Welcome to the deep dive where we take your essential
reading material and turn it into actionable
synthesized knowledge. Today, we are strapping
ourselves into the time machine. We are indeed.
And we're tackling a movement that, I mean, it
didn't just shift Western civilization. It fundamentally
rebuilt it. We're talking about the Age of Enlightenment.
Also known as the Age of Reason. And, you know,
it's so much more than just a historical period.
It's really the intellectual engine room of the
modern world. That's a great way to put it. I
mean, if you want to understand where we got
concepts like democracy. or universal human rights,
or even free market economics. Or even just the
structure of modern science itself. Exactly.
You have to start here, back in the 18th century.
So our mission for this deep dive is to, well,
to quickly but really thoroughly unpack the core
principles. We're talking about reason, empirical
evidence. The scientific method, of course. Right.
And then follow that trail and see how those
ideas led to these, well, radical and often,
frankly, terrifying shifts across politics, society,
religion, you name it. We're not just, you know,
listing names and dates. No, we're trying to
figure out why. Why were these ideas so explosive?
And we have a really fascinating and kind of
contested chronology to navigate here. We do.
The roots of this whole intellectual revolution,
they start to emerge in the late 17th century
in Western Europe. But the movement, it really
hits its stride, its peak in the 18th century.
And it spreads. It spreads everywhere, rapidly
across the continent and then into the European
colonies, which fundamentally shapes the future
of places like the Americas and Oceania. The
starting date itself is actually debated, which
I think immediately highlights the philosophical
split that's right at the heart of this whole
movement. Where do we even begin? Well, some
historians will point to René Descartes and his
discourse on the method back in 1637. In his
famous line, gojito, ergo sum. I think, therefore
I am. And they see this as the start because
it relocated the whole basis of knowledge, what
they call the epistemological basis. Which is
just a fancy way of saying how we decide what's
true, right? Yeah, exactly. It moved it away
from external authority, like the church or tradition,
and planted it firmly inside your own mind in
internal certainty. That is a huge shift. It's
the genesis of rationalism. This idea of systematic
doubt. But then others, they mark the start later.
They prefer to focus on the empirical side of
things. So they'd point to Isaac Newton's Principia
Mathematica in 1687. Precisely. They see that
as the definitive moment, the point where empirical
reasoned inquiry, you know, backed up by mathematics,
was proven to unlock the fundamental laws of
the entire universe. It's a fantastic way to
frame the whole era, isn't it? Is knowledge found
primarily through the internal workings of your
mind, or is it derived from the external observation
of nature? That's the core tension. And as for
the end date, well, traditionally, European historians
would date the period from the death of Louis
XIV in 1715 right up to the French Revolution
in 1789. But that's shifted a bit. It has. If
you look at the intellectual output, a lot of
modern historians push that end date a bit later.
They often cite the death of the philosopher
Immanuel Kant in 1804 as a more fitting... intellectual
cutoff point. So regardless of the exact bookends,
the big picture here is just it's profound. This
era was promoting these genuinely revolutionary
ideals, individual liberty, the whole concept
of progress, religious tolerance, natural rights.
I mean, these were concepts that directly challenged
the prevailing structures of absolute monarchy
and crucially, the political and social authority
that the church held. That challenge just set
the groundwork for massive, massive change. By
questioning the divine right of kings and the
divine origin of knowledge, the Enlightenment
basically fostered an environment where all these
new political and social theories could just
flourish. And the sources are really clear on
this. The intellectual heritage of all those
later 19th century movements like modern liberalism
and even some forms of socialism. It all traces
right back to the foundational debates of the
Enlightenment. It was a true pivot point in history.
OK, so let's unpack that shift. Let's look at
the foundations. You really can't talk about
the Enlightenment without first acknowledging
that it was, I mean, it was standing on the shoulders
of the scientific revolution that came just before
it. Absolutely. It wasn't born out of nothing.
It was more of an applied expansion of methods
that were already there. Thinkers like Galileo,
Kepler. Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton. They had
already laid out the blueprint. the Enlightenment
inherited, and then just massively expanded upon
these new methods. Like empirical inquiry, gaining
knowledge through observation and testing. And
rigorous reductionism, breaking complex systems
down into their smallest, most verifiable parts.
And of course, the scientific method itself.
It seems like the biggest gift the scientists
gave the philosophes was just confidence. That's
it. The confidence that human reason could decode
the universe. the confidence that the universe
operated according to discoverable laws. And
speaking of blueprints, the philosophical foundation
was really laid by thinkers who created this
kind of dualistic starting point. Right. On one
side, you have Sir Francis Bacon, who championed
empiricism. He insisted that all knowledge comes
primarily from sensory experience, from observation.
For Bacon, you just can't trust deductive logic
on its own. You have to test, you have to observe,
you have to categorize. And then on the complete
opposite side, you've got Rene Descartes with
his very powerful rationalism. And his method
began not with the external world, but with doubt,
systematic doubt. He realized the only thing
he couldn't possibly doubt was the act of doubting
itself. Which leads to his foundational kujito
ergo sum. And this created a dualistic doctrine.
He separated the realm of the immaterial thinking
mind, the res cogitans, from the realm of physical
extended matter, the res extensa. So this intellectual
wrestling match, you know, between innate internal
reason and external sensory experience, that
really defined a lot of the early enlightenment.
It did, until Locke came along and immediately
complicated Descartes' dualism. Right. John Locke,
he picked up that torch of skepticism, but he
took it in a very different direction. He did.
Instead of focusing on internal certainty, he
went back to external experience. He refined
empiricism in his huge work, The Essay Concerning
Human Understanding. This is where he introduces
the idea of the mind as a tabula rasa. A blank
slate. Yeah. He suggested the mind starts out
empty, and it just absorbs experience, and that
experience is the sole source of knowledge. And
that idea was just incredibly powerful, wasn't
it? Oh, it was huge. Because it implied that
human nature was malleable. It wasn't fixed by
divine decree. And so it could be improved. Through
better education, a better environment. Precisely.
So if Descartes was asking, what is the one thing
I know for sure? Then Locke was asking, how do
we actually learn anything in the first place?
Exactly. And then later you get David Hume, who
comes along in the 1740s and continues this trajectory.
deepening the skeptical tradition so much that
he starts to question the very basis of cause
and effect. He asks if we can ever truly know
anything about the world outside of our own perceptions.
