléans, over satires Voltaire had written. None of these privations was particularly onerous as he seems to have been well looked after in the Bastille and his third exile was at Châternay, where his father had a house.T He began the

were often generated mischievously by Voltaire himself.

3 ibid. p.1,69 a ibid. p33 5 For instance, in Candid¿ [1758]Cunégonde's brother is a parody of a ]esuit as well as of the aristocracy. In the episode of the cannibals Candide and Cacambo are saved when the cannibals realise they are not ]esuits. Voltaire Candide trans. ] Butt, Penguin , Harmondsworth, 7947, (Candide)p.71; C. M. NortheasT The Parisian lesuits and the Enlightenment 1770-L762, The Voltaire Foundation, Oxford 1991.

6 Besterman Voltaire p.54

7 ibid. pp.75-7In the Bastille Voltaire received comforts such as those he listed in a letter to the governor : Two volumes of Homer, Latin and Greek Two cotton handkerchiefs A small bonnet Two cravats A nightcap A small bottle of oil of cloves. Voltaire lO7

Henriøde, (an epic poem on the life of Henri IV of France, a champion of religious tolerance) published in Holland in1.722, while in the Bastille. Voltaire saw this work as his masterpiece and entitled his autobiography oÍ 7759 Commentøíre historique sur les æuares de l'øuteur de lø Henríøde.8 F{is exile in England from 1726 ro 1728 was the result of an incident in which he responded to a taunt over changing his name by insulting an aristocrat, then pressing for redress after he was assaulted in return.9 England played a prominent part both in reaiity and in the imagination of Voltaire, as for others of the French Enlightenment. He was impressed by the status afforded men of letters and by constitutional reforms, but primarily by its religious tolerance, observed for instance at the London stock-exchange "where all nations meet for the benefit of mankind":

There the ]ew, the Mahometan and the Christian transact together as tho' they all profess'd the same religion, and give the name Infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confided in the Anabaptist, and the churchman depends on the Quaker's word. . .. If one religion only were allowed in England, the government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people wou'd cut one another's throats; but as there is such a multitude, they all live huppy and in peace.1O

In contrast to the exotic setting of Montesquieu's Persiøn Letters Voltaire's use of England in his Philosophicøl Letters creates, as Gay points out, an analogous program for reform for any alert French reader.li The

Select Letters of Voltøire translated and edited T. Besterman, Thomas Nelson and Sons, London,1963 8 Besterman Voltaire p.101

9 ibid. pp.113-5 10 Voltaire, quoted ibid. p.126 A similar analogy appears in his entry on"Toleration" in the Philosophicøl Dictionary t17641 (P D) trans. and ed. T. Besterman, Penguin Harmondsworth, 1972 11 P. Gay Voltaire's Politics,The Poet as Rulist Princeton University Press, Princeton, NI., 1959.p.50-1 Not that England always escaped Voltaire's critical eye. Candide refuses to set foot on English soil after witnessing the execution of an Admiral who "did not have Voltaire 108

example of toleration evident in the London stock exchange is an early expression of a developing view in the eighteenth cenftiry that commerce conquers barbarism.l2 Voltaire brings to this idea a vivid demonstration of the costs of international trade when Candide, in Surinam, meets a slave who explains why he is crippled

Those of us who work in the factories and happen to catch a finger in the grindstone have a hand chopped off; if we try to escape they cut off one leg. Both accidents happened to me. That's the price of eating sugar in Europe.13

In another equally striking form Voltaire responds in poetry to the charge of defending 'luxury' in his poem Mondain, by writing to his Jansenist accuser who sits drinking a cup of coffee:

Does it not have to be ravished by human industry from the fields of Arabia? The porcelain and the fragile beauty of this enamel coated in China, was made for you by a thousand hands, baked and rebaked, and painted and decorated. This fine silver, chased and fluted, whether flat or made into vessels or saucers, was torn from the deep earth, in Potosa, from the heart of a new world. The whole universe has worked for you/ so that in your complacent rage with pious acrimonyr /ou can insult the whole world, exhausted to give you pleasure.l4

enough dead men to his credit." Cøndidep.111 12 Immanuel Kant Pøpetual Puce ( 1795) ; The Theory of Moral Sentiments

(175Ð S. Holmes The Anatomy of AntiliberalismHarvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1993, p.255. Holmes points out that this idea is a reformulation of an earlier idea of Spinoza's.

1.3 Candide p.85-6

14 Voltaire Defense du Mondain [1736] cited and translated by BestermanVoltaire pp.244-5 NeJøut-il pøs que l'humaine industrie L'aiIle raair aux champs de I'Arabie? It porcelaine et Ia frêIe beauté De cet émail à la Chine empâté, Par mille mains t'ut pour aous preparée, Cuite, recuite, et peinte, et diaprée; Cet argent fin, ciselé, godronné, Voltaire 109

In both novel and poetry Voltaire confronts a paradox of his time - and ours - with an immediacy that overcomes complacency and cannot fail to arrest the attentive reader. After he returned to France in "1.728 Voltaire set about securing the means to permit such outspokenness. Either very shrewd or very well advised in his investment schemes, it took Voltaire only a year to attain financial security.15 In November 1.733 Voltaire met Emilie du Châtelet and the two became lovers and intellectual collaborators. When Voltaire was again under threat of imprisonment, they retreated to Cirey near Nancy where a contemporary reported

It is a rare sight. The two of them are there alone, plunged in gaiety. One writes verse in the corner, the other triangles in hers. The architecture of the house is romantic and surprisingly magnificent, Voltaire's quarters end in a gallery resembling the picture. . . of the schools of Athens, in which are assembled instruments of ali kinds, mathematical, physical, chemical, astronomical, mechanical etc., the whole surrounded by an ancient lacquer, mirrors, paintings, saxon porceiain, etc. In a word, I assure you that it is like a dream. i6

Voltaire's Essøi sur les moeurs was the result of comments Madame du Châtelet had made after reading Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's Discours sur l'histoire uniaerselle, as he indicates in citing the notes she made on her copy:

On a page of Bossuet's chapter on Israel she wrote: "One may talk much of this people in theology, but it merits little space in history." And in the section on the Roman Empire she wrote : "Why does the

Enplat, en r)ase, en soucuope tourné, Fut attaché. dela terre profonde, Dans Ie Potose, au sein d'un nouaeau monde. Toute I'uniaers a traztaillê pour oous, At'in qu'en paix, dans aotre heureux courroux, V ous insultiez, pieux øtrabilair e, Au monde entier,epuisé pour aous plaire. 15 Besterman details how Voltaire made half a million francs profit after the collapse of municipal bonds he had invested it, with the assistance of the mathemematician La Condamine ibid. p.767 -9 16 Président Hénault luly 7744 quoted ibid. p.189 Voltaire 110

author say that Rome engulfed all the empires of the universe? Russia alone is bigger than all the Roman Empire."17

Voltaire began the essay with a brief account of the globe, then devoted two chapters to China, two to India, one to Persia, two to the Arabs and their religion before arriving at the beginning of history as then understood. Of this audacious approach Voegelin says:

The notes of the Marquise du Châtelet frankly challenge the Christian universality [of Bossuet] by the appeal to a profane principle of universality. The note on the relative importance of Israel opposes history to theology. "FIistory " is in this remark a realm independent of the providential plan; its meaning and order, if any, cannot be derived from the drama of fall and salvation.ls

Montesquieu was not complementary of Voltaire's attempts at history, saying

Voltaire will never write a good history. He is like the monks who write not for the subject they are dealing with, but for the glory of their order. Voltaire is writing for his monastery.le

Whatever its qualities, this 'universal history' replaces a religious base with an attempt to explain history "as it \ ¡as." Voltaire later said that he admired Bossuet's work as a literary masterpiece but objected that "Bossuet continually sets false gems in real gold".20 Emilie du Châtelet is an Enlightenment figure of more importance than granted by most commentators. Though Wade considers her significant in the education of Voltaire he claims "No one would care to Prove today that Mme. du Châtelet was a great writer and a great thinker." Peter Gay

17 Quoted in E. Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Rnolution in ]. H. Hallowell ed., Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1975,p.5 18 Voegelin op,cit. p.6 19 Besterman Voltøire p.423-4.; Montesquieu quoted by Gay The Enlightenment: An

Interpretøtion vol.2 The Science of Freedom p.383 20 Voltaire Le Pyrrhonisme de I'histoire (1768) dn17 Oeuares, vol. XXVI, p.163 cited in Cassirer op.cit. p.220 Voltaire 111 writes even more dismissively "Madame du Châtelet, for all her limitations, had been Voltaire's indispensable goad, nurse, critic, and friend" and Maurice Cranston refers to her as the "blue stocking mistress," while Nancy Mitford points out that Voltaire's work as a reformer only began after her death. 21 On the death of du Châtelet Voltaire went to Paris and in 1750 left for Prussia. He did not to return to Paris for more than twenty years. On leaving France he was stripped of his post as royal historiographer, notwithstanding his near completion of Siècle de Louis XIV.22 Frederick of Prussia had encouraged Voltaire to become part of his court for many years but, on arrival in Berlin, Voltaire's dream of the enlightened monarch disappeared as he spent much of his time improving Frederick's verse.23 When he left the court in 1753 Frederick had him arrested and he spent three months in a Frankfort gaol, an incident which gave him first hand experience of the problems of International Law .24 Gay refers to the royalist motives here, and in relation to , as "strategic and political rather than doctrinaire" in Voltaire's stand against aristocratic and subservient Catholicism.2s Through his life there are perceptible changes in his political disposition, that cannot consistently be characterised as monarchist, bourgeois or even democrat. For example, in Russia in 1765 Voltaire wrote of his admiration of the enlightened despotism of Catherine, in France he supported the King against the parliament, while in Geneva he was on the side of liberal republicanism by supporting the bourgeoisie. By ]anuary 7766 Voltaire

21 lra O. Wade "Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet" in W. F. Bottiglia ed. Voltaire: A Collection ot' Critical Essays Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1968, p.68; Voltaire's Politics Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.I., 1959, p.729; Philosophers and pamphleteers: political theorists of the Enlightenment Oxford University Press, Oxford,7986, p.58; N. Mitford VoltaireinLoae Hamish Hamilton, London ,1,959,p.viíi 22 BestermanV oltaire p.320

23 ibid. p.328 24 ibid. pp.347-344

25 GayVoltaire's Politics p.1.41 Voltaire ll2

was arguing on behalf of the "natives"26 of Geneva for full equality. 27 Gay continues:

What was important to Voltaire was not the form of government but its substance. Did it oppose the pretensions of aristocrats and ecclesiastics? Did it practice toleration? Did it operate under the rule of law, or was it at least moving toward it? If so, it was a good government.23

With houses on both sides of the boarder between France and Switzerland (at Ferney and Les Délices) he was at times a stateless citizen who, through his campaigns against injustice and against the church, what he called l'infâme, was influential throughout Europe. On 10th February 1778 Yoltaire returned to Paris to a tumultuous reception, the climax a ceremony in his honour at the Comédie frønçøis, where a bust of Voltaire was placed on stage and crowned with a laurel wreath to "universal applause".29 When he died three months later, his body was smuggled out of the city the next day to save it from the "indignities" of a plot to deny him a proper burial.30 Clearly his campaign against the church is, literally, a signature.3l His polemic against l'ínføme however might obscure a more tempered, although still passionate, sense of justice. His most famous cause was the Calas case32 in which jean Calas, a Protestant, convicted of murdering his son because he suspected him of seeking conversion to Catholicism, was

26 Those who were the native born off-spring of immigrant Cenevans.

27 ibid. pp.21,8-9

28 ibid. 29 Besterman Voltair e p.575 30 ibid. p.577 31 "Voltaire was so intoxicated with the slogan écrøser l'infâme ("crush the infamous") that he repeated it endlessly, sometimes spelling it out, sometimes using it as a signature: Ecr.linf." Gay Voltaire's Politics p.239 32 Diderot uses Voltaire's involvement in the Calas case as an example of great virtue, the "Diderot" character inRameøu's Nephew saying that he would have rather helped the family of Calas than received all the accolades for the play Møhomef. Diderot Rømeøu's Nephal (R,N) trans. L.Tancock, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1'966,p.67 Voltaire 113

tortured and executed. Such an outrageous crime fascinated Voltaire, his investigations convinced him that it had been a miscarriage of justice. He worked for three years to establish that the son had in fact committed suicide, thus clearing the father's name. Voltaire's efforts to mobilize public opinion to overturn the judgement succeeded, one of the first such cases.33 This was only one of many causes Voitaire pursued and his writing can help us understand the passion with which he pursued these. Cøndide, his most consistentty popular work34 and the Philosophicøl Dictíonøry, his "bomb" against the regime, are the examples discussed here.

Candide

When Cøndide was written in 1758 Voltaire was 64 years old and in Geneva, beginning his campaigns against the injustice of the church. The patricians of Geneva condemned the anonymously published Cøndide in 1759 for being "filled with dangerous principles concerning religion and tending to the depravation of morals." Voltaire replied "Since I find this work very contrary to the decisions of the Sorbonne and the Papal decretals I maintain that I had no hand in it." And then in a sly allusion to Cøndide says he is building a château more beautiful than the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh and expressing the hope that the Bulgarians will not come there.3S Written in an economical style the book is not easy to summarize.36 The story is an absurd tale of the youth Candide, tutored by the Leibnizian Dr Pangloss and in love with Cunégonde, who is cast out of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh's house because he is not suitable for the daughter of a baron, being only able to claim "seventy - one quarterings"

33 Besterma nV oltair e pp.465-467 34 A popularity extending into the twentieth century when Candide was made into an opera by Leonard Bernstein. 35 GayVoltaire's Politics p.207 36 The translator of the edition used here points out the need to expand the text in translation because of Voltaire's "economy", otherwise the text would "offend the English ear by its very baldness." Candide Introduction p.13 Vokaire ll4

in his family tree.37 There then begins an extraordinary maelstrom of adventures, all guided by the search for the lost Cunégonde, through which Candide's faith in Dr Pangloss' philosophy is tested. Characters suffer and apparently die only to re-appear through fantastic coincidence or amazing good fortune, creating a sense of the existence of an impossible world. The chapters provide a framework but there is little "play" in the narrative. The critical elements are at a more immediate, almost polemical level, but these are achieved through the clever unsettling uses of words. When Candide and Martin arrive in Portsmouth and witness the execution of an unsuccessful admiral, he is executed to "encourøge the others".38 The example cited earlier, of the slave in Surinam depends on the nonchalance of the slave's words in the face of his terrible fate to convey the inhumanity of the sugar trade to Europe.3e Voltaire's writing is laced with irony, self-deprecation and wit. Candide, having hidden and "trembled like a philosopher" during a battle observes

When all was over the rival kings were celebrating their victory with Te deums in their respective camps, Candide decided to find somewhere else to pursue his reasoning into cause and effect. He picked his way over piles of dead and dying and reached the neighbouring village on the Abar side of the border. It was now no more than a smoking ruin, for the Bulgars had burned it to the ground in accordance with the terms of international law.40

Voltaire's detention at Frankfort a few years earlier had been a contravention of international law, for in his view he should have been safe from Frederick's jurisdiction. Cøndíde is littered with relics of

37 ibid. p.19

38 ibid. p.170; emphasis added. CeIø est incontestøble,lui replíqua-t-on; mais dans ce pøys-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un admiral pour encourøger les autres. Voltaire, Candide Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1990, p.770

39 Though the translator uses the word "accident," Voltaire had the slave say: " je me suis trouué dans les deux cas" an even more resigned comment. ibid. p.ßa; Cøndide ibid, p,85-6 ao ibid. p.25 Voltaire 115

Voltaire's attacks on the clergy, on the injustice of international law and the futility of war, all of which assured the displeasure of the censors, but this book is primarily an attack on a philosophic system, as Gay explains

The good man must become the victim of the bad; reason and merit must give way to love, ambition, money, and a good digestion; the piigrimage of Candide is the pilgrimage of man, made tolerable only by humor and self-abnegation, made intolerable by complacent optimism. In one of those laconic witticisms that were the delight of his friends and the despair of his enemies, Voltaire summed it all up in Candide: If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like?41

Candide is nevertheless more than a rejection of metaphysical thinking. The recognition that optimism is misplaced could just as easily lead to a resignation to fate, but Voltaire's authorship of Cøndide coincides with the beginning of his very public engagement in the cause of justice. The possibilities for critical judgement opened up by the paradox of a rejection of optimism without losing hope, caught in the conclusion of Cøndide, suggests links between political engagement, critical judgement, and an Enlightenment culture which Voltaire's life and work did much to shape. Cøndide has as its alternative title Optimism, and in his approach to optimism Voltaire stood aside from most of eighteenth-century thought. In a sense he is establishing a twentieth-century understanding, for he attacks optimism because it leaves no room for hope. Eighteenth century optimism was based in the idea of the "Great Chain of Being", in which each had a place, so whatever suffering was caused was justified by its inevitability.+z Such reasoning about the futile suffering in the great earthquake in Lisbon in November 7755, are the focus for satire, when Voltaire has the earthquake occur just as Candide and Dr Pangloss arrive in Lisbon harbour and Pangloss consoles survivors of the calamity saying that "things could not have been otherwise".43 The injustice is heightened

47 CayVoltaire's Politics pp.20-1 42 A. O. Lovejoy The Greøt Chain of Beíng: A Study of the History ot' an ldea Harper&Brothers, New Y ork, 7960, p.245 43 Candidepp3a-5 Voltaire 116

when James, the virtuous Anabaptist, drowns while trying to rescue a sailor who then proceeds to plunder the victims of the earthquake - if this is God's retribution, it lacks discrimination. Here Voltaire's absurdist style gains its starkest contrast, for this most self-sacrificing act is rewarded with death, a fate others in the story are extraordinarily able to avoid. For Voltaire, eighteenth-century optimism, derived from the philosophy of Leibniz or the English poet Alexander Pope, could only be used to justify further suffering. Following the earthquake comes the proposal that "the sight of a few people ceremoniously burned alive before a slow fire was an infallible prescription for preventing earthquakes"4 This attack on a metaphysical system is also an attack on metaphysics in general, for Voltaire does not attempt to supplant what he is overturning. Various characters are important in developing this aspect of the satire, with Dr Pangloss, who teaches "metaphysico-theologo- cosmolo-nigology" the philosophical focus.

