American Enlightenment Thought.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

whole generation of American thinkers would found a American new system of government on liberal and republican principles, articulating their enduring ideas in documents Enlightenment Thought such as the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist 1 by Shane J. Ralston Papers and the United States Constitution. __________________________ Although distinctive features arose in the eighteenth-century American context, much of the Although there is no consensus about the exact American Enlightenment was continuous with parallel span of time that corresponds to the American experiences in British and French society. Four themes Enlightenment, it is safe to say that it occurred during the recur in both European and American Enlightenment eighteenth century among thinkers in British North texts: modernization, skepticism, reason and liberty. America and the early United States and was inspired by Modernization means that beliefs and institutions based the ideas of the British and French on absolute moral, religious and political authority (such Enlightenments. Based on the metaphor of bringing light as the divine right of kings and the Ancien Régime) will to the Dark Age, the Age of the Enlightenment (Siècle des become increasingly eclipsed by those based on science, lumières in French and Aufklärung in German) shifted rationality and religious pluralism. Many Enlightenment allegiances away from absolute authority, whether thinkers—especially the French philosophes, such as religious or political, to more skeptical and optimistic Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot—subscribed to some attitudes about human nature, religion and politics. In form of skepticism, doubting appeals to miraculous, the American context, thinkers such as Thomas Paine, transcendent and supernatural forces that potentially James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and limit the scope of individual choice and reason. Reason Benjamin Franklin invented and adopted revolutionary that is universally shared and definitive of the human ideas about scientific rationality, religious toleration and nature also became a dominant theme in Enlightenment experimental political organization—ideas that would thinkers’ writings, particularly Immanuel Kant’s “What is have far-reaching effects on the development of the Enlightenment?” and his Groundwork of the Metaphysics fledgling nation. Some coupled science and religion in of Morals. The fourth theme, liberty and rights assumed the notion of deism; others asserted the natural rights of a central place in theories of political association, man in the anti-authoritarian doctrine of liberalism; and specifically as limits state authority originating prior to still others touted the importance of cultivating virtue, the advent of states (that is, in a state of nature) and enlightened leadership and community in early forms of manifesting in social contracts, especially in John republican thinking. At least six ideas came to punctuate Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government and Thomas American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, Jefferson’s drafts of the Declaration of Independence. republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. Many of these were shared with European a. Moderate and Radical Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a uniquely American form. Besides identifying dominant themes running throughout the Enlightenment period, some historians, 1. Enlightenment Age Thinking such as Henry May and Jonathan Israel, understand Enlightenment thought as divisible into two broad The pre- and post-revolutionary era in American categories, each reflecting the content and intensity of history generated propitious conditions for ideas prevalent at the time. The moderate Enlightenment thought to thrive on an order comparable Enlightenment signifies commitments to economic to that witnessed in the European Enlightenments. In liberalism, religious toleration and constitutional the pre-revolutionary years, Americans reacted to the politics. In contrast to its moderate incarnation, the misrule of King George III, the unfairness of Parliament radical Enlightenment conceives enlightened thought (“taxation without representation”) and exploitative through the prism of revolutionary rhetoric and classical treatment at the hands of a colonial power: the English Republicanism. Some commentators argue that the Empire. The Englishman-cum-revolutionary Thomas British Enlightenment (especially figures such as James Paine wrote the famous pamphlet The Rights of Man, Hutton, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith) was essentially decrying the abuses of the North American colonies by moderate, while the French (represented by Denis their English masters. In the post-revolutionary years, a 1 Ralston, Shane J. “American Enlightenment Thought.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p. n.d. Web. 29 July 2015. Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvétius and François Marie argued against the divine right of kings and in favor of Arouet) was decidedly more radical. Influenced as it was government grounded on the consent of the governed; by the British and French, American Enlightenment so long as people would have agreed to hand over some thought integrates both moderate and radical elements. of their liberties enjoyed in a pre-political society or state of nature in exchange for the protection of basic rights to b. Chronology life, liberty and property. However, if the state reneged on the social contract by failing to protect those natural American Enlightenment thought can also be rights, then the people had a right to revolt and form a appreciated chronologically, or in terms of three new government. Perhaps more of a democrat than temporal stages in the development of Enlightenment Locke, Rousseau insisted in The Social Contract (1762) Age thinking. The early stage stretches from the time of that citizens have a right of self-government, choosing the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to 1750, when members the rules by which they live and the judges who shall of Europe’s middle class began to break free from the enforce those rules. If the relationship between the will monarchical and aristocratic regimes—whether through of the state and the will of the people (the “general will”) scientific discovery, social and political change or is to be democratic, it should be mediated by as few emigration outside of Europe, including America. The institutions as possible. middle stage extends from 1751 to just a few years after the start of the American Revolution in 1779. It is 2. Six Key Ideas characterized by an exploding fascination with science, religious revivalism and experimental forms of At least six ideas came to punctuate American government, especially in the United States. The late Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, stage begins in 1780 and ends with the rise of Napoléon republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific Bonaparte, as the French Revolution comes to a close in progress. Many of these were shared with European 1815—a period in which the European Enlightenment Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a was in decline, while the American Enlightenment uniquely American form. reclaimed and institutionalized many of its seminal ideas. However, American Enlightenment thinkers were a. Deism not always of a single mind with their European counterparts. For instance, several American European Enlightenment thinkers conceived Enlightenment thinkers—particularly James Madison tradition, custom and prejudice (Vorurteil) as barriers to and John Adams, though not Benjamin Franklin—judged gaining true knowledge of the universal laws of the French philosophes to be morally degenerate nature. The solution was deism or understanding God’s intellectuals of the era. existence as divorced from holy books, divine providence, revealed religion, prophecy and miracles; c. Democracy and the Social Contract instead basing religious belief on reason and observation of the natural world. Deists appreciated God as a Many European and American Enlightenment reasonable Deity. A reasonable God endowed humans figures were critical of democracy. Skepticism about the with rationality in order that they might discover the value of democratic institutions was likely a legacy of moral instructions of the universe in the natural Plato’s belief that democracy led to tyranny and law. God created the universal laws that govern nature, Aristotle’s view that democracy was the best of the worst and afterwards humans realize God’s will through sound forms of government. John Adams and James Madison judgment and wise action. Deists were typically (though perpetuated the elitist and anti-democratic idea that to not always) Protestants, sharing a disdain for the invest too much political power in the hands of religious dogmatism and blind obedience to tradition uneducated and property-less people was to put society exemplified by the Catholic Church. Rather than fight at constant risk of social and political upheaval. Although members of the Catholic faith with violence and several of America’s Enlightenment thinkers condemned intolerance, most deists resorted to the use of tamer democracy, others were more receptive to the idea of weapons such as humor and mockery. popular rule as expressed in European social contract Both moderate and radical American Enlightenment theories. Thomas Jefferson was strongly influenced thinkers, such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, by John Locke’s social contract theory, while Thomas Alexander Hamilton, John

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