So this debate created this rich, dynamic, intellectual
environment. It led to a schism pretty quickly.
It did. And this is where it gets really interesting
because this philosophical starting point led
to a fundamental split in Enlightenment thought.
The historian Jonathan Israel has highlighted
this really well. He argues there were two distinct
competing lines of thought. Yes. First, you have
what he calls the moderate Enlightenment. This
school followed figures like Descartes, Locke,
and the German philosopher Christian Wolff. And
their approach was? They were looking for reform,
you know, abolishing some superstition, promoting
better government. But they were always trying
to accommodate the traditional power structures
and faith. So they were often deistic, believing
in a creator God who just sort of wound up the
clock and let it run. Right. They believed in
a God who set the universe in motion but didn't
intervene directly. Their goal was to make the
existing house more modern and habitable, but
without tearing down the walls of the church
or the monarchy. So they were reformers, but
cautious reformers. They valued stability just
as much as progress. Precisely. They wanted a
rationalized faith. But the second path, that
was the radical enlightenment. And this movement
drew its energy from Baruch Spinoza. The Dutch
philosopher, yes. His work. which was published
after he died, asserted the uncompromising unity
of matter. The unity of matter. What does that
actually mean in practical terms? And why on
earth was it so radical? It meant that God and
nature were one in the same thing, a concept
called monism or pantheism. Which is a direct
and, I imagine, terrifying challenge to Descartes'
mind -body dualism. And to all traditional religious
teachings which rely on a transcendent God who
intervenes. If God is just the universe itself,
then there's no room for miracles or revelation
or a separate heaven and hell administered by
a church. It functionally secularizes everything.
That seems like an immediate non -starter for
any ruling power whose legitimacy is tied to
the church. It was. And politically and socially,
the radicals just took this logic to its absolute
limit. They pushed for democracy, complete individual
liberty, total freedom of expression. And the
eradication of religious authority from public
life. Completely. including state -sponsored
religious education. And critically, this radical
tendency, it separated the basis of morality
entirely from theology. It argued that morality
comes from human reason and social necessity,
not from divine command. Which meant, terrifyingly
for the moderates, that an atheist could be a
perfectly moral person. Right. So the moderates
were trying to create an enlightened monarchy
and an enlightened Christian society. But the
radicals were fundamentally anti -clerical and
pro -democracy. They were advocating for a fully
secular state. And that tension, that dynamic,
it explains so much. It explains why the French
version of the Enlightenment, which we often
associate with figures like Diderot fighting
censorship, was so much more volatile and revolutionary
than, say, the English or German versions. Exactly.
It was the difference between those who wanted
to refine the existing structures and those who
saw reason. as this singular uncompromising force
that required those structures to be demolished
and rebuilt from the ground up. Now let's pivot
to the hard sciences. It's so clear that science
wasn't just some theoretical hobby. It was integral
to the whole identity of the Enlightenment. Well,
completely. Scientific advancement was seen as
the ultimate tool for overthrowing religious
and traditional authority. It was proof that
progress was real and achievable through free
speech and rational thought. The Enlightenment
valued empiricism and rational thought as, you
know, these essential tools for advancement.
And they categorized the systematic study of
science under this big heading of natural philosophy.
Which was then divided into physics. Which dealt
with mathematics and universal laws like Newton's
work. And then this other massive kind of jumbled
up mixture of chemistry and natural history.
A conglomerate grouping, as the sources put it.
And natural history included everything from
anatomy and biology to geology. Why did they
lump all of those together? Well, largely because
the tools and the methods hadn't really specialized
yet. I mean, chemistry was still trying to distinguish
itself from alchemy. And fields like biology
and geology were mostly about classification
and observation, cataloging things. They hadn't
developed that same rigorous reductionist methodology
that Newton had applied to physics. Not yet.
But this emphasis still led to some incredible,
tangible results. You see Antoine Lavoisier's
experiments being used to create the first modern
chemical plants in Paris, which sets the stage
for industrial production. Or you think about
the pure spectacle of it all, the Mongolfier
brothers launching the first manned hot air balloon
flight in 1783. Imagine seeing that. It's a visible,
breathtaking demonstration that human reason
could master the laws of nature and literally
defy gravity. And this wasn't just about discovery.
It was about the structure of knowledge itself.
The old universities, which were still rooted
in scholasticism. That rigid, authority -based
medieval method of learning. Right. They were
largely bypassed and replaced by these new scientific
societies and academies. And these weren't just
informal clubs. They were official institutions,
often chartered by the state or by wealthy patrons,
to provide technical expertise and advance practical
knowledge. So knowledge creation literally moved
out of the cloister and into these organized,
public -facing institutions like the Royal Society.
of London or the Academy of Science in Paris.
This institutional change was absolutely fundamental.
The sources really highlight this. The main function
of the university was now seen as just the transmission
of existing knowledge. But these new academies.
They were understood to create new knowledge.
Bernard de Fontenelle even called the 18th century
the age of academies. He did. He noted that by
1789, there were over 70 official scientific
societies across Europe. And the popularization
of this science was massive. You had figures
like Voltaire and his mistress, Emily de Châtelet.
Who was a brilliant scientist in her own right.
Absolutely. They worked to popularize Newtonianism.
They translated and explained these incredibly
complex ideas, making sure these discoveries
weren't just... find to a small, mathematically
inclined elite. They brought it into the mainstream
intellectual dialogue. It became cultural currency.
You even had poets like James Thompson writing
a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, praising
his science. Right. And even though you had figures
like Rousseau, who criticized the sciences for
distancing man from nature, the overall narrative
was clear. Science meant progress, and progress
meant the overthrow of old, limiting ways of
thought. So this whole comprehensive intellectual
effort from that dualistic starting point in
philosophy to the concrete institutionalized
results in science is really what made the Enlightenment
such a transformative force. So if that first
section establish the reason and empiricism as
the tools. Then this section deals with the what.
what they actually built with those tools. And
when Enlightenment thinkers applied reason to
the idea of governance, the result was just an
utterly explosive, direct challenge to the entire
political order of the West. Absolutely. The
central political doctrines that emerged were
things we now take for granted. Individual liberty,
representative government, the rule of law, religious
freedom. But at the time... These stood in direct
systemic contrast to absolute monarchy, to rule
by divine right, and to state -controlled religious
persecution. And the foundational debate that
really underpinned all of this was the concept
of the social contract. This idea just permeated
the entire era. It really gets its start with
Thomas Hobbes and his massive work Leviathan
back in 1651. Hobbes is so fascinating because
he developed the fundamentals of liberal thought.