'It is proved' he used to say, 'that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose. Observe: our noses were made to carry spectacles, so we have spectacles. Legs were clearly intended for breeches, and we wear them. Stones were meant for carving and for building houses, and that is why my lord has a most beautiful house; for the greatest baron in Westphalia ought to have the noblest residence. And since pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round. It follows that those who maintain that all is right talk nonsense; they ought to say that all is for the best.' 45

By the end of the story, after calamities including the loss of his nose through the ravages of pox, Pangloss is still convinced. He says to Candide

There is a chain of events in this best of all possible worlds; for if you had not been turned out of a beautiful mansion at the point of a jackboot for the love of Lady Cunégonde, and if you had not been

aa ibid. p.36 a5 ibid. p.20 Voltaire lll

involved in the inquisition, and not struck the Baron with your sword, and lost all those sheep you brought from Eldorado, you would not be here eating candied fruit and pistachio nuts.46

To which his once admiring pupil Candide replies "that's true enough, but we must go and work in the garden."47 The garden motif runs through Candide - Bottiglia identifies twelve, each of which he suggests, represents a type of society. There is the optimistic fatalism of the Westphalian "terrestrial Paradise", the military despotism of the kingdom of the Bulgares, Protestant, mercantile, Holland, the fanaticism of Catholic Lisbon, the disguised despotism of the ]esuit "vineyard" of Paraguay, the state of nature of the Oreillons, the "fruitless urban sophistication" of Paris, the social and cultural hub of civilization, Pococurante's "blasé indolence" in an ornamental garden, Cacambo's accursed, backbreaking garden "unilluminated by a social purpose"; the modest garden of the old Turk, and finally Candide's garden, cultivated by a small model society.as But to view these different gardens as a structural device undermines the impact of the metaphor and reduces the effect of the last garden. The simplicity of Candide's final garden, almost Eden after 'the Fa11', is in stark contrast to the turmoil of the preceding adventures. While Voltaire successfully satirized the absurdities of a philosophical system in Candide, it is less obvious that he effectively removes all metaphysics. The philosophy of the character Martin, present in the final garden, is left largely intact. After being selected by Candide as a companion, Martin explains "the clergy of Surinam accused me of denying the divinity of Christ, but what I really believe is that man was created by the forces of evil and not by the forces of good"49 and his belief is that the Devil meddles in the affairs of the world, while God has abandoned "this globule" to some mischievous power.sO Leibniz's

46 ibid. p.144 47 ibid. 48 W.F. Bottiglia "Candide's garden" in W.F. Bottiglia ed. op.cit. pp.90-1 49 Candidep.92

50 ibid. Voltaire 118

Theodicy is an engagement with this same Manichean position and it is not surprising that Voltaire should choose it as a critical position. The emergence of the possibility of evil undermines the central tenet that all is for the best because of God's perfection, but rather than offering a system Voltaire, in Martin, offers a critical voice against Leibnizian cosmology. This is not a direct engagement with Leibniz but with the "popular perversions" of Leibniz's philosophy, and elsewhere Voltaire is much more flattering of Leibniz.sl Rather than a direct engagement with Leibniz's philosophical synthesis Voltaire's message is to avoid the dangers of a desire for system. His philosopher, Pangloss, falls into the trap of applying his system to every case. Yet the circumstances of the story invite distinctions between, for instance the suffering caused by a natural disaster such as the Lisbon earthquake and the suffering caused by, what Voltaire sees as the human folly of an øuto-da-t'é as a preventative of further natural disasters.S2 The satire directed at eighteenth-century optimism could lead to despair, but the figure of Count Pococurante redirects this. His Raphael paintings disappoint because they are not "a true imitation of Nature," music bores him if it goes on for more than half an hour, opera is no more than bad tragedy set to music, Homer is only in his library as relic of the past, Virgil and Florace fare little better, the proceedings of a scientific academy "merely consist of vain philosophical systems, devoid of all

51 Candide Introduction p.8; E. CassirerTft¿ Philosophy ot' the Enlightenment trans. Fritz C.

A. Koelln and ]ames P. Pettegrove, Princeton University Press, Princeton New ]ersey, 1968,p.35. Parkinson says that "the principle of the best is an easy target for the satairist; but Leibniz is no Dr. Pangloss. . .. To an important extent, to say that Leibniz's God acts for the best is to say, that scientific explanation is a kind of copying of the thought- processes of God, a re-tracing of the rational pattern which Cod follows in creating the universe. Introduction G.W. Leibniz Philosophical Writings J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1973 pxä

52 in the Philosophical Dictionary Voltaire says of the distinction between causes and final causes: I think that this difficulty can easily be resolved. When the effects are invariably the same, everywhere and always, when these uniform effects are independent of the beings to which they belong, then there is clearly a final cause. Voltaire (PD) p.205 Voltaire 119

useful information". Out of three thousand plays "not three dozen are any good," and he finally damns Milton. The visit ends with Pococurante condemning his garden saying that tomorrow he intends to have it laid out on a nobler design.s3 Candide murmurs to Martin: "What a superior man!, What a genius this Pococurante is! Nothing can please him!" After they leave there is this interchange:

C. You must admit that there is the happiest man alive, because he is superior to all he possesses. M. Don't you see that he is disgusted with all he possesses? Plato long ago said that the best stomachs are not those that reject all food. C. Isn't there a pleasure in criticising everything and discovering faults where other men detect beauties? M. That is to say there is a pleasure in notbeing pleased.sa

The figure of the count is perhaps Voltaire's world-weary reflection on his sixty-four year old sell the self parody a signpost of a paradoxical point in a life devoted only to criticism. Work in the world might be a resolution, and this path Voltaire took, for after the publication of Cøndide came his involvement in the Calas case and among many other projects, the editing of the works of Pierre Corneille, undertaken in the interests of "little Marie", an impoverished direct descendant of Corneille, who became a resident at Ferney.55 Il Candide sidesteps the need to construct a new metaphysics, what is its contribution? The conclusion in that final garden is tinged with a more modern notion of optimism that, while recognising the vicissitudes of life, retains a hope that things will improve. There is, after all, nothing apparently less promising than the raw materials of gardening and yet experience tells us what it can produce. The disasters that befall the main characters, and they return in the most improbable ways, give an air of absurdity to the bleak (and all too probable) experiences they face. Absurdity plays with reality in the fate of the virtuous Jacques in Lisbon

53 ibid.pp.119-723 54 ibid.pp.1.23-4

55 BestermanVoltøir e p.41,9 Voltaire 120

harbour as well as in the fate of the victims in real life, such as Jean Calas. Despite the horror of their experiences, none of the characters consider suicide, like Calas' son, or like Roxana in Montesquieu's Persian Letters, and Voltaire thus shapes a sense of optimism lacking in certainty and depending on hope. It was the lack of citicism and the consequent lack of any judgement in "complacent" optimism that appalled Voltaire, who brings us, with Candide, to a place where it is possible to make judgements about the kind of work we do in our 'garden'. In his Poem on the Lisbon eørthquøke Voltaire wrote "One day all will be good, that is our hope, All is good today, that is the illusion." To which he later added a question mark after "hope". In the same work he noted "Leibniz does not tell me by what invisible twists an eternal disorder, a chaos of misfortunes, mingles real sorrows with our vain pleasures in the best arranged of possible universes, nor why the innocent and the guilty suffer alike this inevitable evil."56 Cøndide provides an answer to that problem, replacing the certain optimism of Leibniz with a more modest hope that a productive life will be worthwhile, and thus offering the possibility of making judgements between good and evil.

Phil o s o phic al D i ctio n øry

The Philosophical Dictionary was planned in Berlin ín 7752, and the first edition was published in 1.764. The book is neither "philosophy" nor "dictionary" as we would understand these two terms. What we now call philosophy, Voltaire would have understood as metaphysics, a subject for which he had little time. For him the term philosophy was more closely allied with free thought and the exercise of reason.S7 At the conclusion of his discussion of Leibniz's philosophy in the entry titled AII is Good Voltaire concludes:

Let us put at the end of nearly all chapters on metaphysics the two

56 ibid. p.369 57 ibid. p.474. Besterman also uses the term'rationalism'but (as he points out about the term 'humanism') the word has resonances that in the current context confuse rather than clarify. Voltaire l2I

letters used by Roman judges when they could not understand a Iawsuit: N.L., non liquet, this is not clear.58

As Besterman notes, theDictionøry is a "world away from the academic or even the systematic".sg It contains little that was new in its combination of scepticism, deism, and humanitarianism, but the assembly makes it a "bomb thrown at the Old Regime."60 Voltaire observed

Twenty folio volumes will never make a revolution. It is the little portable volumes of thirty sous that are to be feared. Had the gospel cost twelve hundred sesterces the Christian religion would never have been established.6l

While there is "nothing new" this is a personal, entertaining text, displaying Voltaire's trademark light touch, wit, erudition, prejudice, limits of vision, wisdom, and some foolishness. 62 T}ne Philosophicøl Dictionøry is more than a polemicai or metaphorical weapon. Through it the kind of critical environment and critical engagement Voltaire admired and hoped for is sketched. While Voltaire never said: "I disagree with everything you say, but I shall fight to the death for your right to say it,"63 tn" Dictionøry's main attacks are against institutions that restrict free speaking. In the dialogue Freedom of Thought he argues that even Christianity requires such freedom, the character Boldmind saying: "Isn't it true that there would have been no Christianity if the first Christians hadn't had freedom of thought?" Medroso, the "tipstaff of the Domincans", doesn't understand. Boldmind continues:

58 QD) p.7a

59 ibid. p.a75 60 CayVoltaire's Polítics p.208 Gustave Lanson called Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques "the first bomb thrown at the Old Regime." ibid. p.a8

61 Voltaire cited in Besterman Voltaire pp.475-6 62 Cay Voltaire's Politics p.208

63 Gay cites Burdette Kinne "Voltaire Never Said it!" Modern I^ønguøge Nofæ LVIII Nov. 1943 pp.534-5. He also points out that Voltaire would not be entitled to say it. "This immortal defender of free speech all too freely denounced criticism of himself as criminal libel." Gay Voltaire's Politics p.82 Voltaire 122

No doubt. I mean that if Tiberius and the first emperors had had Dominicans, who would have prevented the first Christians from having pens and ink, had free thought not long been permitted in the Roman empire, it would have been impossible for the Christians to establish their dogmas. So, since Christianity constituted itself only by means of freedom of thought, by what contradiction, by what injustice does it now wish to annihilate the freedom on which alone it is founded.6a

He points to a modern example of religious tolerance, once again, England, where there are a hundred religions which "damn you if you believe in your dogmas, which they call absurd and impious. You should therefore examine these dogmas." When Medroso argues that he can't because he is not a Dominican, Boldmind replies "You are a man, that is enough." He continues:

You were born with intelligence. You're a bird in the cage of the inquisition. The holy office has clipped your wings, but they can grow again. He who knows no geometry can learn it, Everyman can educate himself.6s

In this dialogue Voltaire invokes the command "Dare to think for yourself".66 Medroso says he has been told there would be utter confusion if every man thought for himself and Boldmind replies:

Quite the contrary. When people go to see a play, each one freely expresses his opinion of it, and peace is not troubled. But if some insolent protector of a bad poet tried to compel all people of taste to find good what appears to them to be bad, then hisses would be heard, and the two parties might throw apples at each other, as once happened in London. It is these tyrants of the mind who have caused part of the misfortunes of the world. We are happy in England only since every one freely enjoys the right to say what he

64 Voltaire (P D)p.280

65 ibid,

66 ibid. Voltaire 723

thinks.67

In this discussion of free thought Voltaire reveals the characteristics and requirements of a culture of criticism. The assertion of the human capacity to reason and the necessity of questioning all beliefs including Christian ones is an expression in Voltarian style of the same spirit of Kant's later emblem of the Enlightenment and his command to free yourself from self-imposed tutelage. Voltaire emphasises that criticism is a public enterprise, engaged in publicly and directed towards the public good. As one would expect of the most politically active of the French philosophes the Philosophicøl Dictionøry contains references to these cases. In the article Torture, Voltaire reports

When the cheuølier de la Barre, grandson of a lieutenant-general, a very intelligent young man, but with all the thoughtlessness of wild youth, was convicted of singing impious songs and even passing a procession of Capuchins without taking his hat off, the judges of Abbeville, people comparable to Roman senators, ordered not only that his tongue be torn out, his hands cut off, and his body burned on a slow fire, but they also put him to the torture, to discover how many songs he had sung, and how many processions he had watched with his hat on.68

His anger is directed at both the church and at the injustice of intolerance, the senselessness and violence of punishment and torture at the hands of legitimate authority. This entry was not in the first edition but added to tlne 1769 edition, which Besterman suggests was published as a vehicle for these views, because this case caused Voltaire greater anguish than any other. Voltaire's own copy of the first edition of the Dictionary was burned with La Barre.69 In his entry on Criticism Voltaire writes against the pedant, pointing out that it is "not about criticism of the scholiasts, which ineptiy restores in

67 ibid. p.281, 68 ibid. p.396 69 ibid. fn. Voltaire 124

an ancient author a word which was quite well understood before,"7O 5.t¡ the critic as "arì, artist with a great deal of knowledge and taste, without prejudices and without envy. . . lthey are] hard to find."71 Criticism is best carried out by participants, indeed, a life does not have "virtue" unless it is lived in relationship with others. He argues

We live in society so there is no true good but what is good for society. A solitary is sober and pious, he wears a hair-shirt: very well he is a saint. But I shall not call him virtuous until he has performed some virtuous act from which other men have benefited. So long as he is alone he is neither beneficent not maleficent he is nothing to us.72

Voltaire also warns against the fruitlessness of mere oppositional argument. At the end of a dialogue between a theologian and a farmer about the existence of God, the farmer interrupts

Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just had a closet built at the end of my garden. I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer: "FIere'S a fine Structure" said the mole; "it must have been a very powerful mole who did this work." "You're joking" said the cockchafer "it's a cockchafer fuli of genius who is the architect of this building." From that moment on I resolved never to argue.73

For Voltaire, critical engagement makes us capable of more than the mole or the cockchafer - it is the means whereby reason is expressed. This approach to reason is repeated with constantly refreshing variety:

Why is the Indian who laid down the rules of chess cheerfully obeyed through out the world, while, for instance, the decretals of the popes are the object of horror and contempt? It is because the inventor of chess arranged everything with precision to satisfy the

70 ibid. p.762

77 ibid. p.168 72ibid, p.399 73 ibid. p.778 Voltaire 125

players, whiie the popes in their decretals had only their benefit in view. The Indian wanted to exercise men's mind and give them pleasure. The popes wanted to bestialize men's minds. So the basis of chess has remained the same for 5,000 years, and is common to all inhabitants of the earth; and the decretals are recognized only in Spoleto, Orvieto and Loretto, where the meanest of jurists secretly hates and despises them.Ta

Good reasonable law will be obeyed, unreasonable law will always be bad law and require coercion to ensure adherence. In its unreasonableness it brings no joy, even to the "meanest jurists" charged with enforcement. In the Chinese Cøtechism, a discussion of the superiority of ethics over religion, Voltaire's deism sets the limit for what it is feasible to argue about:

KU-SU: Prince, I was walking yesterday near the vast palace built by the king your father. I heard two crickets, one of whom said to the other: 'What a monstrous edifice!' 'Yes,' said the other, 'and, giorious that I am, I admit that someone more powerful than the crickets built this prodigy; but I've no conception of that being; I see that he is, but I don't know what he is.' KOO: I assure you that you are a better educated cricket than I am; and what I like about you is that you don't pretend to know what you don't know. 75

Though tlne Philosophicøl Dictionøry is directed against religious orthodoxy it not a negative tract, offering a direction about what is possible through the use of reason as opposed to the propagation of superstition. It advocates a direct engagement of reason and faith, as shown by the first entry on Faith. Prince della Mirandola is presented with a dispute over who is the father of the Pope's daughter's child, as her husband is said to be impotent. It is suspected that the father is either the

7a ibid. p.288 75 ibid. p.80 Voltaire 126

Pope or the Pope's son. When the Pope asks why he believes the child's father is the Pope's son-in-law. Pico responds:

'I believe it by faith,' 'But don't you know perfectly well that an impotent man doesn't make children?' 'Faith consists' replied Pico, 'in believing things because they are impossible; and besides, the honour of your house requires that the son of Lucretcia be not regarded as the fruit of incest. You oblige me to believe even more incomprehensible mysteries. Am I not supposed to be convinced that a serpent spoke, that since then all men have been damned, that Balaam's she-ass also spoke very eloquently and that the walls of ]ericho fell at the sound of trumpets?'76

While Leibniz attempts a synthesis of reason and faith Voitaire exposes faith as a site of prejudice, of manipulation.by the powerful of the ignorant, as the repository of unreasonable thought and as the source of injustice. This does not make it an atheistic work. Guy points out the Philosophicøl Dictionøry expresses a belief - that of Voltaire's deism:

[T] rue religion needs no doctrine or ritual; all man needs to know is that there is a just God who wants men to love each other; theological disputes that no one understands cause cruelty and bloodshed; fanaticism is a disease created by superstition; there is nothing more pernicious in a state than a powerful church; the Bible and the traditions of the Catholic church are filled with contradictions and absurdities. 77

Voltaire was the leader of anti-clericism, "ecrøser I'infâme" his battle cry.78 In his campaign against the old regime he even formed an alliance in7765 with ]ean-Jacques Rousseau, with whom he generally disagreed, when the pørlement of Paris suppressed his Philosophicøl Dictionøry in the same decree with Rousseau's Lettres écrites de lø montøigne .79 Voltaire's deism

76 ibid. pp.207-8 77 ibid.pp.208-9

78 P. Hazard European Thought in the Eighteenth Century Pelican Books, Harmondsworth, 7965,p.439 79 GayVoltaire's Politics p.205 Voltaire 121

plays a role in delimiting the scope of reason so that he points to the absurdity of the prescriptions of religious orthodoxy, rather than to principles of atheism. The Díctionøry achieves most of all a definition of criticism, limited to what we can know and presented in such away as to make it possible for participants to modify their position. This becomes something more significant than just oppositional argument. Unquestioned adherence to a particular world view, faith or ideological position is shown to be the antithesis of criticism.

