How Did the Enlightenment Develop, and What Were Its Core Beliefs?

The Enlightenment emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries as a major intellectual movement emphasizing reason, individual rights, and empirical observation. Its foundations lay in the fusion of empiricism and rationalism:

🔹 Core Philosophical Foundations

• Empiricism: Belief that knowledge is derived from experience and observation.

• Rationalism: Belief in natural rights discoverable through reason and conscience.

• Enlightenment thinkers believed all individuals possess reason and are therefore inherently equal by nature.

🔹 Natural Rights

• Every person had a right to:

  • Life

  • Liberty

  • The pursuit of happiness

• Additional rights commonly associated:

  • Freedom of speech

  • Religious liberty

🔹 Attitude Toward Religion

• Many Enlightenment philosophers were critical of the Church, viewing it as a source of:

  • Superstition

  • Ignorance

  • Subservience

• Although tolerant of Protestants, they were often skeptical of organized religion.

• Supported Deism:

  • God as a "watchmaker" who created the universe but does not intervene.

  • Focused on earthly reality, not heaven or hell.

🔹 Political Views

While their ideas later inspired revolutions, most philosophers supported enlightened despotism (rule by a wise, rational monarch).

This echoed Plato’s concept of the philosopher-king.

Notable Enlightenment Thinkers

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) & Voltaire (1694–1778)

• Believed progress came through education.

• Advocated for:

• Using reason to challenge superstition

• Changing society through knowledge

• Collaborated on the Encyclopedia, a massive effort to catalog human knowledge and spread Enlightenment ideals.

Montesquieu (1689–1755)

• Wrote The Spirit of the Laws.

• Proposed the concept of separation of powers:

  • Legislative

  • Executive

  • Judicial

  • Greatly influenced the U.S. Constitution, though had little immediate effect in France.

  • Critiqued slavery, labeling it unnatural and immoral in light of natural rights.

    • Contrasted with earlier acceptance of slavery by absolutist and capitalist systems.

Enlightenment Feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)

The 18th century saw growing challenges to the long-standing subordination of women, fueled in part by the revolutionary rhetoric of equality and individual rights emerging from the French Revolution.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneering voice in this movement. In her groundbreaking work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she argued that women were not naturally inferior to men but appeared so only because they lacked education. Her ideas anticipated many modern feminist principles.

• A middle-class woman, Wollstonecraft shared the Enlightenment’s disdain for aristocratic decadence.

• She worked as a governess, teacher, and briefly founded a school, advocating for women’s access to reason and learning.

• She later married the radical philosopher William Godwin and gave birth to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who would become Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

• Wollstonecraft died at age 38 from complications following childbirth.

Her legacy helped lay the intellectual groundwork for future feminist thought and women's rights movements.

The French Revolution in the Age of Enlightenment

The French Revolution was the culmination of Enlightenment ideals advocating liberty, equality, and justice. Inspired by the American Revolution, it demonstrated that Enlightenment principles could transform society.

Background

• France, though the most prosperous country in Europe, faced deep inequality: 98% of the population (Third Estate) paid the taxes, while the 2% elite (clergy and nobility) held the power.

• Louis XV and Louis XVI were weak rulers, and resentment grew among the middle and lower classes.

• A financial crisis, fueled by war debts and an unfair tax system, pushed the nation toward collapse.

Key Events

• 1789: The storming of the Bastille marked the start of the revolution.

• 1792: France became a republic; the king and queen were executed in 1793.

• Revolutionary ideals centered on freedom and equality for all men.

Napoleon’s Role

• Napoleon Bonaparte rose from general to First Consul, declaring himself a reformer of the revolution.

• He introduced legal and tax reforms, abolished privileges, and expanded French influence—though eventually overreached in Russia (1812) and fell from power.

Legacy

• The Revolution dismantled feudal privilege, reformed laws, and reshaped political thought across Europe.

• Napoleon became a symbol of the Enlightenment's ambition and contradictions: a visionary reformer and authoritarian ruler.

The Enlightenment in America

French philosophers were strong supporters of the American Revolution, seeing it as a realization of Enlightenment ideals. American figures like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were considered "enlightened" individuals and spent significant time in France, exchanging ideas with European thinkers.

In 1776, the American colonies declared their independence, and by 1787, they drafted the U.S. Constitution to unify the 13 states under a federal government grounded in Enlightenment principles.

America’s founding leaders saw themselves as heirs to the republican ideals of ancient Rome. They often adopted Roman pseudonyms in letters protesting British rule, and drew heavily from classical references—using Latin phrases, the titles "president" and "senate," and classical emblems on the Great Seal and early American coinage—to symbolize the nation's intellectual and political roots.