But he used them to argue for absolute sovereignty.
It's a strange paradox. He shocked people by
arguing for the natural equality of all men and
the existence of individual rights. Even more
radically, he stated that political order is
artificial. It's created by humans. And any legitimate
power has to be representative and based on the
consent of the people. All in an effort to escape
the brutal state of nature. A war of all against
all. So he establishes the ground rules. Consent
is necessary. Equality exists, and the state
is artificial, not divinely ordained. But his
conclusion? That people must surrender all their
rights to an all -powerful sovereign. That's
where he diverges so sharply from the later thinkers.
And that's where John Locke comes in. He becomes
the most influential social contract theorist
for all the revolutionary movements that followed.
He does. In his two treatises of government,
Locke completely redefined the state of nature.
For him, it wasn't some brutal chaos. It was
a condition where men are rational and they follow
natural law. And the core tenet of that natural
law was Locke's famous assertion that all men
are born equal and possess these inalienable
natural rights. Life. liberty and property. And
for Locke, the entire point of civil society,
the whole reason for government was simply to
protect those rights, which he argued pre -existed
the state. So people enter this social contract.
They see a little bit of power specifically to
gain access to an unbiased judge, like a court
system, to resolve disputes and protect their
property without it all descending into war.
Exactly. The government is basically just a trustee.
Its power is limited. And his definition of property
was revolutionary too, wasn't it? The idea that
your natural right to property comes from your
own labor, mixing one's labor with the land.
That became a cornerstone, not just of liberal
political thought, but of the emerging liberal
economic theory. And you just can't overstate
Locke's tangible historical impact. His formulation,
life, liberty and property was directly echoed
in the American Declaration of Independence.
Even though Jefferson famously swapped out property
for the more abstract pursuit of happiness. And
Locke's ideas were also fundamental in shaping
the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen. Then you get Jean -Jacques Rousseau,
who comes along and complicates the contract
dramatically. He almost flips it on its head.
He does. He argued that civil man is corrupted
by society and social artifice and that natural
man is self -sufficient and good. So for Rousseau,
the contract wasn't just about protecting rights
you already have. It was about achieving a higher
form of collective moral freedom. Right. People
join civil society not just for protection, but
to achieve a kind of unity while still preserving
individual freedom, which is a very tricky balance.
And that goal is embodied in his concept of the
general will. What exactly was the general will
and how did it function compared to Locke's idea
of limited government? Well, Locke believed government
authority had very narrow limits based on consent.
Rousseau, on the other hand, he emphasized a
kind of communal sovereignty. Citizens submit
to the general will, which is the interest of
the community as a whole, and that will is always
right. The state becomes a moral agent. It does.
And this is where it gets really controversial.
For Rousseau, if a citizen disagrees with the
general will, he's just mistaken. He's mistaken
about what his own true self -interest is, and
he must be forced to be free. forced to obey
the collective moral sovereignty. Wow. That is
a very high stakes version of the social contract.
It sounds like it could justify some pretty intense
state action in the name of moral unity. It certainly
could. And it creates this massive tension in
Enlightenment thought. You have Locke leading
toward a more limited individualist idea of freedom
and Rousseau leading toward this collective moral
unity. But it's important to remember that not
everyone even bought into this contractual model
at all. We have to acknowledge the critics. especially
those from the Scottish Enlightenment. David
Hume, for instance, argued powerfully against
the idea of some founding contract in his essay
of the original contract. Right. He basically
said governments rarely, if ever, actually derive
from explicit consent. He said they're grounded
in habitual authority, in military force, in
long custom. Subjects consent tacitly because
the ruler already has authority, not because
they all sat down and signed an agreement. He
thought the whole idea was a useful political
fiction, but not a historical reality. And Adam
Ferguson mirrored that skeptical view. He completely
rejected the idea that citizens built the state
in some single abstract contractual moment. Ferguson
argued that polities grew organically out of
gradual social development, not some philosophical
decision. He developed the extremely popular
four stages of progress theory to explain this.
Humanity moves from hunting and gathering to
pastoral to agricultural. And finally, to a commercial
and civil society. For him, the structure of
government just reflects the stage of economic
development. It was a totally sociological, non
-contractual way of explaining political order.
Which reframes the entire discussion, doesn't
it? It moves it from abstract philosophy to what
is essentially... early sociology. It does. Now,
moving from theory to practice, this era saw
the rise of something called enlightened absolutism.
This was the ultimate compromise, really. The
idea that absolute monarchs could apply these
new, rational, enlightened principles to reform
their states and actually strengthen their rule.
They often claimed to be the servant of the state
rather than its owner. It was a fascinating experiment
in top -down modernity, driven by the belief
that a single educated ruler could enact reforms
more efficiently than a messy, slow legislature.
And you had rulers like Frederick the Great of
Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joseph
II of Austria, all trying to do this. Frederick
the Great explicitly stated his occupation was
to combat ignorance and prejudice, to enlighten
minds, cultivate morality, and to make people
as happy as it suits human nature. That sounds
incredibly noble, but was trying to be enlightened
while still maintaining absolute power. ultimately
a contradiction in terms. It was a profound contradiction,
and the results were very mixed. While some reforms
did get enacted, like abolishing torture in some
places, the underlying power structure often
resisted any deep change. Joseph II of Austria
is a great example. He was known for his extreme
overenthusiasm. He was. He announced all these
radical reforms, almost overnight religious tolerance,
the abolition of serfdom. But they lacked popular
support from the entrenched nobility or even
from the peasantry themselves. And the consequence
of that overreach? Widespread revolts across
his empire. It really demonstrated the limits
of imposing rationalism without getting any buy
-in. And so most of his progressive programs
were just reversed after his death. It confirmed
that even the most rational reforms couldn't
survive if they didn't respect existing customs
or social power dynamics. But the ideals themselves,
regardless of how they were applied in royal
courts, they were just too potent to remain contained.