Critical cultivations

The image of the garden at the conclusion of Candide has a wider significance in ascertaining Voltaire's role in the development of a critical culture. Among the definitions of culture in the Oxford English Dictionøry is included an obsolete meaning: "A piece of tilled land; a cultivated field". In Voltaire's own life he was responsible for the cultivation of real gardens, at Ferney in particular, but he is also a cultivator of 'culture', the culture of Europe. While his influence was far reaching, whether on the minds of royalty or on behalf of the "natives" of Geneva, he always remained "eccentric". Influential with royalty, he was also often in prison, in exile, or fleeing from their decrees. His influence on Geneva was from outside, not as part of the community but as a light of reason on its perimeter that could not be extinguished. While Rousseau styled himself the "Citizen of Geneva," Voltaire was for most of his life a stateless person, so that his campaigns against injustice and intolerance became his culture. In Cnndide Voltaire attacks a philosophical system but does not advocate its replacement, and his attack on the church is an attack on the doctrinaire cast of mind, rather than an attempt to establish "Voltarian" orthodoxy. He explains this method:

I think the best way to fall on the infamous is to seem to have no wish to attack it; to disentangle a little chaos of antiquity; to try to make these things rather interestingi to make ancient history as agreeable as possible; to show how much we have been misled in all things; to demonstrate how much is modern in things thought to be ancient, and how ridiculous are many things alleged to be Voltaire 128

respectable; to let the reader draw his own conclusions.s0

This method keeps the focus of Voltaire's thought on what can be known thus making it possible to feel at home in a world of human proportion. Assisting in this attention to the limits of human reason is the limit placed by the Deity, which prevents hubris in human reason. Voltaire's deism was real, the chapel he built at Ferney is dedicated to God, above any intermediary.sl Confronted with the inexplicable, he saw God as the creative force, the explanation. In Voltaire's world there is respect and encouragement for the development and progress of the human spirit, a faith in critical reasoning. Guy characterises Voltaire's criticism in the following way:

He razes in order to rebuild more solidly, but he does not raze indiscriminately. While demolishing he picks out what is worth saving and makes ready to reuse it. The cultivation of the garden must therefore be understood to include immediately a humanitarian feeling for the wretched and oppressed, and sooner or later the various cultural pursuits. This salvaging operation effectively illustrates Voltaire's belief in the conservation and exploitation of all truly human resources.s2

Voltaire remarked to the co-editor of the Encyclopediø, lean Le Rond d'Alembert in 7756 - after forty years of conflict with the censors - "When pedants battle, tlne philosophes triumph", and on another occasion "To overturn the colossus we need only five or six philosophers who understand each other".83 This cultivation of the critical mind as a challenge to superstition and oppression is his legacy. Voltaire's wit and playfulness have distracted those who do not consider him a serious thinker and yet, in the works discussed here, that style has a purpose, to explore the folly of a philosophical system and to highlight the errors of reason that occur in the

80 Voltaire quoted in BestermanVoltaire p.487 87 ibid. p.473 82 CayVoltaire's Politics p.99 83 Voltaire quoted ínibid. pp.74,788 Voltaire I29

name of faith. A master of paradox, Voltaire was a powerful influence on the development of a culture that crossed political boundaries to create a glimpse of an international realm of justice. Diderot 130

7

Diderot

Life

Denis Diderot was born ín 771,3 in , the eldest son of a master cutler. At the local ]esuit college he received an "excellent humanist education," arì.d at thirteen was inducted into minor orders and given the tonsure in anticipation of succession to his uncle's lucrative post of canon. When these plans went awry, Diderot was sent to Paris to complete his education, not at the jesuit college of Louis{e-Grand but at the }ansenist Collège d'Flarcourt. rn 7732 he graduated Master of Arts from the University of Paris and when he abandoned a clerical career redirected his study from theology to classics, and mathematics and learnt English and Italian. When his plan to qualify for the legal profession also coilapsed, he replied to his father's question of what profession he would like: "None. I enjoy study. I am well provided for and extremely content with life. I ask for nothing more." Though his father promptly cut off his allowance and ordered him to return home immediately, Diderot stayed in Paris, surviving by tutoring mathematics, occasionally engaging in hack journalism and the more profitable sideline of sermon-writing.l In December 1.742, owing to a quarrel over his plans to marry Anne- Toinette Champion, Diderot was imprisoned in a monastery through his father's lettre de cøchet .2 He escaped to Paris and married secretly in November 7743 - his father was unaware of the marriage for six years.

1 P. N. Furbank Diderot: A Critical Biography Minerva, London, 7992, pp.9-12 2The lettre de cachet was a mechanism of the regime where people could be imprisoned simply on the issue of a letter, a privilege not confined to the noble classes. ibid. p.20 Diderot 131

While Diderot often used his father as an example of an upstanding citizen he quotes his father's plaint:

AIas! I have two sons. One will certainly be a saint and I am very much afraid that the other may be damned. But I cannot live with the saint, and I greatly enjoy the time I spend with the damned one.3

Despite their long separations Didier Diderot had a strong influence on his son, the distance between them allowing Diderot's ideaiisation of the role of a father especially as judge of all his own inadequate attempts at virtue.4 Diderot was imprisoned a second time in August 1749 ín the fortress of Vincennes, this time through royøl lettre de cachet, probably because of atheism inferred from passages such as:

Men have banished divinity from their midst; they have relegated it to a sanctuary; the walls of a temple are the limits of its view; beyond these walls it does not exist. Madmen that you are, destroy these enclosures which obstruct your horizon; iiberate God; see Him everywhere where He actually is, or else say that He does not exist at all.s

Diderot's horror at being confined in a tower at Vincennes produced abject apologies, but it was through the influence of Voltaire and Emilie du Châtelet, who had been impressed by the very works that had caused Diderot's imprisonment that he was granted the freedom of the castle grounds and the company of his wife. The governor of Vincennes was a relative of Madame du Châtelet and during his remaining three months of imprisonment Diderot was treated with great courtesy and consideration,

3 Quoted in Furbank op.cit. p.28 The other son, Didier, was a catholic priest. 4 Carol Blur":.Diderot :Theairtue of aphilosopher Viking Press, New York1.974pp.66-7 and William Edmiston Diderot and the family Anma Libri, Stanford University, 7985 pp.5G85 5 Diderot Penséæ Philosophiques [1746] sect XXVI quoted in E. Cassirer The Philosophy of the Enlightenment ftans. Fritz C. A. Koelln and |ames P. Pettegrove, Princeton University Press, Princeton New ]ersey,1968, p.\66 Diderot 132

often dining with Governor du Châtelet.6 He left Vincennes in November 1749 after taking an oath "to do nothing in future which would be in the least contrary to religion and sound morals."7 ]ean-Jacques Rousseau also visited Diderot at Vincennes, for the two had become friends after having met at the Cøfé de la Régence in Paris in 7742. Diderot encouraged him to submit an essay answering the question of the state of scientific knowledge, posed by the Dijon Academy after Rousseau's inspiration on his way to one of the visits to Vincennes. Diderot later insisted the Díscourse on the Arts ønd Scíences be published and saw through its publication, despite its apparent attack on his own enterprise. Diderot, of all the friends Rousseau rejected, persisted longest in the attempt to retain his affection.s Voltaire described Diderot as a "pantophile" - a lover of everything. He seems to have had prodigious energy and passion, and was said, in an era of talking to be the greatest talker.e His enthusiasm carried him into all fields, including mathematics, which he engaged in as a form of recreation. Diderot is best known as editor (with d'Alembert) of the Encyclopediø publíshed in 7767, to which Diderot contributed many articles, usually identified by an asterisk.l0 The Encyclopedia was far from a dry work of authoritative reference. In the article entitled "Encyclopédie" Diderot states:

6 Furbank op.cit. pp.49-50

7 ibid. p.72 8 The story of this friendship says much of the men and their divergent philosophical positions. Diderot observed "Man is keen to achieve superiority, even in the most trifling things. ]ean-Jacques Rousseau, who always beat me at chess, refused to grant me a 'handicap' to make the game more equal. 'Does it upset you to lose?' he asked, 'No' I said, 'but I would be able to give you a better game.' 'That may be,' he replied. 'Still, Iet us leave things as they are.' " Rousseau stated in the Confessions if Diderot had not encouraged him to be a philosopher, they would not have been rivals. Furbank op.cit. pp.77,81. Patrick Riley describes the Discourse as the work where'Rousseau became Rousseau'. The General W|II Bet'ore Rousseau Princeton University Press, Princeton, N ], 1986, p197 9 Furbank op.cit. p.4 1,0 ibid.p.38 Diderot 133

Whenever for instance, a national prejudice seems to merit honour, it will be necessary, in the article especially devoted to it, to discuss it respectfully and to give it its due panoply of probability and persuasiveness. But by supplying cross-references from it to articles where solid principles support diametrically opposite truths, we can throw down the whole edifice of mud and scatter the idle heap of dust.l1

The cross-referencing system is thus used "not only to connect notions but to sow dissension among them."12 The compilation of the Encyclopedia was a huge task and as well the editors had to contend with complications of censorship and bans. Its preparation was in fact banned by pørlement and the editors lost royal privilege in March 7759, though the enterprise was continued in secret.13 It was also subject to (often justified) allegations of plagiarism.l4 D'Alembert and Diderot, a partnership of intellectual opposites, fell out during its productionls and the final disappointment of the Encyclopediø for Diderot was his discovery in October 7764 , when looking up his own

11 Diderot Enc., Y, 6424 quoted in ibid. p.132

12 Furbank ibid. p.1.32 13 ibid. p.1.84 Catherine the Great offered Diderot, via Voltaire, the opportunity to complete it in Russia. ibid. p.270 14 The gastronomical articles for example were verbatim reports frorn Dictionnaire Gconomiqu¿ Diderot nonchalantly apologised in the preface of Vol II: "lw]hen articles borrowed without acknowledgment are otherwise well-designed, the resulting inconvenience seems fairly slight." Quoted ibid. p.88; Paul Hazard cites the example of Abraham Chaumeix who made "a dead set at the Encyclopedia," He says: "It was the crusade of his life, full of dash and determination, he put his finger on the weak spots. He took off the sort of spirit by which the whole thing was animated. "I did not trouble myself whether M.Diderot had given accurate account...It sufficed me to consider what sort of an idea the Encyclopedia gives one of man, of his nature, his aims and his happiness." P. Hazard European Thought in the Eighteenth Century Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1965, p.90 15 John Lough Essays of the Encyclopédie ot' Didøot and D'Alembert Oxford University Press, London, 79 68, pp.178-79 ; 243-4; Furbank, ibid, p.273 Diderot 134

article "Sarrasins," that the text had been bowdlerised and mutilated by the publisher Le Breton on commercial grounds. While it has since been regarded as a major work of the French Enlightenment the Encyclopedíø cannot have been a continuing source of intellectual satisfaction for either of the editors. While D'Alembert played a "modest" part in the Supplement of 7776-7, despite having abandoned the project in the crisis, Diderot did not. Of the contribution of the two editors Lough says

Diderot put far more of himself into the work than did his colleague. Important and interesting as they often are, D'Alembert's articles can scarcely compare with what Diderot gave to the work both as contributor and as editor.16

Diderot's career as an art critic seems to have provided a greater sense of satisfaction. His art criticism also offers an insight into his understanding of the role of the critic as "a thoroughly active" one of immersion in a work with "zest and abandonment", for to Diderot the question was the nature of and the number of different relationships which a critic might develop with a work of art.77 Art criticism was a new genre, developing out of the increased public availability of contemporary works of art with the institution of an annual Salon of the Acødémie in7737, changed to a biennial exhibition from 7748. Diderot was an innovative critic as indicated by Lochead's reference to his "Vernet promenade" article on the 17675ølon

Leaving the crowded rooms of the salon far behind, Diderot takes the reader on an excursion in the company of an abbé and his two pupils. There amidst the delights of scenes which rival the painted landscapes of ]oseph Vernet, the abbé and the reader are entertained by philosophical discussions which range over subjects as diverse as the nature of the universe, the mechanism of language, and the meaning of abstract concepts such as virtue and beauty. Only towards the end of the "sixième site" does Diderot reveal that

16 Lough op.cit. p,257 17 Furbank ibid.p.27'8 Diderot 135

he is actually describing landscape paintings which Vernet exhibited at the salon.18

Diderot commented that he wished his review of the 7765 Sølon was "properly published" and "dropping from the skies, all printed, into the middle of Paris."19 In Furbank's view Diderot both longed to invent something that would entitle him to be called a genius, and behaved as if his genius were already established. He showed no reluctance in advising how his friend's works should be written, even gratuitously rewriting sections of Voltaire's play Tøncrede. He would also advise on music composition, and although he was not an artist would freely give advice, taking the pencil or chisel out of "bungling" hands, and once commissioned an art student to sculpt from his dictation. FIe was highly pleased by the result.2o In 1773 Diderot travelled to Holland and then to Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great. He had first had contact with Catherine soon after her accession in 1,762, when he received an invitation, via Voltaire, to complete the Encyclopediø in Russia, and had admired her since then.21 For Diderot, it was the fulfilment of his dream of bringing "enlightenment to a sovereign", and he managed prudently to offer considerable criticism of Catherine's regime, though his influence on her seems to have been minirr.al.2Z In later life his energy remained undiminished. A young man visiting him a year before he died recalled:

He began to speak, but so softly and fast that though I was beside him and even touching him I found him hard to follow. It became clear to me very soon that my sole role in this scene would be to

18 Published in La correspondence littéraire 7767.I. J. Lochead The Spectator and the Landscape in the Art Criticism of Diderot ønd his Contemporarles UMI Research Press, Michigan, 7982, pp.ix, 47 19 Diderot quoted in Furbank op.cit. p.3 20 ibid.p99 21 ibid. pp.270;307-2 22 ibid, pp.367-395 Diderot 136

listen in silence and wonder, and I had no objection. Gradually his voice grew clearer and louder. At first almost motionless, he now became animated, gesticulating freely. He had never met me before, but as we stood he folded me in his arms, and when we sat he smacked my thigh as though it were his own. 23

When Diderot died in JuIy 7784 his son in law Vandeul arranged for the atheist Diderot to be seen to his grave by no less than 50 priests. In fact the pious Vandeul family did not allow any inspection of Diderot's papers in their hands until after the death of the last of the direct line in 79'].,7.24 Cranston summarized Diderot as "a very intense thinker, pouring out ideas like flames from a volcano, in all directions at once" and it would be unsatisfactory to impose some semblance of order on such a mind, even though he produced the most significant French publication of his day.2s While his intellectual energy led him to an affay of destabilising critical perspectives, he always sought certainty such as that of the man with certain knowledge of virtue:

Ah! monsieur, stretch that man out on straw, in the depths of a gaol. Load him with chains. Pile torment upon torment on his limbs. You may draw some groans from him, but you will not prevent him from being what he would most wish to be. Strip him of everything, cause him to die at the corner of the street, with his back against the kerb-stone, and you will not prevent him from dying huppy.26

23 ibid. p.472 24 ibid. pp.429-30,472

25 Maurice Cranston in Philosophers and pømphleteers: politicnl theorists of the Enlightenment Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986, p.99; Lester Crocker Diderot's Chaotic Order

Princeton University Pr ess, 1.97 4 26 Diderot letter to facob Vernes, 9 ]an. 1759; op,cit. II, p.119 et seq. quoted in Furbank op.cit. p.182 Diderot 131

InD'Alembert's Dream Diderot offers this approach to 'certainty' - "in all things our real opinion is not the one from which we never wavered, but the one to which we have most often returned."27 The problem perplexing Diderot was that his philosophical exploration of virtue might only establish what virtue was not, or else accept it as unattainable. When he was encouraged to write the Deøth of Socrates he wrote "I tremble at the thought that, if Virtue did not emerge triumphant, I would, as it were, have produced an apologia for vice."28 This is the struggle I consider now bringing on stage two novels apparently not intended for publication, at least during his lifetime. It seems to me not coincidental that Rømeøu's Nephew is set in 1,767, the year of Diderot's completion of the text chapters of tlr.e Encyclopediø.

Rameau'sNephewzg

Though Diderot called Rømeøu's Nephaa a satire, it is difficult to work out who or what is satirized. My interest is in Diderot's contribution to the development of the 'critical culture' of the Enlightenment, and I have drawn attention to his ability to destabilize accepted forms and to the function of irony and paradox in the contributions of Montesquieu and Voltaire. O'Gorman's comment that "almost no one believes that any of the ordinary forms of satire is adequate to define Rameau's Nephew" suggests that this work will be of particular interest in investigating other aspects in the culture of criticism.3O The book is set ín 1761. but the text was being altered up to 7779. Leonard Tancock suggests that only if Diderot's aim in constantly reworking the text was quite divorced from chronology or even from realism, "can'we reasonably infer other than that he was either "a fool or a

27 D. Diderot D'Alembert's Dream [1769] trans. L. Tancock, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1966. p.16a

28 Quoted ibid. 29 D. Diderot Rømeau's Nephew [1805c.] (R,N) trans. L. Tancock, Penguin,

Harmondsw or th, 19 66. p.67

30 D. O'Gorman, Diderot the satirist University of Toronto Press, Toronto,7971., p.36. Diderot 138

very laboured joker."31 The work was not published in Diderot's lifetime; it might have had a limited private circulation32 but, as f.ar as is known, Diderot appears not to have shown the text to another person. Catherine the Great received a copy of the manuscript among papers that Diderot had arranged to have sent to her after his death and this copy was smuggled out of Russia in 1803 and published in a German translation by Goethe in 1805.33 Alasdair Maclntyre infers from this a lack of courage in Diderot's position, noting "no trace of . . . discomfort appears in those writings which Diderot published in his own lifetime; yet in Le Neaeu de Rømeau. . . we find a critique of the whole project of eighteenth-cenfury moral philosophy more trenchant and insightful than of any external critic of the Enlightenment".34 løcques the Føtølisf and The Nun were also published posthumously in luly 7796, from "Grimm's sequestered papers", though The Nun had circulated earlier in the manuscript journal La Correspondence littérøire, often the only vehicle of publication of Diderot's writing in his life time.3s By Diderot's death in7784 - Montesquieu and Voltaire had died earlier- t}ne philosophes were "aparty in the state" and it was possible for them and for their associates to gain acceptance in the Académie. For example, Jean- François Saint-Lambert had been elected in 7770, Etienne Condillac in 7768; D'Alembert had been an Academician since 7754 and became perpetual secretary in 7772.36 Diderot's earlier years, however, were under threat of the lettre de cøchet and the ever-present possibiiity of

31 Introduction (R N) p.24. O'Gorman cites a study that suggests the only known autograph copy dates from as late as 7783 ayear before Diderot's death. op.cit, p.36 32 Tancock introduction Diderot(R.N) pp.17,36 33 Furbank op.cit. pp.4,254-5. It was published in French in a mangled translation of

Coethe's translation in 182L.