The Enlightenment is universally recognized as
the intellectual foundation of modern Western
political culture. And it leads directly to the
Age of Revolutions. The American Revolution in
1776 is a primary example of Lockean ideas being
put into practice. You had figures like Benjamin
Franklin, who spent a lot of time in Europe bringing
back the newest ideas, and Thomas Jefferson,
who incorporated these ideals directly into the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
And the American effort was heavily focused on
breaking free from a government. King George
III in Parliament, that they felt didn't adequately
represent their interests or protect their pre
-existing Lockean rights. In a way, it was a
conservative revolution. They were fighting to
preserve rights they believed they already possessed.
Contrast that with the French Revolution in 1789.
The sources are clear that the ideas of the philosophes
systematically undermined the legitimacy of the
old regime, the Ancien Regime. With its rigid
social hierarchy and absolute monarchical power.
This was a radical revolution. It wasn't just
about protection. It was about creating a fundamentally
new, equal society from scratch. Exactly. Alexis
de Tocqueville, when he analyzed it decades later,
he suggested the revolution was the inevitable
result of this radical opposition that emerged
between the monarchy and the men of letters.
These intellectuals, he argued, became a kind
of substitute aristocracy. Right. They were all
powerful in the realm of public opinion, but
they had no real political accountability. And
their relentless promotion of a discourse of
equality was just fundamentally opposed to the
monarchical regime, which led to its violent
collapse. So whether it was through constitutional
founding in America or violent upheaval in France,
the 18th century's political thought replaced
inherited authority with reason, consent and
rational law. And it just changed the course
of. governance forever. The political transformation
we just discussed, it really required an equally
dramatic shift in how people viewed the world.
Specifically, it meant challenging the long -standing
authority of the church. And this intellectual
shift was perfectly encapsulated by Immanuel
Kant's famous challenge to his contemporaries,
super old. Dare to know or dare to think for
yourself. That challenge was absolutely essential,
wasn't it? The Enlightenment was, in many ways,
this massive intellectual and political response
to the previous century of horrific religious
conflict in Europe. Especially the Thirty Years'
War. The sources really emphasized that the goal
was simple but radical. Curtail the political
power of organized religion and prevent future
religious wars fueled by doctrinal disputes.
For the moderate reformers, this meant simplifying
faith, reducing it to its moral and rational
core. John Locke's reasonableness of Christianity
is a perfect example. He recommended that people
just focus on the fundamental, simple belief
in Christ the Redeemer and avoid getting bogged
down in these detailed, often conflicting theological
debates that had fueled so much bloodshed. Thomas
Jefferson took this rationalization impulse to
its absolute extreme. He created the Jefferson
Bible. He literally took scissors and glue. And
cut out any passages dealing with miracles, the
virgin birth, visitations of angels, the resurrection,
anything supernatural. He wanted to extract what
he saw as the pure, practical Christian moral
code, stripped of everything that required faith
over reason. And this impulse to rationalize
faith, it opened the door to entirely new religious
ideas that relied purely on reason. The most
popular among the intellectual elites was deism.
The simple belief in a God the Creator who acted
as a sort of grand architect of a scientifically
ordered universe. A deist relies solely on personal
reason. No reference to the Bible, miracles,
or revelations. Thomas Paine was a major proponent
of this view. He argued that the deists relies
only on natural reason and observation to guide
their creed and rejects the specific dogmas of
the established churches. And then, of course,
you had the idea of atheism. Which was widely
discussed, but it had very few actual proponents
at the time. Even many of the figures who are
harshest in their criticism of Orthodox Christianity
were only skeptics or deists or pantheists, not
true atheists. Voltaire, for instance, he feared
that without the belief in a punishing God, the
entire moral order of society would just collapse
into anarchy. That was the crucial sticking point
for most of the mainstream Enlightenment figures.
They believed morality was just inextricably
linked to God. Locke argued that if there were
no God and no divine law, the result would be
moral anarchy. Every individual would be a God
to himself. with their own will as the sole measure
of action but the radical thinkers following
the earlier thought of pierre bale they pushed
back on this bale and his followers argued that
atheists could indeed be moral men they could
maintain concepts of honor civic duty and social
good purely out of social interest and rational
self -preservation not out of fear of eternal
consequences right and that argument was a crucial
step in separating ethics from theology And the
natural political conclusion of all this religious
questioning was the push for the separation of
church and state. A concept that's often credited
to John Locke and which was really picked up
and run with by the radical enlightenment movement.
He developed this concept so powerfully within
the framework of the social contract. He argued
that when people form a government, they can
only cede powers they possess naturally. And
since rational people can't see control over
their individual conscience or their inner belief
to the government, it's an inalienable realm.
Then it logically follows that the government
has no authority in the realm of faith. Exactly.
It created a natural right to liberty of conscience
that has to be protected from any state authority.
And these views were immensely influential in
the American colonies. They guided the drafting
of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
And you have Thomas Jefferson explicitly calling
for a wall of separation between church and state
at the federal level in his letter to the Danbury
Baptist Association. It really solidified the
application of this enlightened principle in
the American Republic. But the application of
reason wasn't limited to theology and politics.
It was applied to human behavior itself, which
led to the birth of the modern social sciences.
Right. Thinkers in the Scottish Enlightenment.
especially David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and Adam
Smith, they focused on creating a rigorous science
of man. This meant merging the philosophical
study of human nature with a strong awareness
of the social, economic, and historical forces
that determine behavior. And this focus on sociability,
equality, and utility in Scotland is the direct
origin of modern sociology and anthropology.
And in the realm of wealth, 1776, the same year
as the American Declaration, saw Adam Smith truly
establish the field of modern economics with
the publication of The Wealth of Nations. And
that work had an immediate and continuing impact
on British economic policy. It championed the
principles of, let's say, fair free markets,
minimal government intervention, the invisible
hand. Smith's emphasis on the division of labor
and specialization, showing how collective wealth
is created, it provided a rational, scientific
justification for a commercial society. The legal
system also saw a revolutionary critique based
purely on reason. Cesar Beccaria's 1764 masterpiece
on crimes and punishments is considered a founding
work in penology and classical criminology. Vicario
argued that the justice system of his day was
just irrational, cruel, and ineffective. He condemned
the use of torture, arguing that it only guaranteed
that the strong or guilty would survive while
the weak or innocent would confess under duress.
And he fiercely condemned the death penalty.
His core argument was that punishment must be
certain, prompt, and proportionate to the crime.
It should only serve to deter future offenses,
not to exact some kind of religious vengeance
or brutal spectacle. The certainty of a small
punishment, he argued, was a more rational deterrent
than the severity of a remote one. His work was
translated into 22 languages. It had an immediate
and revolutionary impact on legal reform across
Europe. So from challenging the divine source
of morality to rationally structuring society
and law, the Enlightenment just utterly transformed
the three pillars of civilization, faith, law,
and wealth. Now, for ideas to actually challenge
entrenched power structures, they have to circulate.
They have to move effectively and rapidly. Exactly.
And the Enlightenment wasn't just about brilliant
individuals writing books in isolation. It was
a vast cultural movement. And it was powered
by new, highly effective channels of dissemination
and communication. The intellectual elite, they
operated primarily within what they called the
Republic of Letters. A term coined by Pierre
Bayle back in 1664. It described this kind of
imaginary egalitarian realm that was governed
by shared knowledge and acted across political
and national boundaries. It sounds like an early
borderless intellectual network relying on letters,
journals, personal travel. It was a forum dedicated
to the free public examination of everything.
from theological arguments to new forms of government.
And women played an absolutely crucial role in
this, didn't they? Especially as seleniers in
the Parisian salons. Their role was indispensable.
They acted as the legitimate governors of the
intellectual discourse. They set the tone, chose
the topics, mediated disputes, and made sure
the debate was polite and rational. The salons
became the primary civil working spaces for the
entire project of the Enlightenment. They hosted
discussions among the greatest minds of the day.
Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire. They were all there.
But while the established men of letters, the
successful philosophers, operated in this elite,
polite sphere, there was a far more venomous,
oppositional literary realm bubbling up from
underneath. Yes, Crub Street. This was the domain
of poorly paid, bitter writers. the Grub Street
hacks, who were marginalized by the official
censored publishing guilds. They were highly
educated but perpetually poor, and they fed their
resentment by turning their intellectual skills
toward highly subversive literature. They found
their outlet in these critical pamphlets called
libels. And these libels, they weren't discussing
abstract political theory. They were pure, often
vulgar, character assassination. They slandered
the court, the church, the aristocracy, the academies,
the salons. Everything elevated and respectable,
including the monarchy itself. The historian
Robert Darnton argues that this oppositional
literary sphere was absolutely critical. He says
the high -minded Enlightenment taught people
how to think. But Grub Street provided the targets.
By relentlessly attacking royal mistresses, financial
corruption, and the moral hypocrisy of the clergy
with these sensationalist stories, they effectively
desacralized authority in the eyes of the common
educated reader. Which paved the way for revolutionary
sentiment. It did. And the ability of this literature,
whether as elite or subversive, to even reach
the public was due to a traumatic shift in print
culture. People call it the reading revolution.
Increased efficiency in production lowered prices
drastically. So you have this explosion of books,
pamphlets, journals. And literacy rates just
shot up. They actually doubled in France over
the 18th century alone. And the reading revolution
itself changed how people interacted with ideas.
Before 1750, reading was intensive. Right. People
owned only a few books, a Bible, an almanac,
and they read them repeatedly, often allowed
in groups. But after 1750, the trend became extensive.
Many books read once, quickly and crucially read
alone. And this shift meant knowledge consumption
became more individual and private, which fosters
a spirit of critical thinking. When you read
the same book over and over, you internalize
authority. But when you read dozens of different
books, you start to compare, contrast, and criticize.
And that hunger for reading reached far beyond
the elite. There's evidence of lower -class engagement,
particularly with the Bibliothèque Bleue, the
Blue Library. These were cheaply produced books
published in Troy, France, specifically targeted
at a rural and semi -literate audience. They
had simplified almanacs, practical advice, condensed
novels. Now, censorship, of course, was rampant,
especially in France. The government tried desperately
to control the flow of ideas. Which led to many
publishing companies just relocating outside
of France to places like Geneva or the Netherlands
and then smuggling materials back across the
border. And what's really telling is what readers
actually bought clandestinely. Records of smuggled
books show that people weren't only after Locke
and Rousseau. They were highly interested in
sensationalist stories about corruption, pornography,
and those political libels. It shows a huge commercial
demand for this low -brow subversive literature
that was undermining the regime. The single greatest
engine. for synthesizing and disseminating Enlightenment
ideas has to be the Encyclopédie. Oh, absolutely
monumental. Compiled by Denis Diderot, Jean -Laurent
de Lambert, and 150 contributors, it spanned
35 volumes. It wasn't just a list of facts. It
was a weapon for spreading Enlightened thought
across Europe. And the structural organization
alone was radical. Diderot's figurative system
of human knowledge organized everything into
three main branches. memory, reason, and imagination.
And wait, he placed theology next to black magic?
That is an astonishing editorial choice. How
did they get away with that? That was the genius
of their subtle defiance. By putting theology
on a peripheral branch right next to superstition
and divination, they were implicitly critiquing
the church's traditional monopoly on truth. It
was a structurally secularizing project. It suggested
theology was just another field of human inquiry,
and a flawed one at that. The success was immense,
despite repeated attempts by the church and state
to ban it. Estimates suggest around 25 ,000 copies
were circulating before the French Revolution.
It just systematized the new rational worldview.
But these ideas didn't just spread through books.
They thrived in physical spaces of social interaction.
They fostered what we call the public sphere.
This rational, critical realm that was independent
of state or church authority founded on shared
reason and debate. We've already mentioned the
salons as these vital elite spaces, but equally
important were the coffee houses and cafes. The
coffee houses in London were called penny universities.