34 A. Maclntyre After Virtue: A Study ot' Morøl Theory 2nd edition, Duckworth, London,

1984, p.55 35 This fortnightly journal, distributed by diplomatic mail, was acquired by Diderot's friend Friedrich Grimm in 1753 and "provided a running report on the cultural life of

Paris, intended for the eyes of foreign princes . . . and had a very select list of subscribers, never more than fifteen or so." Furbank op,cit, ppJ17,457 36 ibid.p.3e6 Diderot 139

imprisonment, and his secrecy might have been prudence, for the philosophes were still engaged in public battles with authority. Voltaire's return to Paris just prior to his death in 1778 signalled a change but the regime and the church were still a threat as is shown by the hasty removal of Voltaire's body from the Parisian authorities.3T Peter Gay speculates that Diderot's reluctance could be directly related to his experience of prison for Diderot often speculated on the possibility of posthumous recognition, and his preference for fame in his lifetime, his reasons for not publishing these works remain obscure. 38 The publication of Rømeau's Nepheut from a German translation by Goethe showed Diderot as a pioneer in questioning of the role of reason. It also takes him out of his context, Goethe saying "In everything for which the French blame him, he is a true German." 39 Maclntyre equates the older Diderot with the "Diderot" character of the story - a "conventional bourgeois moralist with as staid a view of marriage, of promises, of truth-telling and of conscientiousness as any adherent of Kantian duty"a0 but the "Diderot" character, and the text, are not so simple. The book is composed as a conversation in a cafe41 between the character "Diderot" and the nephew of the composer ]ean-Philippe Rameau. Rameau, the nephew, survives through flattery, ingratiating himself into the good favours of the well-to-do. When Diderot meets him he has just been evicted from a very comfortable "position" because, for once in his life, he spoke the truth. The two engage in a dialogue about the merits of genius, virtue, education, science, the tricks of Rameau's 'trade', the nature of human vanity and the merits of different forms of

37 BestermanVoltaire (3rd. ed.) Basil Blackwell, Oxford,1976,p.577 38 For example his letter to Falconet cited by Furbank ibid. pp.304-6:Voltaire's Politics pp.78-9; I. O. Wade suggests that "whereas Voltaire debates with the public, Diderot debates with himself" quoted in Cranston op.cit. p.99 39 johann Wolfgang van Goethe Autobiography trans. ]. Oxenford, University of Chicago press, Chicago, 1974.2:106 cited in Introduction D. Diderot This is Not a Story and Othu Stories trans. P. N. Furbank, Oxford University Press, Oxford,7993,p.l 40 Maclntyre op.cit, p.47

41 The Cøt'é dela Régence where Diderot had meet Rousseau in1742 Diderot 145

between ]acques and his master. After expounding his Spinozan theory, learnt from a previous mastet, Jacques is persuaded to tell the story of his past loves. This story-telling is destined to be interrupted on numerous occasions, much to the annoyance of the master.56 In the first digression they argue about the experience of pain, ]acques having injured his knee in battle. The master falls and damages his knee and learns the pain for himself. They take refuge in an inn where their feilow guests are all robbers, and jacques' ingenuity allows a dignified escape. They are pursued by a mob only to find they are not being pursued. They enter, or perhaps do not enter, a chateau. Jacques returns, not to the chateau, to retrieve his master's watch and purse. He is mobbed as a thief, pardoned for a seduction he did not commit and returns to find his horse has been stolen whiie his master slept. They buy another horse which turns out to have belonged to an executioner and unerringly delivers ]acques to a number of gibbets, raising doubts in his "fatalist" mind about his ultimate end. The master, following ]acques' philosophy, argues that this is a premonition of his own death and hopes that, whatever ill deed justifies this end, he has already performed it. They reach an inn, the scene of their great quarrel, where the innkeeper's wife tells the complex story of Madame de la Pommeraye's revenge. After leaving the inn the Marquis des Arcis tells the story of the immoral Father Hudson and the unfortunate Gousse. They track down their lost horse but we lose track of them in a whirlwind of excitements, Diderot displaying the multiple possibilities available to a writer of fiction. In the end they are reunited, Jacques now married but inseparable from his master. The story of Jacques' first love, when finally told, is not the expected salacious tale but a story of delicacy and charm, Diderot offers a number of possible

56 Bremner suggests that the opening lines of Diderot's This is not a story::'When you tell a story, you tell it to someone who is listening, and however short the story, it is rare that the teller is not interrupted occasionally by the listener." - could serve as an epigraph for lacques the Fatalist. D. Diderot, This is Not a Story and Other Stories trans. P N Furbank, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1,993, pp.17-36C. Bremner Order and Chance:

The Pattern of Diderot's Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,l'983, p.172 Diderot 146

endings and introduces the possibility that his source might have been edited by another hand.s7 The novel destabilises the reader's expectations. At first it seems to belong to the genre oÍ Don Quixote - an inseparable paring of ]acques and his master appears in the tradition of Cervantes' hero and SanchoPanzasS, but Jacques, the servant, is developed as the central figure who does not require an "off-sider" to be complete. The narrator says of the master, when giving the reader the choice of who of the pair to follow during one of their few separations:

He has very few ideas in his head at all. If he happens to say something sensible it is from memory or inspiration. He has eyes like me and you but most of the time you can't be sure that he is actually seeing anything. He does not exactly sleep, but he is never really awake either.5e

Diderot proceeds to play with the idea of an author. What can an author get away with? What is the relationship between reality and fiction? He tells us

So you can see reader, that I am well away and its entirely within my power to make you wait ayear, or two, or even three years for the story of Jacques' loves, by separating him from his master and exposing each of them to whatever perils I liked. What is there to prevent me from marrying off the master and having him cuckolded? Or sending Jacques of to the Indies? And leading his master there? And bringing them both back to France on the same vessel? How easy it is to make up stories!60

57 Arth.rr Wilson notes that the structure of the novel can be tikened to 'a set of Chinese boxes' starting at the level of the smallest anecdote and ending in the largest box as the dialogue between the hypothetical narrator and the hypothetical reader. Diderot Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1972, p.669 58 Furbank op.cit. p.4M se (l F) p.ao 60 ibid. p.22. Elsewhere Diderot wrote Diderot 147

Diderot uses these musings as a "double blind", both adding to the verisimilitude of the work, and then exposing it as fiction. Paradoxically, it is this play on truth and fiction that awakens and invites the critical reflections on the part of the reader. The initial invitation is into a work of fiction then the inclusion of specific dates, places, and people lend the work an air of reality, then this is destroyed by the realisation that the dates do not fit the chronology of the narrative.6l Thus a carefuliy constructed "truth" is undermined. From the beginning the reader is promised a salacious tale of ]acques' loves, the reader sharing the master's keenness to get on with the story. But the master, as we have seen, is a mere automaton capable of little else than taking snuff and looking at his watch,62 a reflection of how one might read uncritically, or what one might expect of a reader's minimal involvement in a poor story. The reader is thus forced into a frame of mind that requires critical judgements of the text, of what'truth' can be ascribed to the text, and into an engagement, in an almost conversational sense, with the ideas presented. For example, the author allows the narrator to be "tripped up" in returning to the story after one of the long digressions in a manner that implies that he, the narrator, was accompanying the pair on their journey: "Jacques and the master intervened and everybody was beseeching the peasant at the same time. If ever I saw . . .". And here, in case the reader is still complacent, the author provides the readers interjection: "If ever you

The right of opposition, in human society, seems to me to be a natural, inalienable and sacred right. A despot, were he the best of men, commits a crime if he governs just as he pleases. And so, we might say does the man who tells a story 'just as he pleases, even if that story is based on truths which he can guarantee from personal experience. Any arbitrary government is bad; I can make no exception for the arbitrary government of a good, firm, just and enlightened ruler. The subject or the listener, must have right to counterbalance the freedom of his own master with his own freedom; and this right is all the more necessary if, as we have seen, that freedom is only a 'phantom', if the order we need to assume in the state does not reside in the nature of things.

Mémoires pour Catherine 1I quoted by Bremner op.cit. p.173

61 For example Jacques' wound at the battle of Fontenoy places the story in the mid 1760s and his release from prison by the criminal Mandin is therefore chronologicaìly impossible as Mandin died in 1755. Martin Hall, Introduction (l F) p.10

62 ibid. p.aO Diderot 148

saw? But you weren't there. You mean if ever anyone saw . ..".63 The structure is further destabilized by the number of characters who exist outside the narrative: the reader, goaded into playing a partt the narrator, who develops a character apart from the author and finally separates with the possibility that the author's source has been edited, bringing in the possibility of a further player. The characters in the story, the innkeeper's wife and the Marquis des Arcis, are allowed to become "authors" of the stories of Madame de la Pommeraye and Father Hudson and Gousse. As a further complication the Marquis is even a character in the innkeeper's wife's story. Like Rømeøu's Nephew,løcques the Føtølisf was not published in Diderot's life-time. The precise dates of writing are unknown but it seems to have been written over a period of 30 years, from 1755 to 7784.64 Diderot's most recent biographer ascribes løcques an autobiographical status, supporting the claim with the evidence of jacques' conversational ability (Diderot was renowned as a great talker) and the explanation of |acques' loquacity - that he was as a boy, gagged for twelve years. This is the same period of time that Diderot' was 'gagged' by King and pørlement.65 While the title suggests two main characters, it is only Jacques who is a complete character. Unlike Rømeøu's Nephezn where Diderot's character is split into at least two Jacques is "Diderot - complete". The character of the master, however, is not without political significance. The inverted relationship between master and servant, the servant superior in intelligence and character to the master, is a common theme in eighteenth-century writing, with the valet also a political threat. It was jokingly said lackeys were "acorps of nobility all ready to replace the existing ons."66 These implications are drawn out in the agreement negotiated by the innkeeper's wife following their great quarrel over the status of the relationship between master and servant, and can be seen as an allusion to the agreement between the monarchy and pørlements \n

63 ibid. p.L02 e ibid. Preface 65 Furbank op.cit. pp.431, 440 66 ibid.pp.356,438-9. ThequotationisfromMichelet's HistoriedeløFranceaul.Bmesiècle (7863-67) Diderot 149

eighteenth-century France.67 In the narrative the master (who remains nameless throughout) has very much an ancillary role, providing a foil for the main protagonist. The master identifies Jacques'predilection for philosophy and outlines his fate, and that of all other philosophers:

And I know all to well that philosophers are a breed of men who are loathed by the mighty because they refuse to bend the knee to them, Magistrates hate them because they are by their calling the protectors of the prejudices that philosophers attack, priests because they see them rarely at the foot of their altars. And poets, who are people without principles, hate them and are stupid enough to think of philosophy as the hatchet of the Arts not to mention the fact that those poets who have indulged in the hateful genre of satire have simpiy been flatterers. They are hated also by the peoples who have always been enslaved to the tyrants who oppress

them, the rogues who trick them and the clowns who amuse them . . ..I predict that your death will be philosophical and that you will put your head in the noose with the same good grace as Socrates took his cup of hemlock.6s

Diderot did not demur when Voltaire likened him to Socrates.6e

Cassirer says of Diderot's achievement in Jøcques the Fatalist: "He admits a vicious circle but he transforms this situation into a grand jes¡."70 Smith says that, for Diderot, who denied free will and renounced self- abnegation, "virtue consists only in eniightened regard for one's own happiness." FIe points out that Diderot

argued that virtue would find powerful supports in a regard for the good opinion of the world. If you are good, you will be loved; if bad you will be hated; and the instinctive perception of this by

67 Diderot (l F) p.258,n.aS 68 ibid.p.80

69 Furbank op.cit. p.782 70 Cassirer op.cit. p12 Diderot 150

conscience, together with experience and calculation, will readily teach the path of the good Life.7l

The theme of the significance of public reputation was also taken up by Diderot in The Nun and Rømeøu's Nepheus. Inløcques the Fatølist ítis extended to equate wisdom with happiness, allied to Jacques' fatalism. These themes are typically left unresolved in the following exchange:

MASTER: Coutd you tell me what is a foolish man, and what is a wise man? IACQUES: Why not?...A foolish man...wait a moment...is an unhappy man. And consequently a happy man is a wise man. MASTER: And what is a happy man or an unhappy man? JACQUES: Well, that one's easy. A happy man is someone who's happiness is written up above, and consequently someone whose unhappiness is written up above is an unhappy man. MASTER: And who is it up there who wrote out this good and bad fortune up above? JACQUES: And who created the great scroll on which all is written? A captain friend of my own Captain would have given a Pretty penny to know that. But my Captain wouldn't have paid an obol, nor would I, for what good would it do me? Would I manage to avoid the hole where I am destined to break my neck?72

Unlike the Leibniz\an philosophy of Dr Pangloss in Cøndide, this philosophy is not used by the author as a point of ridicule, for it is not inconsistent with Diderot's own determinist philosophy, although played out, aS Furbank SayS, through 'fatalism' with all its resonances for the writer of fiction.T3 Here there would seem to be a problem between Diderot's fatalism and his life long obsession with virtue. In his Letter to LøndoisTahe brought out these incompatibilities but argues that the term "virtue" applies in one

71 P. Smith The Enlightenment 1.686-L776 Collier, New York ,1962, p.522 72 Diderot (l F) p.29-30 73 Furbank op.cit. p.435 74 Publishe d in In Correspondence littéraire 7 July7756' Furbank ibid. p1'36 Dideror 151

kind of discourse but not in another, "virtue" serving a didactic purPose rather than a philosophical one. This separation is a manoeuvre that allows Diderot to be both moralist and philosopher, a resolution required if he is going to avoid the kind of disregard for his environment associated with being a "philosopher" in the manner of Rameau's uncle. As Wilson says, Diderot believed

man is modifiable. Man is not 'free', but he is plastic. . . not free to act by mere caprice, for he must necessarily act within the limits of all the variable factors of his previous experience. But these variable factors can be modified and then, of course, man will be modified too.75

Diderot's quest for certainty might appear an "unexpectedly conservative element of his thought" but Wilson sees radical possibilities in the exploration of the following question: "What if a deepened understanding of what man is by nature, an understanding that was critical and rigorous and scientific could be made the basis of a new ethics and a new politics?" For Diderot, humanity is the species 'that combines ideas'.76 Furbank suggests that the consistency in Diderot's position is to found in the various elements that work together to discredit egotism. 77 The arguments between free will and determinism run throughout the text and are left largely unresolved. Of the role of experience Jacques, citing his previous master, says:

But who, he used to ask, can ever boast of having enough experience? Has he who flatters himself on being the most experienced of men never been fooled? And then, what man is there capable of correctly assessing the circumstances in which he finds himself? The calculation which we make in our heads and the one recorded in the register up above are two very different calculations . . ..78

75 Wilson op.cit. p.667 76 ibid. pp.661-3 77 Furbank ibid. p.138 78 Diderot (l F) p.29 Diderot I52

It is these kinds of critical calculations that the reader is continually being asked to engage in:

The world of lacques is not a fixed and settled one in which incidents and behaviour are easily interpreted. One the contrary, it is a world of dizzying variety and unpredictability, one which beckons its readers to embark on their own search for meaning rather than offering them ready-made answers.T9

Such complexity and irresolution demand an intelligent reader rather than a doctrinaire one, and that the readers makes their own conclusions.8O For Cassirer, lacques the FatøIíst is full of fruitful contradiction:

The novel . . . endeavours to show that the concept of fate is the alpha and omega of all human thinking; but it also shows how thought time and again comes into conflict with this concept, how it is forced implicitly to deny and revoke the concept even whiie affirming it. There is no alternative but to recognise this situation as inevitable, and to extend our very idea of necessity so as to include that inconsistency with respect to this idea of which we are guilty in all our thoughts and judgements, in all our affirmations and negations.sl

In an early aside, following an unresolved discussion between Jacques and his master on the problem of free will, Diderot, most clearly as author, says:

You can imagine Reader, to what length I might have taken this conversation on a subject which has been talked and written about so much for the last two thousand years without getting one step further forward. If you are not grateful to me for what I am telling you be grateful for what I am not telling you.82

79 Martin Hall, Introduction, ibid, p.12 80 ibid.p.18 81 Cassirer op.cit, p.72

82 Diderot (l F) P.26 Diderot 153

And yet that is what Diderot has given us in løcques the føtølist, an interesting, playÍul, and witty exploration of an ancient debate, and while it remains steadfastiy unresolved its contradictions are exposed. Rather than developing a systematic philosophy, Diderot, through Jacques, develops a conversation about philosophical problems. At no stage is the reader given a moral, or even a clear direction, instead the reader emerges in a sense "refreshed". Goethe described reading Jøcques the Føtalist as devouring "this enormous and delicate banquet".83 When Milan Kundera rejected an offer to adapt Dostoevsky's The ldiot for the stage he turned instead to løcques the Føtølist FIe summarised its appeal:

From the Renaissance, Western sensibility has been balanced by a complementary spirit: that of reason and of doubt, of play, and of the relativity of human things. Thus the West came to its full self. When the heavy Russian irrationality fell on my country, I felt an instinctive need to breathe deeply of that spirit. And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humor and fantasy, løcques le FøtøIiste.8a

"A book reading itself"

Diderot provides an important point in the development of Enlightenment philosophy as distinct from Cartesian metaphysics. Cranston calls him the least Cartesian of the philosophes.ss While disregarding Cartesian dualism Diderot still has a commitment to Descartes' scientific method, and his repeated assertion that "superstition is a graver misunderstanding of and a worse insult to God than atheism, that ignorance is not far from truth and prejudice" rests on Cartesian methodological foundations.s6 Vartanian says of Diderot's position in

83 Mortier, Diderot en Allemangepp.222-4 cited by Wilson op,cit, p.667,n.31'

84 M. Kundera løcques and His Master trans. S. Callow, Faber and Faber, London, 1981, Introduction p.11

85 Cranston op.cit. p.720

86 Cassirer op.cit. pp.762-3 Diderot 154

relation to Cartesian thought, "Descartes' criterion of clear and distinct notions, with its metaphysical supports in the Cogito, served ultimately to discredit all hope of rendering coherent the Cartesian dualism". In Furbank's view the relationship between Jacques and his master is "an irreverent reversal of Descartes' account of soul and body."87 Diderot's materialism owes more to Leibniz's monadology.

The thought returns, time and time again. That what we lazíly think of as a unity is actually a polity of autonomous entities. An animal is made up of animals. "What is an animal. a plant? A co- ordination of infinitely active molecules, a concatenation of little living molecules which everything conspires to separate." All the solid parts of the body are composed of fibres and each of these fibres is an assemblage of other fibres, ad infinitum; so that so-called "unities" are no more than sheaves of bundles. It is because sensations come in bundles that they can be compared and judgements can be formed.88

Diderot, while never a charismatic figure like Voltaire, or Rousseau, was at the centre of the French Enlightenment. For Diderot, what united thephilosophes, as he said in a letter to Voltaire, "was not so much hatred of l'infâme as benevolence and a love of the true, the good and the beautiful"s9 The enterprise of the Encyclopediø ensures his status as an important thinker in the quest to apply reason to the problems of social organisation, but Diderot has a far more interesting and dangerous role to play when we turn our attention to the development of critical culture within the Enlightenment. Úl the "private" novels considered here Diderot appears to be undermining, not the 'project' of the Enlightenment, but perhaps his own project of the Encyclopediø. Yet what he gives us in his critical novels energises critical culture in a way that the Encyclopediø

87 A. Vartar-rian Diderot and Descartes : A study of Scientit'ic Naturalism in the Enlightenment Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1953; Furbank op,cit, p.435. 88 Diderot Oeuares complètes de Diderot (Garnier, 1875-77) IX quoted in Furbank op.clf. p.398 89 Diderot letter to Voltaire ,29 Sept.7762 Correspondønce C. Roth & ],Varloot eds, 1955- 70IY, p175-8, cited in Furbank ibid.pp.270-7 Diderot 155

could not. In these texts Diderot is exploring in paradox and irony the limits of reason, and inviting readers to think criticaliy. He displays a world where there are no moral prescriptions other than those derived from reason: not reason at the expense of passion but reason based on passion. Cassirer quotes from Diderot's first independent enterprise as a thinker, his Philosophicøl Thought, which begins with this idea:

It is to no avail to oppose the passions, and it would be the height if the ridiculous to try to destroy them since in so doing we should undermine the proud foundations of reason. Everything excellent in poetrlr painting, and music, everything sublime in art and morals, is derived from this source. Hence the affects must not be weakened but strengthened: for the true power of the soul springs from the harmonious balance of the passions, not from their destruction'9O

In creating the character of Rameau's nephew, one who would thrive in any kind of moral culture, he has created a character in whom passion appears to triumph over reason - yet in a culture of reason, where all Rameau's deviousness is displayed, he is far more likely to be "found out" than in a society where there is a greater emphasis on form - the flatterer can always thrive in a mannered culture. Diderot's facility for critical writing means a text can be a criticism of more than one aspect of society and on different levels, and Rameøu's Nephew is a critique of the manners of Parisian society as well as an inquiry into the nature of civic virtue. Furbank summarizes the discovery Diderot conveys in the novel:

It is that moral concepts can be used, as mathematicians say, "recursively". "Fool", "genius", "parasite", "honest", "performance" and "shame" are all terms that may be used to manipulate the very sentences in which they themselves occur. One may have a "genius" for passing oneself off as a genius, one may think it the acme of honesty to adrnit one's dishonesty, one may feel shame at experiencing shame, one may give a performance of a performance; and alas, that is not he end of it, there is a further and infinite regress in prospect. The pattern is drawn out by the nephew in his

90 Diderot, Pensées philosophiques (1746), sect.I ff quoted by Cassirer op,cit. pp.107-8 Diderot 156

pronouncement about the "Fool" . . . One might think of this as a completed circle, but in fact the king being his fool's fool is not the end of it, and the process of thought that Diderot has envisaged is endless. It is an alarming discovery; and to have invented a character Rameau's nephew who lives this discovery is a claim to greatness that no one will ever deny to Diderot.el

One of Diderot's favourite analogies is of human existence "at one and the same time a book (a set of inscriptions on the waxy living substance of the brain) and a reader of that book; it is a book reading itself."92 In Diderot we have a number of different books being read simultaneously. The number of "Diderot" characters or voices in his work and the many characters Diderot adopts, means an infinite reflection of criticism is possible and we are left with the play of inquiring reason, not at the cost of passion, as in the image of the author and the authority of philosophy. Diderot is both the servant and the master of his philosophy.

91 Furbank op.cit, pp. 257-8 92 ibid. p.398; "If Montesquieu and his generation created the possibility of Rousseau, however, they also created the further possibility of Diderot, who could see himself as both reader and writer, as A and B, and tried to transform his own reader in his own image." D. Goodman, Criticism in Actíon Cornell University Press, Ithaca N.Y., 1989, p.228 An end to ø culture ot' criticism? 'ISz I

Auguste Comte : An end to a culture of criticism?

The critical culture to which Montesquieu, Voltaire and Diderot contributed is a key to understanding the legacy oÍ the French Enlightenment and, I suggest in the next chapter, to recognising the possibilities of that legacy in our own time. The selection of texts just discussed is intended to show the importance of the play of paradox, irony and the challenge of contradiction, in an approach to political philosophy I identify as characteristic of a 'critical culture' and which I refer to as 'criticism'. In this chapter I am concerned with the view of a continuing tradition of 'western' thought from the eighteenth through to the nineteenth century. I argue that an important disjunction can be discerned by examining the role of criticism in each period. When Marsak for instance identified modernity as reaching "fruition in the eighteenth and its fulfilment in the nineteenth century" the changed role of criticism is overlooked and ailows the conclusion that the late twentieth century is "a new period of history, which for want of a better word we may call post-modern, and which is altogether different from the Age of Reason."1 Thus Maclntyre sees nineteenth century French philosopher Auguste Comte within an Enlightenment tradition, attempting to derive beliefs from his own intellectual efforts to understand "feeling" so that "social feeling" properly understood, should dominate the intellect. Comte's philosophy starkly shows the problem for freedom of any attempt at an imposed consensus. As a prime mover in the foundation of modern social science - he is the originator of the word "sociology" - Comte is an important figure in understanding the

1 Leonard Marsak, (ed.) The Enlightenmenf ]ohn Wiley and Sons, NewYork, 1972, pp.199,3 An end to a culture of criticismT 158

underpinnings of social science and as well, for the argument of a disjunction in the tradition of Enlightenment thought. The development of social science and professional specialisation in the nineteenth century transformed the role of criticism in political philosophy. There are links between the Enlightenment and the emergence of social science, but the nineteenth-century notion of social science is at odds with the purpose of the phílosophes at least. In the various projects to construct a new system nineteenth-century thinkers move away from the political challenge to orthodoxy and the speculation on possible new methods of social organisation of the eighteenth-century: Their 'spirit' is a constructivist zeal, characterised by a belief in "order" allied with "progress" rather than criticism.

Life

Comte was born ín 1,798 and died in 1857. Educated at the Ecole Polytechnique, he is in a sense a product of the secular and technical changes wrought in eighteenth-century France. He was initially an associate of Henri de Saint-Simon, but broke with him in 1.824, in part because he was opposed to Saint-Simon's attempt to form a rational religion but he also believed his work was not fully acknowledged by his mentor. Comte married in 1825 and began teaching the course in Positive Philosophy ín 7826 which formed the basis of his major six- volume work Cours de philosophíe positiae.2 In 1841 he began a correspondence with ]ohn Stuart Mill, who was to become one of his strongest supporters, even providing him with money. In 1844, two years after separating from his wife, Comte met Clotilde de Vaux whom he saw as the embodiment of all womanly virtue. Her death in 7846, following in Comte's view, an "incomparable year" increased Comte's adoration. His image of Clotilde became the "loving" focus for his new religion, the Universal Church of the Religion of Humanity. In 1856 Comte proposed to the ]esuit Superior in France an

2 The first volume was published in 1830 with subsequent volumes published in 1835, 1838, 1839, 1841 and 1842. A.R. Standley, Auguste Comte Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1987, p.22 An end to ø culture of criticism? 159

alliance against "western anarchy". When he died in 1857 he left no successor to his position as "pope" of the religion of humanity.3

System without spirit

G.H. Lewes said of Comte's Positiae Philosophy

A new era has dawned. For the first time in history an explanation of the World, Society and Man is presented which is thoroughly homogenous, and at the same time thoroughly in accordance with accurate knowledge.a

Willey quotes this passage to put the question "Who now reads Auguste Comte?"S It is as relevant today. Comte said his achievement could be "summed up in the positivist motto, Loae, Order, Progress" which

leads us to the conception of Humanity, which implicitly involves and gives new force to each of them. Rightly interpreting this conception we view Positivism at last as a compiete and consistent whole."6

Why has such an apparently powerful explanation of society lapsed for at least the last half-century? As the texts are no longer read, and have not been subject to the substantial twentieth century analysis of the works of Karl Marx or ]ohn Stuart Mill for instance, Comte's influence on the practice of modern social science is now largely overlooked. A critical exploration of the approach to social scientific explanation through the construction of positive models of society, to show how these models tend to be pushed well beyond their purpose, is diverted when such problems are treated as part of the 'Enlightenment project'.

3 ibid. p.1.3 4 G. H. Lewes History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte t18801 p.690 quoted by B. Willey, Nineteenth Century Studies Chatto & Windus, London, 1.949, p.787 5 B. Willey ibld. 6 A,Comte A General View ot' Positioism t1B4Bl i.H. Bridges trans., Robert Speller & Sons, London, 1957, p.7 An end to a culture ot' criticism? 760

Thus Maclntyre makes a case that the Enlightenment tradition failed to produce a consensus on what constitutes a good life and thus failed to provide a practical moral direction for social science. This attempt to forge a new religion makes Basil Willey regard Comte as "the central figure of his c۔tury"7 and while other contenders such as Marx, or Miil, might be nominated, Willey usefully draws attention to the perplexing legacy of Comte, the goal of founding a religion in the 'century of social science'. Kolakowski credits Comte with originating the term "positive philosophl"8 which he defines as standing for an attitude to knowledge that does not "prejudge" issues about its psychological and historical bases

but . . . is a collection of rules and evaluative criteria referring to human knowledge . ..Positivist rules distinguish between philosophical and scientific disputes that may profitably be pursued and those that have no chance of being settled and hence deserve no consideration. 9

Positivism, in Comte's view, proposes a science in which many projects are ruled out as idle speculation as Raymond Aron observes:

Science, as Comte conceives it, is not an adventure. It is not an endless and infinite quest. Science is a source of dogmas. Comte wanted to eliminate the last traces of theological spirit, but in a sense he was born with certain theological pretensions. He was looking for truths acquired once and for all, never again to be brought into question. One of his convictions was that man is made, not to doubt, but to believe. The lead us to sociology largely because they provide

7 B. Willey op.cit. p.1.88 8 Leszek Kolakowski Positiae Philosophy N Guterman trans., Penguin Books,

Harmondsw or lll., 797 2, p.9 9 ibid. pp.10-11 An end to a culture ot' criticism? 161

us with a body of truths, acquired once and for all, which are equivalent of the dogmas of the past.lO

Isaiah Berlin referred to Comte's

fanatically tidy world of human beings joyfully engaged in fulfilling their functions, each within his own rigorously defined province, in the rationally ordered, totally unalterable hierarchy of the perfect society.ll

Comte's 'system' is a feat of sleight of hand that was "programmatic in its own behalf, announced its own necessity, and prescribed its own tests for its own truth .. a dogma entirely uncritical of itself . .Comte's is a German esprit de système, producing a système with absolutely no esprit at all.12 Whatever the accuracy of this observation, Comte had little appeal to Karl Marx, who wrote to Engels

I am studying Comte on the side because the British and French make so much fuss of that fellow. What captivates them is the encyclopaedic form, the synthesis. But compared with Hegel it is wretched (in spite of the fact that Comte being a mathematician and physicist is by profession superior to him i.e., superior in details; but even here Hegel is infinitely greater when one considers the whole) And this trashy positivism appeared in 1832f13

Despite these views, Comte was extraordinarily influential, his 'system' attracting "hundreds of full-fledged disciples."14 Although

10 R. Aron Main Currents in Sociological Thought 1 R.Howard and H.Weaver trans., Pelican Books, Flarmondworth, 1965, p.104

11 L Berlin Historical Ineoitøbility London, 1954, pp.4-5, 22; The Hedgehog and the For New York,1957 p.26 quoted by Standley op.cit. p.754 12W. M. Simon European Positiaism in the Nineteenth Century Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1963, p.8 13 Marx to Engels luly 7 1866 in Marx and Engels Selected Correspondence Progress Publishers, Moscow, 7975, p.767

14 Simon op. cit. p.9 An end to ø culture of criticismT 762

Comte, unlike Marx, in his excessive detail, fell into "one of the traps of social prophecy,"1s Berlin sees the validity of Comte's predictions in that "the combination of technological skiils and the absolute authority of a secular priesthood has been realised only too successfully in our day."16 Despite his view of Comte's "grotesque pedantry insane dogmatism . [andJ naive craving for unity and symmetry at the expense of experience", Berlin places him in an empirical tradition with Hume, Helvetius, and Condorcet; in the sociaiist tradition of Saint-Simon; in a 'scientific' tradition with Buckle, Taine, and Engels; and as a follower, this time with Spencer as well as Buckle and Taine, of French Enlightenment thought, in particular, of Condillac and Condorcet.rT Although these links can be established, Comte's incorporation in broader traditions means that his peculiarities can be overlooked in the authority of those traditions. For Maclntyre, the concept of a social science "providing a stock of law-like generalizations with strong predictive power" is passed on

from the Enlightenment through Comte and Mill to Hempel - the aim of the social sciences is to explain specifically social phenomena by supplying law-like generalizations which do not differ in their logical form from those applicable to natura-l phenomena in general.ls

He points out as a result of this, that "modern social scientists have seen themselves as the successors of Comte and Mill and Buckle, of Helvetius and Diderot and Condorcet" and thus address their work "to the questions of their eighteenth and nineteenth-century masters."19 The prior problem here is not the nature of this social science, but that

15 Christopher Kent Brains and Numbers : Elitism, Comtism and democracy in Mid- Victoriøn England University of Toronto Press, Toronto,'1.978, p.62 16 I. Berlin Against the Current H.Hardy ed.,The Hogarth Press, London, 1.979,p.335 17 I. Berlin Concepts and Categories H. Hardy ed., The Hogarth Press, London , 1.978, pp.110, 124,749,760 18 A.MacIntyre, At'ter Virtue A Study of Moral Theory op.cit. p.88 79 ibid. p.92 An end to a culture ot' criticism? 163

Maclntyre - as well as the modern practitioners he attacks - sees it as a product of the Enlightenment. Maclntyre is thus limited to complaining about the process rather than identifying the source of an alternative approach to problems of social organisation in eighteenth century thought. Comte rarely acknowledges his intellectual antecedents, and Maclntyre's location of Comte within the Enlightenment tradition pays little regard to the diversity of that thought, nor I argue, to the significance of the criticism developed by the philosophes to modern political philosophy. To see as the telos of Enlightenment thought the development of "a stock of law-like generalizations" projects nineteenth-century social science backwards. Comte himself is adamant about his proprietorship of positivism in t};.e System of Positiae Philosophy which he claims established as truth that

our speculations upon all subjects whatsoever, pass necessarily through three successive stages: a Theological stage, in which free play is given to spontaneous fictions admitting no proof; the Metaphysical stage, characterized by the prevalence of personified abstractions or entities; lastly the Positive stage based upon exact view of the real facts of the case. The first, though purely provisional is the point where we start; the third is the only permanent and normal state; the second has but a modifying or rather a solvent infiuence, which qualifies it for regulating the transition from the first to the third. We begin with theological Imagination, thence we pass through metaphysical Discussion and we end at last with positive Demonstration. Thus by means of this one general law we are enabled to take a comprehensive and simuitaneous view of the past, present and future of Humanity.zo

This "uncontested" law made him free to range across history, unconcerned by, or maybe unaware of, the anachronisms he produces. Thus, as we shall see, the social reality of his "Positive" stage is underpinned by an appeal to the kind of "Fetichism" that his history

20 Comte op,cit. p.34 An end to a culture of criticism? 164 would argue is of the past but that his philosophy demands to remain coherent or/ in Lewes' word, "homogenous". This theory of history gives Comte a particular view of the Enlightenment, in particular in the context of France. He argues that

Intellectual freedom of the West began in England and Germany; and it had all the dangers of original efforts for which at the time no systematic basis can be found. With the legal establishment of Protestantism, the metaphysical movement stopped. Protestantism, by consolidating it, seriously impeded subsequent progress, and is still, in the countries where it prevails, the chief obstacle to all efficient renovation. Happily France, the normal centre of Western Europe, was spared this so-called Reformation, she made up for the delay, by passing at one stride, under the influence of Voltaire, to a state of entire freedom of thought; and thus resumed her natural place as leader of the common movement of social regeneration. But the French, while escaping the inconsistencies and oscillations of Protestantism, have been exposed to all the dangers resulting from unqualified acceptance of revolutionary metaphysics. Principles of systematic negation have held the ground with us too long. Useful as they once were in preparing the way for social reconstruction, they are now a hindrance to it.21

Comte can thus claim to be the originator of "a justified conception of social science" and earn our agreement, but it is difficult to see this other than as a disjunction with Enlightenment thought - as Comte would agree - and so would the phílosophes dismissed by Comte for their "negative" qualities. Maclntyre's construction of a single tradition obscures a shift that occurs in the role of criticism and the ends to which the application of reason is put. One disadvantage or danger in seeing thought in terms of traditions is the possibiiity of anachronism. To the eighteenth- century mind the notion of "the social" did not exist, certainly not with

27 ibid. p.299 An end to ø culture of criticism? 165 the connotations it acquired in the nineteenth-century, which persist today. Our use of 'the social' as the framework of inquiry is a product of nineteenth-century systematising and is not fully congruent with eighteenth-century critical thought. Comte is right when he describes the philosophy of the Enlightenment as "negative", but it was far from nihilist. For the philosophes criticism provided an organising principle (or perhaps a disorganising principle) that directed and invited the expansion of awareness. It was a negative movement against a political regime and an established religion in which criticism explored possible developments of the human intellect. The intent was not to construct new systems of belief that would close off speculation and from which new dogmas could emerge, but to open new avenues. Comte's association with ]ohn Stuart Mill provides an insight into the aim of Comte's "Positive polity". This was designed to admit no metaphysical speculation, but for its designer its pursuit seems to have excluded actual social relationships and intellectual engagement. In his first letter to Mill, Comte expresses surprise at Mili's knowledge of his work and continues:

Both by preference and necessity I live extremely isolated from everyday life, even intellectual life, and have no other regular diversion than that of attending the Italian opera during our musical season. For more than three years I have systematically increased this isolation by scrupulously refusing to read any newspapers, even monthly or quarterly ones; and I find that this cerebral hygiene suits me too well for me to change it now, given the ease with which it enables me to achieve and maintain myself without effort at the level of a more generai perspective, as well as that of purer and more impartial thoughts.22

22 K.Thompson, Auguste Comte: The Foundation ot' Sociology Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, London,7976, p.194 The letters are translations from Lettres Inédite de lohn Stuart M|II à Auguste Comte aaec les Responses de Comte Paris: Alcan [1899] An end to a culture of criticism? 166

The relationship of the two evoked the comment "In the evolution of the ideas of the nineteenth-century there is perhaps no episode more instructive than the coming together and separation of these two philosophers."23 Their separation was in part because of the divergence of their views on women in society. This extended disagreement is documented in letters such as Comte's response to Mill's advocacy that both men and women govern society:

Alt thinkers who seriously like women other than as delightful toys have, I think, in our times passed through an analogous position; I remember very well in my case the time when the strange work of (before she married Godwin) made a great impression on me. It was above ail in working directly to clarify for others the true elementary ideas of the domestic order that, about twenty years ago,I set my mind irrevocably against any such assault on my sympathies.2a

Comte makes a clear division between the capacities of women and men in his "Positive polity" and argues

lT]here is another and more unexpected source from which Positivism will obtain support; and not till then will its true character and the full extent of its constructive power be appreciated . . . It is from the feminine aspect only that human life, whether individually or collectively considered, can really be comprehended as a whole. For the only basis on which a system really embracing all the requirements of life can be formed, is the subordination of the intellect to social feeling: a subordination which we find directly rePresented in the womanly type of character, whether regarded in its personal or social relations. 25

23 Lucien Levy-Bruhl quoted in Thompson, ibid. p.191 24 Comte to Mill 5 October 7843 ibid. p.202 25Comte op.cit .p.4-5 An end to a culture of criticism? 167

In chapter four of the Generøl View of Positíaism Comte explains as fact that "Women represent the affective element in our nature, as philosophers and people represent the intellectual and practical elements." From this he develops the distinctive place of each sex in the Positive polity:

The moral constitution of man consists of something other than Intellect and Activity. These are represented in the constitution of society by the philosophic body and the proletariat. But besides these there is Feeling, which, in the theory put forward in the first chapter of this work, was shown to be the predominating principle, the motive power of our being, the only basis on which the various parts of our nature can be brought into unity. Now the alliance between philosophers and working men does not represent the element of Feeling with sufficient distinctness and prominence.26

When he turns to the problem of understanding "feeling" as part of the "womanly character" for a man, he does not ask what kind of society such a woman might design. Instead, in a passage which positions him securely out of reach of criticism he asserts

What is wanted is that each sex should strengthen the moral qualities in which it is naturally deficient. Energy is a characteristic feature of Humanity as well as Sympathy; as is well shown in the double meaning of the word Heørt. In man Sympathy is the weaker element, and it requires constant exercise. This he gains by the expression of his feelings of reverence for Woman. In Woman, on the other hand, the defective quality is Energy; so that, should any special preparation for the worship of humanity be needed, it should be such as to strengthen courage rather than sympathy. But my sex renders me incompetent to enter farther into the secret wants of Woman's heart. Theory indicates a blank hitherto

26 ibid. p.227 An end to ø culture of criticism? 168

unnoticed, but does not enable me to fill it. It is a problem for women themselves to solve; and I had reserved it for my noble colleague, for whose premature death I would fain hope that my own grief may one day be shared by all.zz

Comte refers here to Clotilde de Vaux, his "Saint Clotilda", elevated to a role she cannot perform, which must be left forever unfilled, The device of the 'blank' is not so much a reversal of the stylistic devices of paradox and irony as an avoidance of any critical possibility. In a eulogy that follows the passage quoted above, Comte provides quotations from Clotilde's only published work, the story Lucie which was written before she knew of Comte's Positiue philosophy. Comte says "she expresses herself most characteristically on the subject of Women's vocation" when she writes

Surely the true sphere of woman is to provide Man with the comforts and delights of home, receiving in exchange from him the means of subsistence earned by his labours. I would rather see the mother of a poor family washing her children's linen, than see her earning her talents away from home. Of course I do not speak of women of extraordinary powers whose genius leads them out of the sphere of domestic duty. Such natures should have free scope given them: for great minds are kindled by the exhibition of their powers.28

Comte also quotes a letter she wrote a few months before her death: "If I were a man, I should be your enthusiastic disciple; as a woman I can but offer you my cordial admiration."29 FIe comments

in the same letter she explains the part she proposed to take in diffusing the principles of the new philosophy: "It is always well for a woman to foilow modestly behind the army of

27 ibid p.295-6 28 ibid p.297 29 ibid p.298 An end to a culture of criticism? "169

renovators/ even at the risk of losing a little of her own originality."30

Comte's adoration and veneration of Clotilde suggests Catholic worship of the Virgin Mary, adding force to T. H. Huxley's comment that Comte's philosophy was "Catholicism without Christianity."at Comte sees the Catholic worship of the Virgin Mary as a

tendency too slightly marked to lead to any important result; yet it is striking proof of the new direction which men's minds and hearts are unconsciously taking in countries which are often supposed to be altogether left behind in the march of modern thought.