For the cost of a cup of coffee, anyone could
get access to conversations with doctors, lawyers,
merchants, and read the latest pamphlets. There
were also the nerve centers for brutes publics
or public rumor, which was often considered.
more reliable source of information than the
official censored newspapers. And what's so unique
about them is their cross -class appeal. They
attracted this diverse clientele, which actually
sparked fear among nobles who wanted to preserve
rigid class distinctions. The famous Café Procope
in Paris, established way back in 1686, that
was the unofficial office where Diderot and de
Lambert made the crucial decision to create the
Encyclopédie. And beyond the cafes, you had debating
societies. These were commercial enterprises
that often welcomed huge crowds, maybe 800 to
1 ,200 spectators a night, as long as they paid
the entrance fee. And they were open to all classes
and both genders. They discuss everything, religion,
politics, the role of women. The enforced anonymity
of the submissions and the egalitarian nature
of the debate helped spread these ideas to a
vast audience. And finally, you have the highly
secretive. but internationally influential Masonic
lodges. Figures like Diderot, Voltaire, Franklin,
Washington, they were all members. They promoted
the core Enlightenment ideals, liberty, fraternity,
equality, in a private, non -state setting. And
crucially, they provided a private model for
constitutional self -government, with constitutions
and elections, which was inherently political,
especially in continental Europe, where such
practices were illegal. Their international reach
meant they were an undeniable force in diffusing
this culture of reasoned critical thought. This
whole section really proves that the Enlightenment
was a total cultural project. A new philosophy,
a new science, a new economy, and a new structure
of public life, all working in concert. What's
so fascinating about the Enlightenment is that
it wasn't this, you know, monolithic thing that
just marched across Europe. It adapted locally.
It created these distinct national variations.
Right. The ideas were adopted and modified to
solve local problems. In France, La Lumiere became
highly associated with anti -government and anti
-church radicalism. Which was largely due to
the hostility of the centralized monarchy and
the strength of that radical Enlightenment we
talked about earlier. But in contrast, Germany's
de -aufklärung reached deep into the middle classes,
and it had a much more spiritualistic and nationalistic
tone. It was less threatening to the established
churches and governments. It was more focused
on self -improvement, reason, and moral cultivation,
rather than on democratic revolution. Exactly.
And the German movement included major figures
like Goethe, Herder, and Schiller, who together
formed the movement known as Weimar Classicism.
Herder, for instance, argued that every group
had its own unique identity, its Volksgeist,
expressed in its language and culture. Which
legitimized the promotion of German nationalism
as a form of intellectual progress. And then
there's Scotland, which was often described as
a hotbed of genius. Voltaire famously said, we
look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization.
The Scottish movement focused heavily on the
practical application of ideas. sociability,
equality, utility, and on creating that rigorous
science of man we discussed with figures like
David Hume and Adam Smith. He was pragmatic and
deeply concerned with moral improvement. It's
also so crucial to recognize the movement's reach
beyond Western Europe. In Bourbon Spain and Spanish
America, the era saw King Charles III implement
these reforms that curtailed church power, promoted
freer trade, and sponsored massive scientific
expeditions. Like the ones supported by Alexander
von Humboldt to discover the economic potential
and classify the natural resources of the empire.
And this political application of Enlightenment
ideals, it culminated, however briefly, in the
Spanish Constitution of 1812. A document that
established three branches of government and
universal manhood suffrage, which was truly progressive
for the time. But it also explicitly excluded
those with African ancestry, a critical, heartbreakingly
early example of the limitations of these ideals
when they were faced with economic and racial
prejudice. Which leads us to the more contemporary
historical view. that the Enlightenment involved
extensive cross -border interaction and global
integration. It wasn't just ideas spreading from
Europe, but a shared international phenomenon
where non -European actors adapted and used the
ideas for their own purposes. You just have to
look at Haiti. The Haitian Revolution, the only
successful slave revolt in history, was led by
Toussaint Louverture. And he mobilized radical
Parisian ideas and fused them with the specific
lived experiences of African -born slaves. Louverture
had read the critique of European colonialism.
He was thoroughly versed in the language of rights.
And the resulting revolution was so powerful
that it forced the French National Convention
to abolish slavery in 1794. The Haitian Revolution
is the ultimate example of the Enlightenment's
radical ideals being taken more seriously by
the oppressed than by the oppressors who wrote
them down. And in Asia, you see this profound
fusion of local traditions with Enlightenment
concepts. In Japan, for example, the Confucian
idea of re, which means order and harmony, was
co -opted and adapted to represent laissez -faire
economics and social order. And the potent slogan
civilization and enlightenment was used across
Japan, China and Korea by the 1880s to address
the challenges of modernization and globalization.
They weren't just adopting Western thought belatedly.
They were using the language of reason and progress.
to advance their own specific localized purposes
and internal reforms. Even in India, you had
figures like Tipu Sultan, an enlightened monarch,
and a founding member of the French Jacobin Club.
And Ram Mayahoy of the Bengal Renaissance, who
promoted reforms based on a religion of reason,
demanding reforms to traditional Hindu society.
The ideas were invoked by historical actors all
around the world to modernize their societies
and achieve sovereignty. It proved that reason
and liberty were universal concepts, even if
their European originators really struggled to
apply them universally. Which means we cannot
complete this deep dive without seriously acknowledging
the darker side and historical critique that
shadows the Enlightenment. While the ideals promoted
universal liberty, the application was often
deeply flawed and hit critical. That is the essential
contradiction we have to confront. Despite promoting
universal liberty and human rights, the rights
of women and non -white people were generally
overlooked or explicitly curtailed. Mary Wollstonecraft
has a rare early exception. She argued fiercely
in the Remeter. A vindication of the rights of
women that women, like men, should be treated
as rational beings who deserve equal education
and political agency. And the economic engine
of many European nations relied directly on systems
that contradicted every single espoused ideal
of liberty. European nations refused to support
anti -colonial struggles like Haiti's. It demonstrated
the practical limits of the ideology when faced
with colonial profit and plantation economies.
The system itself was fundamentally anti -enlightenment,
yet it was protected by the very governments
espousing these rational ideals. And most damningly,
this era saw the emergence of scientific racism.
Using the new research methods of the age classification,
measurement, observation thinkers systematically
sought to categorize and rank human populations.
They used new research to classify non -European
peoples as irrational and inferior, which effectively
justified European dominance and the institution
of slavery. Thinkers debated concepts like monogenism.
The idea that all races came from a single origin,
Adam and Eve, but that some degenerated in polygenism.