He argued that since the twelfth century worship of Mary had continually increased, the influence of the Virgin, especially in Spain and Italy, which had yet to experience either the Reformation or "Voltairism", and that if Clotilde lived, these countries would have been brought quickly to the Positive phase through her example without the need for a Metaphysical stage.32 Thus Comte's "Positive polity" depends on the foundation of women's "natrlral" tendency towards "feeling", and that sentiment is to be the dominant force of the polity. Comte's view of the nature of women, especially their intellectual capacity, and of their role in his systematic society, did not deter Harriet Martineau, his contemporary, from embracing positivism. She translated and condensed Comte's six volume Course de phílosophie

30 ibid.

31 This sentimentality carried over to Comte's closest followers. G.H. Lewes, a supporter of Positive philosophy in Britain, describes Clotilde as the angel who had appeared to him in his solitude, opening the gates of heaven to his eager gaze, vanished again, and left him once more to his Ioneliness; but, although her presence was no longer there, a trace of luminous glory left behind in the heart of the bereaved man, sufficed to make him bear his burden, and dedicate his days to that great mission which her love had sanctified.

Comte's Philosophy ot' the Sciences Henry G. Bohn, London, 7853, p.7 32 ibid. p.393 An end to a culture of criticismT 770 positiae into two volumes and rendered it more accessible to both English and French readers, and with Comte's sanction, it became the authorised text and was retranslated into French.33 Comte had little respect for his predecessors. He did acknowledge Montesquieu but found his work lacked "truly scientific development".34 Instead, he ranged himself with Descartes and Leibniz, to him the greatest modern philosophers. Mill summarised the similarities between the three:

they were, of all great scientific thinkers, the most consistent, and for that reason often the most absurd, because they shrank from no consequences/ however contrary to common sense, to which their premises appeared to lead. Accordingly their names have come down to us associated with grand thoughts, with most important discoveries, and also with some of the most ludicrously absurd conceptions and theories which ever were solemnly propounded by thoughtful men. We think M. Comte as great as either of these philosophers, and hardly more extravagant. Were we to speak our whole mind, we should call him superior to them: though not intrinsically, yet by the exertion of equal intellectual power in a more advanced state of human preparation; but also in an age less tolerant of palpable absurdities, and to which those he has committed, if not in themselves greater, at least appear more ridiculous.3s

Comte's influence on Mill is clear in his assessments. Thompson maintains that

after the break up of the collaboration with Comte, Mill found it impossible to give scientific form to his 'ethological

33 Harriet Martineau The Positiue Philosophy of Auguste Comte translated and condensed, H Martineau, vol.1, John Chapman, London, 1853; M.E. Waithe, A History of Women Philosophers vol. 3, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht ,1.997, p.246

34 J, R. Loy, MontesquieuTwayne Publishers, New York, 1968, p.150

35 J.S. Mill, Auguste Comte and Positiaism Sth ed. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co Ltd., London, p.799-200 An end to a culture of criticism? 171

meditations' (the study of individual and collective character formation) which he believed to be the main deficiency of Comte's sociology. It was then that, somewhat despairingly, he returned to the narrower specialism of political economy.36

The "absurdities" in both Descartes and Leibniz Mill refers to are errors that can be explored through a critical engagement that in Comte's case is disallowed. Mill preserved Comte's legacy to an extent by excusing his views on women as the result of mental decline. such problems and Comte's current status as a largely unread thinker, however, do not diminish the influence of his ideas. In his construction of 'the social' Comte provides a framework for the new 'science' which protects assumptions such as those he makes about women from challenge. Mill also rescues Comte's Positivism from his later involvement with rational religion by placing a dividing line between the two in his book on Comte, the first section entitled "The Cours de Philosophie Positive" and the second "The later Speculations of M. Comte". A division in Comte's thought is usually attributed to his mental disturbance, thought to originate in 185L "when Comte greeted with satisfaction the coup d'é.tøt of Louis Napoleon as a step towards the Occidental Republic in which the Positivists would function as the pouooir spirituel."37 The oniy evidence for Comte's mental infirmity goes back to an incident in 7826 when Comte had what would now be termed a nervous breakdown, and from which he apparently fully recovered.3s His endorsement of the coup d'étøt does not show mentai disturbance so much as the kind of regime in which Comte saw the propagation of his Positivism was most likely.

36 Thompson op cit, p.792 37 E. Voeglin From Enlightenment to Reuolution J. Hallowell ed. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina ,1975, p.737 38 Standley op.cit, p.22 An end to a culture ot' criticism? 172

"Authority" not "speculation"

It is not my contention here that it is not possible to be critical of Comte - this chapter is generally critical of his enterprise - but that his methodology does not invite the kind of critical perspectives associated with the culture created by the philosophes. The critical positions developed in response are of necessity the kind opposed to orthodoxy and dogma. Not that there aren't paradoxes and ironies about the influence of Comte's philosophy. Montesquieu, Voltaire and Diderot all were influenced by English thought. In the influence of Comte on J.S. Mill, Harriet Martineau, G.H. Lewes, Fredric Harrison,3e and British social science there is first a reversal of that relationship, although with the disillusionment of Comte's "later speculations", Mill's "system" develops a much more organic character

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.a0

Comte himself found England an annoyance, it did not conform to his 'Continental system' and required a sub-stage of classification, and the anomalous British Constitution (a source of fascination for the philosophes) failed to provide the correct "antithesis between the theological and metaphysical phases."41 The British resistance to Comtean systematising is best seen in the role that the Social Science Association played in preventing the development of "any general theory of society in nineteenth century Britain" and that it "was critical in frustrating the growth of sociology in the mid-nineteenth century."

39 B. Willey More Nineteenth Century Studies Chatto&Windus, London, 1956, pp.'^t67-2 40 J. S .Mill Oir liberty (1859)The Philosophy ot' lohn Stuart Mlll M,Cohen ed, The Modern Library,New York, 1961, p.253 41 B Willey op.cit. p.792 An end to a culture ot' criticism? 173

Philip Adams concludes "the promotion of social science [in Britain] was not conducive to the growth of sociology."42 The unity of system is also evident in Comte's impossible construction of the 'divine' woman. Comte, with the death of Clotilde, Ieaves a 'blank' - but it is a woman who popularises his work in a century characterized by women articulating their claims for a changed role in society and in the movement for suffrage. Harriet Martineau's "deep conviction" for the need of a translation oÍ Positiue Philosophy in Britain stemmed from her view of the times, when "the conflict of opinions renders a firm foundation of knowledge indispensable, not only to our intellectual, moral and social progress, but to our holding such ground as was have gained in former ages". Martineau says she "was not insensible to the temptation of entering my protest, here and there, against a statement, a conclusion, or a method of treatment," but that "this was not the place nor occasion for any such controversy."43 The advantage that Comte's work provides in satisfying the "scientific taste among the working class" overcomes the 'blank' with regard to women. The interest in social explanation of course is not blind to Comte's ideas of the role of women and "feeling". The US women's rights campaigner Elizabeth Cady-Stanton reading Martineau's transiation in 1887 "found the part on women most unsatisfactory". 4 Comte, whose views on women were similar to those of other French utopian socialists, including his former mentor Saint-Simon, nevertheless provided an impetus to the development of feminism in France and Britain. ]enny d'Héricourt attacked Comte and others saying the "time was over for sentimental

42 Perry Anderson. "Components of the National Culture" New Let't Reoiew I7968, p.13 n.; Philip Adams, The Origíns of British Scoiology,TB34-1914 University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 7968, pp.44, 47 43 Martineau, preface op.cit. p.vü, p.xí 44 Elizabeth Cady-Stanton Ëighty years and more 1815-7897: reminiscences of

Elizøbeth Cødy-Stanton European Publishing Co., 1.898, p.394 An end to a culture of criticism? 774 conceptions of 'women's missions' and ripe for political action".4S Comte's claim that Positivism would find "unexpected support" from women was answered, not by the elevation of "feminine feeling" but in the move to women's suffrage in direct contradiction to Comte's "blank". Basil Willey characterizes the nineteenth-century as

the century whose special problem was the reconciling of destruction with reconstruction, negation with affirmation, science with religion, the head with the heart, the past with the present, order with progress.46

Such a formulation is already Comtean in its precise depiction of the world Comte's system would set to rights. To do this Comte relied on studies carried out based on [his] "encyclopaedic principles which determine the relative value of knowiedge."47 These "principles" are, in stark contrast to the attempts to subvert existing 'knowledge' in Diderot's enterprise, are specifically offered as immutable certainties. When Martineau was translating Positiae PhilosophA, her scientific consultant pointed out that theory and experiment in physics had gone beyond Comte's description or in a new an unexpected direction, Comte replied that he had "shown what gaps are disclosed in the course of such a survey." The identification of error as 'gap' leaves his structure in place. Once again, the device of a blank is applied, avoiding the challenge of empirical evidence.4s The problem with rescuing Comte from his "later speculations" is that it leaves in place his "earlier speculations" which derive the appearance of a settled positivist order by the reasoning on which they are based. Despite Mill's rescue attempts Comte's presentation of his Positivism was always dependent on the uncriticøl acceptance of

45 ienny D'Héricourt in La Femme øt't'ranchie quoted by |ane Rendall The Origins ot' Modern Feminism: Women in Britain France and the United States 1780-7860 MacMillan, London, 1985, pp.295-7 46 Willey op,cit, p.188 a7 ibid. p203 48 Standley op.cit. p.64 An end to ø culture of criticism? 175

Comte's system, no matter how reasonable they initially appeared to be to Mill, to Martineau or others. Comte presented his philosophy as "authority" not as "speculations". Without the suggested division in Comte's life the construction of a religion becomes a necessary, søne, implication of Comte's Positivism. Writing half a century ago Voegelin stated

Whatever the answer of the future will be, there can be no doubt even now that Comte belongs, with Marx, Lenin and Hitler, to the series of men who would save mankind and themselves by divinizing their particular existence and imposing its laws as the new order of society. The satanic Apocalypse of Man begins with Comte and has become the signature of Western Crisis.a9

Our modern, secular sensibilities recoil from the notion of a rational religion and yet recent communitarian critiques of modernity, such as Maclntyre's, centre on the alienation caused by general spiritual disorientation. There are some interesting parallels and disjunctions between Marx and Comte. Comte shared Marx's acceptance of industrial society and the liberating role of organized labour, but he considered a 'moral' monopoly capitalism the ultimate economic organization. Comte, with Marx rejected conventional religions but his belief that mankind needed to believe, led him to create a rational religion. Both envisaged a classless society, but, while Marx espoused proletarian values, Comte's found its values in the middle class - the sanctity of private property, the role of women - as wife and mother, and the central role of the family. They were both opposed to liberal individualism and saw their 'positive' societies as historically determined, for Comte as an ideal, for Marx as determined by material factors.S0 In looking at these similarities and differences, current western society, especially with the collapse of the Marxist alternative, looks Comtean rather than at the end of a Marxist or, more interestingly, 'liberal' history. IÍ the characteristics of current

49 Voegelin op.cit. p.159 50 Kent op.cit. p.59 An end to a culture of criticism? 776

'Western' society mimic Comte's 'system', as Berlin suggests, then Comte's influence deserves closer critical scrutiny than his work has received. This is a role not for positivism, but for the "negative" critical stance of the Enlightenment. As can be seen by Martineau's interest, and that of other nineteenth century women intellectuals in positivism, there is an appeal in social science that does not carry the dogmatic connotations noted in Comte's formulation. Paul Corcoran points out that

Even to those socialists who were most passionately committed to an elaborate system, lø science sociale was not a closed system or a rigid social blueprint. Rather they assumed that it was a genuine experimental science, and that its findings must be achieved by piecemeal empirical trials combined with the fortuitous powers of inventive genius, just as any science achieves theoretical and practical breakthroughs. Social science was the key, but the doors remained to be opened and the rooms to be searched.

Corcoran includes Comte in a group of thinkers who also assumed "inexorable stages of historical development"sl but argues that this is not coincidental wtth lø science sociøle. The assertion of a dogma, in social science as in religion is not derived from the critical culture of Enlightenment, but opposed to it and at the same time vulnerable to it: this is the end of a culture of criticism.

51 Paul Corcoran, Bet'ore Marx: sociq.Iism and communism in France, Macmillan, London,

1,983, p.8 The idea of criticism t77

9

The idea of criticism

The idea of criticism has its roots in the writings of Enlightenment thinkers and their assertion of the power of human reason over religious superstition. While Enlightenment thought placed great store in the role of reason it was also vitally concerned with the limits of human reason. To accept that Enlightenment thinkers valued reason without taking into account their recognition of its fallibility is to miss a relationship that energised Enlightenment thought. The use of reason alone does not adequately characterise the age and Cassirer and Gay refer instead to an Age of Criticism.l Neither is it the case that the Enlightenment was preceded by an age oÍ unreason, for that was a period where reason was circumscribed by faith. Thus continuities can be found between Enlightenment understandings of reason and those of preceding thinkers such as Descartes and Leibniz. The act of criticism requires the exercise of judgement, which can be relatively uncontroversial. In a culture of belief or faith the function of criticism is limited to judgements made by reference to an acknowledged authority. This can lead to considerable debate about the nature of that authority, about what is in accordance with that authority and so on, but criticism in this environment is a tool to reinforce rather than to challenge authority. In Enlightenment thought criticism is called on to do more: in the Enlightenment assertion of reason over superstition, the arbitration between the good and the bad can no longer be made through reference to revealed or traditional "truths". Instead critical argument must be made

1 Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy ot' the Enlightenmenf trans. Fritz C. A. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey,7968; Peter Gay The Enlightenment: An Interpretatioll vol.1 The Rise of Modern Pagønism Wildwood House, London, 1966. The idea of criticism 178

on the basis of reason alone. Criticism, therefore, is no longer circumscribed by faith but rather by the fallibility of human reason. The recognition of fallibility leads to a loss of certainty that makes critical judgements more controversial, amplifying the need for further criticism. Criticism also requires internal as weil as external judgement, inviting reflection and further judgements rather than demanding submission to the judgement of a higher authority. In the Enlightenment culture of the philosophes respect for criticism became an organising principle. Their intellectual lives were not constituted on a "friends" and "enemies" basis. Diderot and Voltaire only met on Voltaire's return to Paris in7778 - and they were the best critics of each other's work. Indeed

many of the charges later levelled against the Enlightenment - naiVe optimism, pretentious rationalism, unphilosophical philosoph izing - were first made by one philosophe against another.2

What links them was not 'faith', nor a collective 'project' for even their trust in reason was mitigated by the acknowledgment of human fallibitity. The philosophes shared the practice of criticism as a means of applying reason to the problems of political philosophy, and the purpose of limiting the space previously occupied by faith and the 'certainties' of political and religious dogma. Allegiances between the philosophes were fragile because of this shared commitment to criticism and thus more interesting than a solid political alliance. A lack of appreciation of the paradox of the Enlightenment can lead to a chronicle of its prejudices. As seen earlier, Kant can be seen as sexist, but allegations of Enlightenment prejudice are not confined to sexism. H. M. Bracken cites the following statement by David Hume to reveal his racism.

I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent

2 ibid. p.5 The idea of criticism 179

either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the white, such as the ancient GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there the NEGROE siaves dispersed all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho' low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but'tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.3

Bracken, pointing out that Hume was once secretary for colonial affairs, says: "It is an unhappy fact that many of the cultural heroes of the Enlightenment were anxious to establish that large numbers of the peoples of the world were somehow less than men."4 Such an attitude in a present day public servant would not only be unenlightened but also illegal. Flowever, as the history of colonialism shows, such attitudes probably suited Hume for his post. A quick dismissal of the Enlightenment as a site, or source of prejudice denies the role its thinkers played in exposing prejudice and bigotry and ignores the vulnerability of our own society to such charges.s It is not the experience of being oppressed alone that leads to the recognition of oppression. Nor does the experience of oppression, even once it is identified, grant automatic moral

3 Quoted by H. M. Bracken in "Essence, accident and race" in Hermathena: Dttblin University Review vol.116 Winter, 1973, p.82 4Bracken op.cit.

5 There are policies and ideas of our own time that future generations may see as based on prejudice. As a controversial example, legalistic E.E.O. policies, perhaps necessary in the nineties, might take on the appearance of institutional prejudice in a society where former inequities were redressed. The idea of criticism 180

superiority to the oppressed. The moral claim is based on beliefs in freedom and equality that emerged in a particular form in the Enlightenment. These tensions can be accommodated in a critical culture. If we allow our outrage at sexist comments to lead to a dismissal of the evocation "dare to know!" we cease to be critical and become advocates of ahistorical political correctness. If, on the other hand, we fail to see Kant's sexism, or Flume's racism6 as an important focus for inquiry,we have missed the point of the original invitation to dare to know. The contrast with the positivism of Comte, and with the establishment of social science in 19th century England, can be developed in making the important distinction between the manner and task of criticism in the historical Enlightenment, and the subsequent construction of an Enlightenment 'tradition', or 'project'. without this the origins of modernity are open to an interpretation which asserts a development of critical culture is a departure from it:

Modernism claims to be a new origin, a break with the past that is the opening of a project, the beginning of the movement that will end in the revealed finality of a universal idea, of truth, of freedom, of beauty. The origin of modernity is thus on a tøbulø rasa, artempty space from which the fragments of the past have been swept away. Knowledge demands a vacuum.T

The term itself becomes a problem and as Shklar notes it is used in a way that closes off potential when presented as "a mixture of natural science, technology, industrialization, skepticism, loss of religious orthodoxy,

6 These are not rare incidents. Voltaire's supposed anti-semitism, Rousseau's and others' attitude to women, Locke's dismissal of the children of the poor and so on. Each is an example of prejudice, but these prejudices can be exposed through the application of reason' That Enlightenment thinkers were, in some matters unenlightened does not render them failures or charlatans, but identifies them as fallible and therefore human. 7 B Readings and B Schaber (eds.), Postmodernism Across the Ages Syracuse University Press, Syracuse NY, 1993, p.10 The idea of criticism 181

disenchantment, nihilism, and atomistic individualism."s The "modernity" of Enlightenment thought must of course be recognised in the particularities of its historical context, in the problems and lives and work and social milieu of particular thinkers. When particular texts of the philosophes are discussed in this context, Enlightenment modernism is certainly not inscribed on a blank page. The philosophes wrote from an intense engagement not only with their own society, but with their intellectual and religious inheritance. That Comte saw the results of their work as a vacuum which he could fill is evidence of a closure of possibilities offered by the texts discussed here. The nature of criticism in the Enlightenment, however, means that assessments of success or failure of particular political or intellectual tasks are not the central issue. In the texts discussed here criticism can be seen as a method of inquiry that sustains modernity, but when they are coilapsed within a 'failed project' this potential disappears, even if the 'failure' is seen as a problem of implementation for then, as Bauman says, the potential of modernity still appears untapped and in need of redemption.9 To declare its failure or its success is to make too much of a process that begins as a challenge to orthodoxy and remains 'enlightened' only by avoiding the formation of new orthodoxies. This understanding of criticism clearly must be distanced from the negative connotations 'criticism' acquired in the nineteenth century. Comte's view of Enlightenment criticism as a negative movement led him to change direction to meet what he saw as the need for the complete reconstruction of the social world. Holmes points to the "effective propaganda" of the conservatives Maistre and Louis de Bonald in "lpromulgatingl the myth of a direct causal link between the activity of the eighteenth-century philosophes and the Reign of Terror." Becker's use of Robespierre's rhetoric as an example of Enlightenment rather than revolutionary faith also develops this view.lO Becker's choice can be seen

8 judith Shklar "The Liberalism of Fear" in Liberalism and the Moral Lit'e N. Rosenblum ed., Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., L989, p.22

9 Z. Bauman Legislators and Interpreters Cornell University Press, Ithaca N.Y.,l987, p.191

10 Auguste Comte A General View ot' Positiaisml.H. Bridges trans., Robert Speller & Sons, 1957,p.299; S. Holmes The Anøtomy of Anti-Liberalism Harvard University Press, The ideq of criticism 182

as a recent reflection of the wave of conservative reaction to the French Revolution. This is not an unexpected consequence of the reconstruction following the Revolution, but the desire for certainty has an effect on the shape of the developing social science. Present authorised definitions emphasise this oppositional sense of negativity, rather that the opportunities offered by the philosophes'invitations to question. "Critical" is thus defined as "given to judging", but especially of an "adverse or unfavourable nature", and carrying with it the connotations "fault finding" and "censorious".11 Hence the unattractive reputation which contemporary critics acquire, sometimes even when they see their role differently,l2 but more often because of incidents such as ]ulian Barnes uses to explain why he "hates critics". He explains Gustave Flaubert's purpose in carefully creating an ambiguity about the colour of Emma Bovary's eyes and cites a critic who nonetheless complains about Flaubert's lack of precision in this instance.l3 When criticism is seen as judging or finding fault the need to inquire into the nature of what is being criticised, and into the manner of its criticism, is exiled. Enlightenment criticism for example, does have the "negative" task of dismantling the power of the old regime and making God irrelevant to human understanding of the social sphere, but this also can be viewed as a positive assertion of freedom and human rights. I identify the context in which criticism plays this expanded role as a 'critical culture'. One of the characteristics of a culture to those who are part of it is familiarity, so there is little need to elaborate its values. Cultural sensibility is more often aroused in light of practices foreign to it. Criticism, however, is directed towards challenging the familiar as well as

Cambridge, Mass., 7993,p.247-8; C. Becker The Heuoenly City ot' the Eighteenth-century

Philosophers Yale University Press, New Haven , 1932, p.'1,42

1.7 Shorter Oxt'ord English Dictionary 11973) 12 Irving Howe A Critics Notebook N Howe ed., F{arcourt Brace & Co., New York, 1994. Nicholas Howe likens his father's role as a critic to the situation he ascribed to George Eliot: "Her work is torn between the modern passion for criticism, a criticism often grazittg negation, and an intuitive love for the positive virtues, mostly nestling in memory." p.3

13 julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot Picador, London, 1985, pp.74-87 The idea of uiticism 183

the foreign. It is often awakened by a sense of injustice or a Passion for justice. The target can be culture, in the sense of "tradition" or "orthodoxy", ot practices within its culture or, of course, any other. Bringing together 'criticism' and'culture' creates an oxFnoron, something that is at the same time settled and changeable, but this is a fruitful juxtaposition. While the possibilities of a critical culture owe a debt to Enlightenment thought in the assertion of the power of our reason over superstition, and prevailing religious orthodoxies, the Enlightenment does not provide a secular heritage. What we see in The Enlightenment (and this period needs to be seen in a broader context of the decay of religious orthodoxy and the rise of the state) is the emergence of a culture, in which, following the lead of philosophes, it becomes possible to submit cultural values and the organisation of society in general to critical analysis. However, the controversial nature of such inquiry means that analysis often does not provide conclusive directions for action. Even in the form of a Kantian categorical imperative one is left to make a judgement about what actions might or might not be appropriate. While criticism nurtures a secular debate on the nature of the good life the secularisation of the culture is incomplete. Enlightenment thought does not represent a complete challenge to the authority of religion, its thinkers varying in commitment from Montesquieu's conventional religious observance to Voltaire's deism and Diderot's atheism. Whatever their beliefs, each is eccentric in terms of the religious norms of the day, and thus elements of faith remained unchallenged in themilieu of eighteenth century France. While the secularisation of social thought is now commonplace, where even most of those who identify themselves as opponents of the Enlightenment, in western political thought at least, assume a secular world, it is important to recognise the strength of the orthodoxy the philosophes challenged. If this is overlooked, then the role that the assertion of reason played as a force to counter orthodoxy is lost. Reason had two functions in the Enlightenment, in lessening the orthodox grip of religion on the organisation of the social world, and in providing light to guide the secular organisation of society. If the distinction between the two tasks is not recognised and the irony of the first move mistaken for arrogance in the second, then the assertion of reason takes on the character of hubris. To øssume the complete secularisation in sociai life (as The idea of uiticism 184

opposed to developments in thought) is a threat to a culture which can accommodate the possibilities of both the rational and the religious. As Holmes says

[T]he enlightenment was a limits-of-reason tradition. Arrogance is more justly ascribed to religious authorities presuming to tell individuals how to save their souls than to doctors experimenting with inoculations against smallpox. The main theme of a liberal work such as Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionory is the inability of reason to answer certain large questions. The nature of matter and the soul are inscrutable to the human mind. Scholastic attempts to penetrate to the essence of things failed because they overtaxed human cognitive capacities.l4

An increasingly secular society relies on the exercise of critical judgement for the determination of its political life. The way in which criticism is carried out is of central importance. The definition of criticism as finding and judging error locks out the potential for anything other than polarisation and opposition. Similarly strict adherence to a particular world view or ideological position does not allow for the interaction that is a vital to a realisation of the possibilities of criticism, which depends on finding ways for participants to modify their position in order to sustain a culture of critical inquiry. Without the recognition that both or all participants could be wrong or mistaken, critical engagement can leave us like the mole and the cockchafer in Voltaire's anecdote, reaffirmed in our own mistaken belief but none the wiser as to reality. Criticism in the Enlightenment is not only an intellectual pursuit, it is directed towards action. As Voltaire says, with a characteristic jibe at Rousseau, "Jean- ]acques writes for the sake of writing, and I write in order to Act"15 Turning Karl Marx's question on its head Goodman suggests that writers might indeed change the world through writing texts, in arguing that Enlightenment critical writing was a form of political

14 S. Holmes, The Anatomy of Anti-Liberalism Harvard University Press, Cambridge,

Mass., 1993, p.249

15 Voltaire at Vernes,25th April 7767 ci|,ed by Peter Gay Voltøire's PoliticsThe Poet øs Realist Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1959, p.3 The idea of criticism 185

action. The change from tlne speculum princips geîre to critical writing marked by Montesquieu's Persian Letters also represents a major political shift from the necessity of attracting the ear of prince or prelate in order to achieve political ends. Tlne philosophes' writing is now directed to a new readership that could, with the decline of the old regime, effect social change.16 Change could not now be carried out in the programmatic way of a new prince, but through the application of reason. In Usbek's successes and failures in the use of reason, Montesquieu is also providing an example of the kind of society enlightenment would shape. Goodman's answer to Marx's question could also be seen as situating Marx's writing (as opposed to direct action) within a critical writing tradition developed in the Enlightenment. It also draws attention to the democratic potential locked in Enlightenment writing, the political ramifications of which would not be fully played out by the French Revolution, the European revolutions of the mid-nineteenth century, nor the Russian revolution. Each of the philosophes discussed here contributed to this development of a critical culture, not in an abstract way, but necessarily in response to their political and intellectual climate. In writing the Persiøn Letters Montesquieu, makes a radical change in the genre of critical writing that goes beyond a cumulative didactic style, and creates possibilities for political questions to be worked out in different ways. Recognising the inherent instability of politicai forms, as in story of the troglodytes, Montesquieu, despite revealing a conservative cast of mind, seeks a path to comprehend these changes. Thus he actively pursues accepted dogmas to expose their folly. In taking an empirical approach Montesquieu exposes the relativity between the behaviour and morality in different cultures but this leads him, not along the path of moral relativism, but towards a conception of universal justice. In this presentation Montesquieu's contradictory desire for both reform and conservatism is accommodated in that the universal evaluates, rather than replaces, the

16 D. Goodrnan Criticism in Action Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1989,p.3. "The philosophers have only interpreted t}.e world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" "Theses on Feuerbach" [1845] The Marx-Engels Reader 2nd edition, R. C. Tucker ed., Norton & Co., New York, 1978,p.1'43 The idea of uiticism 186

particular. This accommodation is directed by reason but not at the expense of passion. As is seen in the unique happiness of the incestuous Iovers in the Persiøn Letters, Montesquieu gives prominence to passion and happiness over law but without diminishing the place of law. It is not my purpose here to attempt a summary of the part played by any of tine philosophes in the development of the critical culture of the Enlightenment. In the case of Voltaire such a task would be impractical because of the variety and magnitude of his literary and intellectual production and because of the nature of his challenge to dogmatic thinking. This was not systematic but

took the form of pamphlets on persecution affairs, of aphoristic articles, aperçus, malicious witticisms, sallies à propos, sarcasms and satires. The principles of the attack are implied in the critical and publistic work and they have to be disengaged from a wealth of literary pieces. 17

Even the division that Voegelin makes between his literary and political works is not uncontroversial. Rather than examining Voltaire's work as an object of analysis, it is more instructive to see Voltaire as a participant in and commentator on the developing culture. His arrogance in the face of challenges and his intellectual "explosion" are still circumscribed by his deism and his constant return to the question of the limits of reason evident in his Philosophicøl Dictionøry. While Voltaire overturns the eighteenth century notion of optimism in Cøndide, Diderot's morality does not stem from the abandonment or even the solution of a philosophical conundrum. Rather it occurs in the shadow of that conundrum. In Diderot's criticism is a method of dealing with the philosophical dilemma between the claims of determinism and the desire for morality. So we see in lacques the Føtalist Diderot is able to point out the sterility and lack of progress in the philosophical speculations about the problem of free will while providing instead an intriguing discussion of moral problems. This is achieved primarily through a complex destabilizing of genre that exhibits the role of the

17 E. Voegelin From Enlightenment to Rnolution J. H. Hallowell ed., Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1975,p.23 The idea of criticism 187

author at its most playful. By these means he displays rather than obscures problems that could undermine his moral claims. The work and lives of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot are examples of a common direction towards critical engagement with the orthodox. The diversity of the output, of each as well as collectively, means that a categorising of any one thinker as of particular ideological stamp relies on simplification and a selectivity that cannot avoid misrepresentation. These were exemplars as practitioners of critical culture. They are in a very tangible sense, in it, responding to the complexity of social relations that they find around them, rather than engaging in philosophical abstraction, as they are often accused.ls Their writing is necessarily a reflection to some degree of the fact that Montesquieu was a magistrate, Voltaire was politically active all over Europe, with monarchs, craftspeople, farm workers and, in his campaign againstl'infâme, with the political power of the church. As is shown by the attention of pørlement, Diderot's involvement in the Encyclopediø was itself a political act. The same could be said of other figures of the Enlightenment, for instance Rousseau, who plays a crucial part in the development of Enlightenment criticism he too engaged in French politics and disputes in Geneva. He also engaged in the political life of Corsica and drafted the constitution of Poland.le The philosophes intellectual life is unsystematic and political - ranged against the moribund systems of the schoolmen and opposed to the structures of the old regime. It has become a commonplace to say that the aspiration of the Enlightenment thinkers was to do for morality what Newton had done for the explanation of the physical world, and from this premise to show this project failed. Even accepting that premise, we would now recognise that the Newtonian project itself has "failed", in that physics did not close after

18 For example, Tocqueville's criticism in L'Ancein régime et la réoolution français. "Their very way of living led these writers to indulge in abstract theories and generalizations regarding the nature of government, and to place blind confidence in these. For living as they did, quite out of touch with practical politics, they lacked the experience which might have tempered their enthusiasms... they had little acquaintance with the realities of public life, which, indeed, was terra incognita to them." Cay: Voltøire's Politics p.7

1.9 ibid. p.9 The ideq of criticism 188

Newton. Einstein showed flaws in Newtonian cosmology and in so doing enhanced our understanding of the physical universe, for physics relies on being open to critical reflection in the same way as social theory does. For example, contemporary physics offers a choice of understanding light as either made up of particles, or of waves. In choosing one explanation we render the alternative explanation flawed. In the invitation to judge we are asked to be critical in a sense which can also appty to our attempts to explain the social world. It is certainly more than a merely technical decision referable to an uncontested authority for arbitration. Such choices can only be made in a culture which fosters the expectation that one will find apparent conflicts of understanding, or at least of explanation, and the means by which we can make judgements. A dismissal of the Enlightenment as a project that failed is also dismissing the possibilities offered by the culture of the Enlightenment, the culture of critical inquiry into the nature of things. In this culture, as Gay says "all things are equally subject to criticism; to say this was to move confidently in a world free - or rather, waiting to be freed - from enchantment,"20 but in the style of tlne philosophes the presentation of criticism itself is not without its own allure and charm. The construction of the Enlightenment as 'project' makes it an intellectuai project antithetical to culture. While the development of a critical culture is not the central aspiration of the Enlightenment, it would be wrong then to assume that it can be understood divorced from this culture, or that it rejects its culture. Such a move depends on an understanding of culture in a preserved, or nostalgic sense, or a belief that culture can in some way be suspended. The philosophes cannot be written off as politically naïve, and nor should their cultural attainment be ignored. Voltaire was the greatest playwright of his day, Diderot's contribution to art criticism and to aesthetic theory was innovative and far reaching, and Montesquieu, while often characterised as an empiricist, established in the Persiøn Letters a new genre of critical fiction. If we look at a work of the philosophes only for its iiterary content, we miss its philosophical and political import. Such distinctions are made but when we consider the many dimensions in conjunction - looking through the

20 Cay op.cit, The Enlightenment : An Intupr etation vol.l, p.150 The idea of criticism 189

eyes of the philosopher or the aesthetic critic - and recognise the nature of our critical heritage derived from the Enlightenment, the ironies and ambiguities are thrown into relief and can be recognised and explored. This ability to encompass different visions through appeals to reason and to other senses and passions is an important legacy of Enlightenment culture Enlightenment criticism has produced a literary tradition in which the use of language is crucial. Carl Becker suggests the importance of words which, having from constant repetition lost their metaphorical significance, are unconsciously mistaken for objective realities. In the thirteenth century the key words would no doubt be God, sin, grace, salvation, heaven, and the like; in the nineteenth century, matter matter-of-fact, evolution, progress; in the twentieth century, relativity, process, adjustment, function, complex. . .. In the eighteenth century the words without which no enlightened person could reach a restful conclusion were nature, natural law, first cause, reason, sentiment, humanity, perfectibility (these last three being necessary only for the more tender minded, perhaps)"21

Becker's notion that such words brought a "restful conclusion," however, does not adequately encompass the philosophical mood of the Enlightenment. Elsewhere he builds on this thesis, writing of the impact of Flume's Dialogues "It is as if, at high noon of the Enlightenment, at the hour of the siesta when everything seems so quiet and secure all about, one were suddenly aware of a short, sharp slipping of the foundations, a faint far-off tremor running underneath the solid ground of common- sense."22 This calm mid-point imposes a convenient, symmetrical chronology on events. While 'nature' certainly has currency in the eighteenth century it is not a sleight of hand. In a world imbued with the notion of God as the creator, mediated by the Power of the church, "nature" in place of God unleashes in an unsettling way critical possibilities. It will not provide "restful conclusion." To some it will be a source of anger, others will marvel at its audacity. A critical culture

21 C. Becker op.cit. p.47 22ibid. p.69 The id¿a of criticism 190

investigates the fate of such words, both their entries and exits, to show the development of criticism. As surprising contrasts they demand attention, in their overuse they become banal polarities in need of critical re-examination. Michel Foucault identifies intellectual inquiry as a part of the popular culture of the Entightenment and notes an important change in present society.