The idea that different races had separate origins,
making them fundamentally unequal. These concepts
became popular intellectual debates used for
social classification. They transformed old prejudices
into new, supposedly scientific justifications
for exploitation. It's a stark reminder. That
the application of reason can be turned to horrific
structural ends if the inherent biases of the
practitioners are not questioned or checked by
true universal compassion. So what does this
all mean when we synthesize the sources? I mean,
at the end of the day, the age of enlightenment
was characterized by this profound and radical
transformation. The substitution of reason, empirical
inquiry, and individual conscience for traditional
authority, for religious dogma, and for inherited
privilege. And the lasting legacies are just
undeniable and structural. We're talking about
constitutional government, the modern concept
of universal human rights, however imperfectly
it's been applied. Free market economics, as
defined by Adam Smith, and a widespread cultural
reliance on print media and vigorous public debate
to shape our collective life. And the impact
didn't just stop in 1804 with Kant's death. As
the sources point out, all those 19th century
movements like liberalism, neoclassicism, even
the early foundations of modern sociology. They
all explicitly trace their entire intellectual
heritage right back to this period. The structures
of law and thought we inhabit today are. fundamentally,
Enlightenment structures. The Enlightenment aimed
at liberating human beings from fear and superstition,
installing them as masters of their own destiny
through reason. Yet the 20th century saw philosophers
from the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno, offer this searing critique.
They argued that the wholly enlightened earth
radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant.
Referencing the failures of the 20th century
that grew out of the scientific rationalism of
the 18th. And this raises an important question
for you, the listener. If the core promise of
the Enlightenment was human progress through
reason, to what extent did it ultimately succeed
in truly eradicating fear, superstition, and
inequality in the world? Or did it merely introduce
new, more sophisticated, and perhaps more dangerous
forms of all three, just cloaked in the legitimacy
of science and logic? Welcome to The Debate.
Today, we're turning our attention to one of
the most foundational and, I think, most fiercely
argued periods in modern history, the Age of
Enlightenment. It spans roughly the century from
the late 1600s through the French Revolution
in 1789. And it's an era that, well, it really
championed reason. individual liberty, and the
systematic idea of progress. And while the fundamental
principles are widely celebrated, the core philosophical
and political nature of the movement itself remains
highly contested. Indeed. The central question
for us today is whether the Enlightenment was
primarily a radical force, one that was fundamentally
dedicated to overthrowing tradition, dismantling
the church, and restructuring all existing political
authority, Or, on the other hand, was it a moderate
movement, a more pragmatic pursuit of gradual
reform and accommodation within the established
frameworks of government and religion? You know,
was it a hammer or a scalpel? And I will be arguing
that while the intellectual critique was undoubtedly
sharp, the widespread and politically dominant
form of the movement across 18th century Europe
was overwhelmingly moderate. It was focused on
gradual controlled reform and political stability,
often achieved through pragmatic collaboration
with absolute monarchs. And my position is firm.
The enduring intellectual heritage of the Enlightenment
was inherently radical. Its foundational texts
and its ultimate long -term consequences aimed
at revolutionary transformation, even if that
transformation was often resisted. or delayed
by the powers of the day. So to begin, let's
look under the hood. What was really powering
this intellectual revolution? When we talk about
the most uncompromising thinkers, the ones who
truly define the trajectory of modernity, we
are talking about what the historian Jonathan
Israel has termed the radical enlightenment.
And this current was deeply inspired by the philosophy
of Baruch Spinoza. Right. Spinoza's ideas were
politically explosive. And they were explosive
because they offered a pantheistic view of God,
that God is nature, which completely eliminated
the need for an external, transcendent religious
authority. This intellectual move provided the
basis for a complete separation of morality from
theology, and it radically undermined the divine
right of kings. The advocates of this strain,
well, they pushed explicitly for democracy, for
full individual liberty, and for freedom of expression.
This is a complete rupture with the past, not
an attempted accommodation. Furthermore, the
very methodology of the era, famously articulated
by Kant, urged humanity toward sape aude, dare
to know. This was a rallying cry to emancipate
human consciousness. It demanded that we subject
all inherited authority, religious dogma, monarchical
privilege, social hierarchy, to critical, rational
examination. When you apply that kind of universal
rationality to every single problem, the result
is inherently revolutionary. Just look at the
American Revolution and the subsequent systematic
dismantling of the Ancien Regime in France. They
show this radical potential beautifully. I'm
sorry, but I just don't buy that the radical
fringe defined the political reality of the 18th
century. That radical current, while certainly
intellectually potent, was often confined to
philosophical circles. It was censored, and it
was relegated to the margins of real political
power. The moderate variety of the Enlightenment,
which was far more widespread and, I would argue,
more politically successful, it followed different
figures. Descartes, Locke in his more constrained
capacity, Christian Wolff in Germany, and it
consciously sought compatibility between reform
and traditional structures. But that's a compromise
of the core idea. Well, let me finish. The strongest
evidence for moderation is found in its institutional
success. The most visible, most effective application
of Enlightenment thinking in the 18th century
was Enlightened Absolutism. And these weren't
minor states. We're talking about the major powers.
Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the
Great of Russia, Joseph II of Austria. These
monarchs, they sought out philosophes. They implemented
significant reforms, modernizing legal codes,
promoting religious tolerance, rationalizing
the state bureaucracy. And this is the key distinction.
They did this to build stronger, more efficient
states, not to build republics. They used reason
as a management tool. Voltaire, a titan of the
French Lumières, he exemplified this. He explicitly
despised the idea of democracy, viewing the common
people as too ignorant for self -governance.
He believed the ideal ruler was simply an absolute
monarch who was enlightened, one who acted based
on reason and justice, but who maintained absolute
power. This is the very definition of a pragmatic,
non -revolutionary political goal. I acknowledge
that many regimes resisted the full implications
of radicalism. Of course, censorship was rife.
And the French crown was certainly hostile to
many philosophes. But we have to be careful not
to confuse what was politically convenient at
the time with the long -term true power of the
philosophical critique. The fact that the ideas
themselves fundamentally undermine the authority
of the monarchy and religious officials is the
crucial point. Look at the discourse itself.
Alexis de Tocqueville, in analyzing the political
literature of the French philosophes, he observed
that their persistent abstract arguments for
universal equality fundamentally opposed the
entire legitimacy of the old regime. The move
from viewing political power as derived from
divine right to viewing it as dependent upon
the consent of the governed as articulated by
Locke and Rousseau, that is not a measured reform.
That is a fundamental radical transformation
of the very basis of political legitimacy. Whether
the practical revolution took decades or centuries
to materialize, that doesn't negate the revolutionary
nature of the intellectual shift. That is a powerful
analysis, but it seems to miss the messy political
reality. We see that when attempts were made
at immediate radical overhaul, they were profoundly
destabilizing. I mean, they were often unsustainable.
Take Joseph II of Austria. He was perhaps the
most ideologically committed of the enlightened
despots, announcing these sweeping decrees from
abolishing serfdom to reorganizing the church.
And the result? widespread revolt, resistance
from the nobility, from the church, his reign
became a comedy of errors, and nearly all his
radical programs were reversed upon his death.
This suggests that true, immediate, radical political
application was often just too volatile to sustain,
which reinforced the need for controlled, slow
-moving moderation. And you can contrast that
with the German Aufklärung. This was a successful
movement precisely because it was integrated
deeply into society, focusing on moral improvement
and building a sense of nationhood, all while
supporting the standing order. It achieved reform
without ever threatening governments or established
churches. When reform is successful and sustained,
it's generally because it's controlled by the
sovereign and therefore fundamentally moderate.
But the success of those controlled reforms,
even if implemented by an emperor, They were
built on principles that were at their root inherently
radical. I'm talking about the core concepts
of individual liberty and natural rights. These
concepts, life, liberty, and property, according
to Locke, are philosophical tools designed to
fundamentally limit the reach of government authority.
They form the foundation of modern Western political
culture precisely because they introduce a zone
of individual autonomy that the state cannot
legitimately breach. The core radical push wasn't
just about political structure. It was the application
of rationality to every sphere of human experience.
When you insist that all authority must justify
itself before the tribunal of reason, you challenge
the very premise of inherited, unearned authority.
And that methodological shift is revolutionary,
even if specific political applications were
tentative. That's an interesting point, though.
I would frame the ambiguity of those core concepts
differently. I find that even foundational principles
like natural rights show the limits of radical
purity. They demonstrate the accommodations made
to political power. You cite Locke on natural
rights as the radical foundation, yet even he,
the champion of liberty, introduced a notable
caveat. While he argued against absolute slavery
in principle, he permitted the enslavement of
a lawful captive in time of war. Now this seemingly
minor exception demonstrates that even at the
conceptual level, these thinkers were making
pragmatic accommodations to existing power structures.
And let's also consider the concept of property
in his triad. For many of the moderate British
Whig thinkers who adopted Locke, protecting established
property rights became paramount. This focus
reinforced the established social hierarchy and
served to limit, rather than expand, radical
democratic participation. So the philosophy was
easily co -opted and moderated by those in power.
I'm not convinced that focusing on the inconsistencies
of one figure or the conservative interpretations
of one concept really captures the expansive,
boundary -breaking nature of the ideas. We often
fall into the trap of analyzing the Enlightenment
solely as the singular European academic phenomenon.
And recent scholarship has profoundly challenged
that narrow view, highlighting the Enlightenment
as a response to global interaction and cross
-border critiques. But that global fragmentation
you mention, however, actually reinforces the
argument for moderation. The idea of a singular
radical Enlightenment just ignores the highly
fragmented nature of the movement across national
lines. Look at the English case. Leading intellectuals
like Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, and especially
Edmund Burke were generally conservative. They
staunchly supported the established order. And
why? Because the English Enlightenment had largely
succeeded early on in establishing a moderate
political liberalism and religious toleration
through the Glorious Revolution. There was simply
no need for a radical philosophical overthrow.
In fact, after 1789, figures like Burke became
the most articulate counter -revolutionaries
in Europe, using their moderate Enlightenment
principles to actively defend traditional institutions
against what they saw as the radical excesses
of the French Revolution. This shows the movement
could become a force for stability, entirely
comfortable with the established framework. I
see why you think that, but let me give you a
different perspective. one that's rooted in those
very global interactions that I think prove the
ideas were inherently radical. Consider the Haitian
Revolution. This was not a revolt led by European
courtiers seeking incremental reforms. Here,
radical ideas from the French Revolution, universal
liberty, human equality, were mobilized, weaponized
by enslaved people. Figures like Toussaint Louverture,
who read Raynal's powerful critique of colonialism.
They used these Enlightenment concepts to achieve
the systematic and immediate overthrow of a colonial
system built entirely on chattel slavery. The
Haitian Revolution was an uncompromising, full
-scale transformation that happened precisely
because the core ideas possessed a universal
and uncompromising potential. The radical core
was always there, ready to be ignited by those
on the receiving end of European power. This
proves that the moderate veneer adopted in European
courts was a matter of convenience, not conviction.
That is an undeniably powerful counterexample,
and it does illustrate the revolutionary potential
when those ideas escape the filtering mechanisms
of state power. But when we look at the Age of
Enlightenment in the context of the political
structures that defined 18th century Europe,
the story remains one of moderation. The vast
majority of people were still governed by monarchs
who had best tolerated rational governance in
the name of efficiency. The Age of Enlightenment
was characterized less by universal revolution
and more by widespread locally adapted attempts
at rational administration. The historical dominance
of enlightened absolutism and the intellectual
tradition of figures like Descartes and Wolff
demonstrate that many powerful currents sought
to utilize reason for incremental change, often
in accommodation with, not in opposition to,
the existing authorities. Conversely, the Enlightenment,
viewed through its foundational texts, those
Spinozist arguments for philosophical liberty,
Rousseau's commitment to popular sovereignty,
Kant's demand for universal critique, and its
ultimate long -term political impact, was fundamentally
defined by a deep intellectual commitment to
radical transformation. It led directly, if sometimes
indirectly and unevenly, to the great Atlantic
revolutions, And it continues to shape global
movements today that seek to subject inherited
authority to the tribunal of reason. That core
philosophical challenge is inherently revolutionary
and I believe defines the era's lasting legacy.
Ultimately, we are discussing the tension between
intellectual theory and political stability.
The Age of Enlightenment was both the source
of radical, world -changing critique and the
era of measured, pragmatic political practice.
Understanding the success and the sheer prevalence
of the moderate, controlled reforms implemented
by monarchs like Frederick and Catherine remains
essential for understanding how foundational
ideas are translated into political action. The
way these concepts were adapted for state efficiency
rather than immediate liberty highlights the
complexity of this pivotal century and demonstrates
that not every push for reason is a push for
revolution. And this dynamic tension ensures
that the debate over the Enlightenment's true
nature will and should continue.