Today when a periodical asks its readers a question, it does so in order to collect opinions on some subject about which everyone has an opinion already: there is not much likelihood of learning anything new. In the eighteenth century, editors preferred to question the public on problems that did not yet have solutions. I don't know whether of not that practice was more effective; it is unquestionably more entertaining.23

Foucault here raises the possibility that modern society has lost something, entertainment at least, in the swamping of critical culture by mod.ern mass culture. As the discussion of the work of the philosopheshas shown they do entertain and yet they are also made responsible for the modern 'malaise'. Allan Megilt Says "it is clear, I think, that modern western intellectual history has up to now been mainly defined by the thought of the Enlightenment." Pointing out that the movements of thought that followed the Enlightenment have seen themselves as "rebellions against it", he argues, that these rebellions are conducted on terms dictated by the Enlightenment, even if these movements were unaware of, or did not properly acknowledge their debts. He concludes "In the present century, the whole structure of the social sciences and humanities is based in Enlightenment Presuppositions."24 Given the nature of Enlightenment writings discussed in the preceding chapters the inheritance may be more fragmented than Megill allows but I have also argued that the kind of continuation that Megill identifies overlooks a

23 M. Foucault "What is Enlightenment" trans. C. Porter inThe Foucault Reader,P. Rabinow ed. Pantheon Books, New York, 19U,p.32 24 Alan Megill Prophets of Extremity Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida University of California Press, Berkeley, 1985, p.340 The idea of criticism 191

disjunction in methodology between eighteenth and nineteenth century thought. It is true that the culture of the Enlightenment fostered its own critique, one which has a wide extension, as Megill later notes in identifying 'Western' notions in 'Eastern' thought. Even in the eighteenth- century the notion of the East as 'exotic' was being exposed. Voltaire's world history begins not in a Garden of Eden, nor is it 'Eurocentric' for, following a description of the planet, he provides two chapters on China and a discussion of Persia. Montesquieu used reports of actuai journeys when writing the Persian Letters to provide historical and geographical accuracy.2s To identify this methodology with the "all pervading nature of Enlightenment presuppositions" influential on the "whole structure of the social sciences and humanities" is to Sweep over an important disjunction. In so doing Megill says

my guess is that the primacy of the Enlightenment - its importance in setting the terms of our discourse - will not continue much longer. I concede that I have little that is solid to substantiate this guess. I can appeal only to what seems to me to be the evident decline of the old Kantian, Cartesian, and Hegelian certainties, and to the obvious and continuing malaise in our politics and institutions - politics and institutions that are themselves the products of Enlightenment moral, social, and political theory.26

I would argue a belief that the Enlightenment can be characterized only in the light of Kantian, Cartesian and Hegelian certøinties excludes the part played by the cultural legacy of the Enlightenment which still demands the questioning of these presuppositions. Megill warns we should be wary of the way in which our thinking is influenced by Enlightenment presuppositions and yet Megill's'guess'is made in a tentative manner, an invitation to critical reflection on his hypothesis, in this distinction, between the fear that old 'certainties' no longer apPly and the need to explore new ideas, the difference between'Enlightenment' understood as

25 Principally using Chardin's Voyages en Perse et aux lndes orientales (1686) and

Tavernier's Six aoyages en Turquie, en Puse et aux Indes (1676) C.J. Betts in Montesquieu, Persinn letters trans. C.j. Betts, Penguin, Harmondsworth, \973, pp.301, 315

26Megill op,cit. The idea of criticism 192

the products of history and 'enlightenment' as an attitude to thought is clarified. An immaturity of thought or an unwillingness to "dare to know" leads to arguments where ideologies are often treated as common entities, different theorists as of a single mind, historical actors as products of their philosophical contemporaries and so on. While classification of phenomena is an important part of sociological and political inquiry it is also open to misuse, for example the unwarranted moves from the general to the particular or vice versa. The treatment of conjecture as fact provides analysis that, while adopting the form of critical writing, is often little more than the application of rules. As such they provide a damaging influence on the continuation of a critical culture, maintaining form while offering little of substance. The threat to criticai culture emerges in the development of critical orthodoxies supported by ideological beliefs. This could be characterised as a new scholasticism, where ideological belief comes to replace critical thought, where certain aspects of the social world become unquestioned givens and when particular problems are theorised in a way that makes the facts fit an ideological matrix. Thus, at its worst, ideological beliefs effect all levels of social theory, providing evidence that has passed through an ideological sieve and disparaging philosophical investigation into the methodology of the social sciences as merely a competing ideological construction. The ideology proceeds to colonise the physical world, the inquiry into the physicai world and the metaphysical. Criticism depends on the action of reason to create a critical culture. The nature of human reason itself is not uncontroversial, indeed the fallibility of human reason also is constitutive of critical culture. There is an extensive literature on the role of reason and its use in the investigations of social science.2T Through the Enlightenment texts considered here this lack of certainty is noted, in a sense cherished, through the various rhetorical tropes used by Montesquieu, Voltaire and

27 See for example the edited collections of Hollis and Lukes (eds,) Raflonality and Relatiaism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford,7982 or the earlier collection Bryan Wilson,

Rationality, Basil Blackw ell, Oxfor d, 797 4. The idea of criticism 193

Diderot.2s Certainly the use of irony and paradox rely for their effect on an absence of certainty. The stylistic tropes work precisely because there is the possibility of a slide between different perspectives both of reader, author and, in the case of the Persiøn Letters and the works of Diderot, almost "autonomous" characters. Such devices are susceptible to analysis. It is not however in their analysis, but in our experience of them that there true force is felt. Often the "wry smile" of the reader seems the most desirable outcome intended by the critical author. On the question of defending the Enlightenment it is possible to be 'for' the cultural form, originating in the Enlightenment without being manoeuvred into the position of 'buying' all of its intellectual baggage. It is critical culture that permits, even encourages, the most trenchant and persistent critiques of Enlightenment intellectual life. Unlike theorists, such as Maclntyre, who argue that culture itself produces both its own rationality and justice, a critical culture creates an environment where the validity of principles can be debated. It may be argued that ciaims of universality are as much rhetorical as claims of cultural homogeneity. It then becomes important to be able to assess the outcome of the competing claims in a mature sense. So, in the cases discussed Montesquieu uses the particular to establish the universal character of justice, Voltaire is driven by a sense of injustice and Diderot engages in moral reflection in the light of the "grand jest" of human existence. To remain within a culturally determined "practical rationality", às Maclntyre advocates, while perhaps appealing to a nostalgic sense, seems to stifle possibilities for any global improvement in human conditions. To find a way out still requires the courage to "dare to know."

28 Shirley Letwin in the introduction of her survey of British thought from David Flume to Beatrice Webb says: "We are forcibly reminded that names and doctrines collect a variety of associations and hide a limitless stock of temprements, beliefs and puposes," p.10 S Letwin, The Pursuit of Certainty, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1965 Conclusion 194

Conclusion

In beginning with the proposition that, at the moment of apparent ideological triumph, liberalism finds itself unable to offer a defence of its institutions to non-liberals, I suggest that the origins and manner of liberal thought be investigated, not to find the cause of any current malaise but rather to find solutions to what appears as a stalemate. In looking at thinkers preceding the Enlightenment we find an intellectual world in a similar state - an apparently strong orthodoxy, subject to a number of attacks and the main defence reliant on an assertion of its power. The works of Descartes and Leibniz were shown to provide an intellectual challenge to orthodoxy, a lead followed and modified by the next generation to overturn the circumscription of reason by faith. The thought of the eighteenth century has been interpreted in a number of ways. The construction "The Age of Reason" is inadequate for characterizing the age, implying a lack of reason in preceding eras and overlooking a dominant feature of the era, the role of criticism. The Enlightenment as a critical movement invites further criticism. Criticism is not in keeping with Enlightenment culture if it produces a 'critique' that fails to recognise human fallibility and seeks to close off further criticism by a re-assertion of tradition or the establishment of new orthodoxy. In looking at particular works of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot I explore the role of their criticism in shaping the new culture of critical thinking. They are vitally interested in the character of society. The philosophes do not use 'the social' as a unit of analysis, class analysis being a nineteenth century phenomenon. It is not until the nineteenth century that the revolutionary potential of "the proletariat", common to thinkers as diverse as Comte and Marx, is explored. Instead, tlne philosophes explored social relationships and the need for sociability through critical writing. In the texts central to this discussion a society of characters is 'created', and few miss an opportunity to tell their story. The main characters, Usbek, Candide, Rameau and jacques are not simply augmented by the other characters but engage and are engaged by them. Other characters also have their own stories, independent of any Conclusion 195

central narrative. In the Persiøn Letters Usbek creates a imaginary society in the story of the Troglodytes. He is also playing out the drama of the collapse of his own despotic society in letters to his eunuchs, friends, and wives, while observing the unfamiliar world of Paris. His young companion Rica, untroubled by despotic power, is a freer observer of Parisian society, dressing as one of them and making acute observations of their manners.l The women of the seraglio have diverse responses to their oppression and their characters are developed beyond being the objects of that oppression.2 The naiVe Candide, through all his terrible adventures, is in a constant engagement with the philosophy of his tutor Pangloss, and in the later stages with Martin, leading to his own resolution about the value of work. Even the minor characters have their stories. For example, Cunégonde's maid is in fact the princess Palestrina, the illegitimate daughter of a Pope,3 the six deposed monarchs who dine with Candide in Venice tell of their overthrow4 and the slave in Surinam whose story not only of the inhumanity of Europeans, but of his betrayal by his own family,s all add to the challenge to complacent optimism from different perspectives. In Voltaire's Philosophícøl Díctíonary the author's range of characterization is not restrained by u central character or narrative, except for the theme of Deism which provides the limits of reason. Here we meet characters as diverse as the mole and the cockchafer, who are still arguing, the wise cricket who knows what to argue about and what to leave to higher minds, the tipstaff of the Dominicans who is encouraged to question, Pico della Mirandolla, who, in solving a question of disputed paternity, explains the nature of faith, and, in the shadow of the article "Torture", the real torture and execution of the Chevalier de la Barre. Even ín Rameøu's Nephew, apparently a dialogue, the chameleon

1. Montesquieu, Persinn letters Íans. C,J. Betts, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1.973. pp.161, "167,193, \96,200,226 zibid. pp. 42, 44 and 276, 277, 278, 280

3 Voltaire, Cnndide trans.J Butt, Penguin , Harmondsworth, 1947, pp.49-57 4 ibid. pp.124-128 5 ibid. p.86 Conclusion 196

Rameau portrays a number of different characters, and the "Diderot" character wears several masks. løcques the Fatølisú contains the most developed characters. Even the master, whose lack of character development serves a particular function, has his own story: the conflict with the Chevalier Saint-Ouin.6 Aside from the characters discussed previously, there is the family who initially care for ]acques following his injury; Jacques' previous master, whose Spinozan thought shapes his fatalism; the captains who must fight a duel everyday to be happy; Bugger the father and Bugger the son in an irreverent and ribald tale of Jacques' sexual adventures.T The wealth and depth of characterization provided not only enough material for a story within the text, that of Madame de la Pommeraye, but , two centuries later the plot for the movie Les Dømes du Bois de Boulogne. Arthur Wilson notes of the cinematic potential of þcques the Fatølisf, "Diderot, like certain avant-garde directors of our own time, has broken away from the documentary to demonstrate the fuller possibiiities of a new artistic form, better able to present realism."S This society of characters has an important role to play in the kind of 'social' understandings that emerge. What interests tli.e philosophes ís t}i.e individual results of human action, not the development of a new "system" of immutable principles. Paradox, contradiction and irony are used to expose errors in thinking. Dogma is challenged where its claims rely on superstition or venture beyond human understanding. If arguments based on 'reason' venture beyond human understanding they are questioned. The terms irony and paradox have been used to describe stylistic tropes used by the philosophes. Specifically, they create the space for a critical culture - 'paradox' leads away from 'orthodox'. The Shorter Oxford Dictionøry definitions of paradox include:

A statement or tenet contrary to received opinion or belief;

6 Denis Diderot, lacques the Fqtølist and his Master trans. M Henry, Penguin Books,

Harmonds wor th, 1 986,pp.204-225 7 ibid. pp.782-192

8 A.M. Wilson Diderot OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, 7972, p.670; Les Dames du Bois de

Boulogne 1942, directed by Robert Bresson, script adapted by Jean Cocteau. p.870 n.40 Conclusion 197

sometimes with favourable, sometimes with unfavourable connotation. A statement seemingly self contradictory or absurd, though possibly well founded or essentially true. Often applied to a proposition that is actually self-contradictory, and so essentially absurd or false.

In the works discussed here there are paradoxes aplenty, operating on many different levels. The paradox that Montesquieu is the author of the Persiøn Letters and the Spirit of the l¿ws; that of a vast literary output only Candide has retained currency; that the editor of the Encyclopedia could also be the author of Rameøu's Nephe¿,u and løcques the Føtølisf . There are then the paradoxes within the works - Montesquieu's reformist ønd conservative view of law in the Persiøn Letters, Voltaire's rejection of optimism because it føils to offer hope. Diderot's virtue, curiously highlighted in the character of Rameau and the whole problem of virtue in the face of 'fate' considered in lacques the Føtølist These tropes are used to destabilize the 'right, the true, and the correct' of orthodoxy. In the Encyclopediø Diderot sought to destabilze orthodox beliefs not only through the propagation of fact but the use of cross-references. In Rømeøu's Nephaa and løcques he provides a further 'cross-reference' to that enterprise that illuminates the humanity behind any such intellectual endeavour. One could use the term deconstruction, but it is a more 'human' invitation - to think through humour. The attack on the orthodox is drawn to paradox as a form that can render the oppressive absurdity (the torture of La Barre, the øuto dø fé in Lisbon) of one with a playful absurdity (the ridiculous Pangloss, Candide's naïvety) in the other, without the demand for a new orthodoxy. The Shorter Oxford defines irony as: "a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt" and, "a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the fitness of things." In the work of the philosophes this is an effective weapon against the old regime and the power of the church. Usbek the despot who articulates principles of justice while oppressing the inhabitants of the seraglio, the absurd pretensions of Cunégonde's jesuit brother, the Philosophicøl dictionøry 's 'catechisms', the irony that jacques' associate should be called Conclusion 198

"master" are all ironic stabs at the orthodox and the regime. The use of irony also adds to the readers enjoyment while bringing the reader into the authors created world in a playful and humorous waf r rather than compiling a tale of oppression. With the emphasis on diversity, paradox and contradiction the spirit is lost if reified as "The Enlightenment". As Furbank points out the standard French term has remained the unpretentious one "lumières".9 But, while criticising Cassirer's use of 'belief' as a unifying characteristic of the eighteenth-century thinkers, Furbank identifies "beliefs and attitudes that these writers share that were "exceedingly important and rather obvious - almost as you might say, commonpløces."\o While we can agree that such shared views are not "the key to what is subtlest and profoundest in their writings", nonetheless, they provide a framework in which a critical engagement can flourish. That these are commonplace elements only makes them susceptible to being overlooked. While the possibilities of a critical culture owe a debt to the Enlightenment assertion of the power of our reason over superstition and the prevailing religious orthodoxies, the Enlightenment does not provide us with a 'clean' secular heritage. As subsequent history demonstrates, it does not remove irrational appeals to faith. The appeal of faith emerges when the possibilities of critical engagement are undermined. I have argued that there is a disjunction between this critical culture and Auguste Comte's efforts to construct a "Positive" system, not through empirical evidence, but as a product of "cerebral hygiene" and heid in place by the institution of a rational religion. The manner and methodology used by Comte is at odds with the style of the philosophes, Comte's assertions of the character of society seeking to recreate the kinds of dogmas that were their target. In its apparent abhorrence of dogma, postmodernism might seem to avoid these traps and to be an heir to the attitude of enlightenment. Foucault says "the thread that may connect us to the Enlightenment is not faithfulness to its doctrinal elements, but rather the permanent reactivation of an attitude - that is, of a philosophical ethos that could be

9 p.N. Furbank, Diderot,Minerva, London, 1992,p.450-1

70 ¡U¡A. emphasis added. Conclusion 199

described as a permanent critique of our historical era".11 This is entirely consistent with the aspirations of the Enlightenment thinkers, alert as they were to the dogmas of their own day arresting the development of a critical cuiture. However, in its reluctance to make judgements, postmodernism undermines critical culture. As an example, Norris cites Lyotard, presented with the problem of the murder of the German industrialist Hans-Martin Schleyer by the Baader-Meinhof group. To the question: Is it just that there be an American computer in Heidelberg that, among other things, is used to plan the bombing of Hanoi? Schlyer would say "yes" and the Baader-Meinhof group would say "no". "It is up to everyone to decide!" concludes Lyotard. But, his questioner asks on ushøt bøsis are they to decide? Lyotard admits he is against the use of such a computer, indeed that he is committed to that position but flatly refuses to argue any further.12 It seems that such a view lacks substance as a form of criticism. Can Lyotard while sharing the view of the terrorists remain silent on the justification of their action and not be accused of condoning their action? What are the possible alternatives to the resort to terrorism? If "everyone is to decide" there is no resolution but the possibility that only the powerful decide. In Enlightenment writing decisions are made in a manner that does not demand adherence because of any power of those who articulate the position, other than their reason. Judgements are presented in a manner that makes it possible for participants to modify their position in the light of publicly reasoned justifications. Criticism, the precursor to judgement, becomes something more significant than relativist irresolution. Lyotard's judgement "without criteria" does not allow for these interactions that are a vital components of critical culture. The attempt at transcending the Enlightenment without consideration of its diversity leads to odd strategies and prescriptions that cut any thread between the Enlightenment and our era.

One strategl (of Postmodernism) attempts to undermine the tropes of representation known as the Enlightenment project, or

11 Foucault, "What is Enlightenment" trans. C. Porter inThe Foucault Reader P. Rabinow ed. Pantheon Books, New York, 1984,p.42

12 Christopher Norris TheTruth About Postmodernism Blackwell, Oxford, 7993. p.93 Conclusion 200

modernism. This revolt against objectivism, rationality and the meta-narratives which have guided enquiry has been one of the central themes of postmodern representation. Some ethnographers have argued that cultures are composed of fragmented and contested codes of meaning and that ethnographers should acknowledge and participate in this by experimenting with writing. Such experimentation would further challenge the Enlightenment project by adopting a fragmentary writing style that is purposefully ambiguous, incomplete and open-ended.13

In the central texts discussed in this thesis we find a style of writing that could be characterised in the same terms used to describe the writing experiments that would challenge the "Enlightenment project". These similarities add weight to the need to investigate the construction of the Enlightenment as 'project'before calling for its radical overthrow. If my argument for the disjunction between the Enlightenment exploration of social relationships though their fascination with character and the development of system in the interests of a sociological model is accepted, the postmodern attitude to reason can be shown to be misdirected. Comte's system does present the kind of totalizing 'rationalism' that loses sight of the paradox, irony and ambiguity present in human social life. The model maker is frustrated by real social phenomena that do not fit the system. For example, Comte's role for women in "Positivism" means that half the population are to live in a system designed for them by someone who admits their very existence is beyond his understanding but leaves a blank instead of an opportunity for the articulation of their ideas for social organisation. The Comtean legacy can be interrogated by the mode of thought that preceded it, if the aim is to restore the philosophes uítical perspectives. In current society there is still an appeal for the kind of critical engagement practiced by tlne philosophes. Sometimes, as in the case of Milan Kundera's play Jacques ønd His Møster or Bresson's film the connections are obvious. In her recent novel Rameøu's Niece Cathleen

13 J .Duncan and D. Ley eds. Introduction to PlacelCulturefRepresentaflon Routledge, London, 1993,p.7 Conclusion 201

Schine tempts the reader with the possibility that an eighteenth century text has been discovered, written as a companion to Rameau's Nephew. This search is set against the backdrop of the culture of modern academia in America and in France. In the epilogue the error is exposed. An eighteenth century author could not have responded as Diderot's text was not published until 1805. This only raises further "possibilities". Was the text by Diderot himself? Does it mean that he did show his text to someone else? Was it written by his mistress or even by Rameau's niece? The author ends these speculations by saying, as Diderot said, "It is my job to seek truth, not to find it."14 These stylistic turns in a work of fiction are precisely those unsettling forms we find in the work of the philosophes themselves. If we look to t}i.e philosophes use of paradox and irony, contradictions, criticism, passion and to their use of reason, we find a'moment' that lives in eighteenth century France and extends to the understandings it is possible to have of the complexities of our own society. Their attitude to thought, in particular the role of criticism, provides us with a method of engagement with the problems of the social world that keeps alive what Pascal saw as the paradox of human existence. For Pascal the solution necessitated 'unmerited grace'. For the modern spirit it means that the method whereby we attempt to uncover our will needs to incorporate the certainty of our fallibility. This means our theoretical positions should be tentative, open to and expecting question rather than propagated as dogma and defended as faith. Attempts to remove this fallibility through the production of a rational dogma creates an attitude that does not even require the humility of the need for faith in God. The Enlightenment attitude also has the benefit of regaining the excitement of theory. When we look at the problems that cluster around the notion of modernity, our theorising, recognising that we are "in it", can be directed towards understanding our environment, to feeling "at home" in modernity rather than attempting to transcend it, or to retreat into nostalgia. Such a position does not need to be held in opposition to claims of "culture" but rather in recognising the moment of criticism, the possibilities upholding the values of a critical culture, - and the spirit of enlightenment.

14 Cathleen Schine Rameau's Niece Plume, New York,7994, p.280 Bibliography 202

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