WEBVTT

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Welcome to the deep dive where we take your essential

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reading material and turn it into actionable

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synthesized knowledge. Today, we are strapping

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ourselves into the time machine. We are indeed.

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And we're tackling a movement that, I mean, it

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didn't just shift Western civilization. It fundamentally

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rebuilt it. We're talking about the Age of Enlightenment.

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Also known as the Age of Reason. And, you know,

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it's so much more than just a historical period.

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It's really the intellectual engine room of the

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modern world. That's a great way to put it. I

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mean, if you want to understand where we got

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concepts like democracy. or universal human rights,

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or even free market economics. Or even just the

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structure of modern science itself. Exactly.

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You have to start here, back in the 18th century.

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So our mission for this deep dive is to, well,

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to quickly but really thoroughly unpack the core

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principles. We're talking about reason, empirical

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evidence. The scientific method, of course. Right.

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And then follow that trail and see how those

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ideas led to these, well, radical and often,

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frankly, terrifying shifts across politics, society,

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religion, you name it. We're not just, you know,

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listing names and dates. No, we're trying to

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figure out why. Why were these ideas so explosive?

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And we have a really fascinating and kind of

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contested chronology to navigate here. We do.

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The roots of this whole intellectual revolution,

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they start to emerge in the late 17th century

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in Western Europe. But the movement, it really

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hits its stride, its peak in the 18th century.

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And it spreads. It spreads everywhere, rapidly

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across the continent and then into the European

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colonies, which fundamentally shapes the future

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of places like the Americas and Oceania. The

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starting date itself is actually debated, which

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I think immediately highlights the philosophical

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split that's right at the heart of this whole

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movement. Where do we even begin? Well, some

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historians will point to René Descartes and his

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discourse on the method back in 1637. In his

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famous line, gojito, ergo sum. I think, therefore

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I am. And they see this as the start because

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it relocated the whole basis of knowledge, what

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they call the epistemological basis. Which is

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just a fancy way of saying how we decide what's

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true, right? Yeah, exactly. It moved it away

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from external authority, like the church or tradition,

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and planted it firmly inside your own mind in

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internal certainty. That is a huge shift. It's

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the genesis of rationalism. This idea of systematic

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doubt. But then others, they mark the start later.

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They prefer to focus on the empirical side of

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things. So they'd point to Isaac Newton's Principia

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Mathematica in 1687. Precisely. They see that

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as the definitive moment, the point where empirical

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reasoned inquiry, you know, backed up by mathematics,

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was proven to unlock the fundamental laws of

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the entire universe. It's a fantastic way to

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frame the whole era, isn't it? Is knowledge found

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primarily through the internal workings of your

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mind, or is it derived from the external observation

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of nature? That's the core tension. And as for

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the end date, well, traditionally, European historians

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would date the period from the death of Louis

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XIV in 1715 right up to the French Revolution

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in 1789. But that's shifted a bit. It has. If

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you look at the intellectual output, a lot of

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modern historians push that end date a bit later.

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They often cite the death of the philosopher

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Immanuel Kant in 1804 as a more fitting... intellectual

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cutoff point. So regardless of the exact bookends,

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the big picture here is just it's profound. This

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era was promoting these genuinely revolutionary

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ideals, individual liberty, the whole concept

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of progress, religious tolerance, natural rights.

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I mean, these were concepts that directly challenged

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the prevailing structures of absolute monarchy

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and crucially, the political and social authority

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that the church held. That challenge just set

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the groundwork for massive, massive change. By

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questioning the divine right of kings and the

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divine origin of knowledge, the Enlightenment

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basically fostered an environment where all these

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new political and social theories could just

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flourish. And the sources are really clear on

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this. The intellectual heritage of all those

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later 19th century movements like modern liberalism

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and even some forms of socialism. It all traces

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right back to the foundational debates of the

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Enlightenment. It was a true pivot point in history.

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OK, so let's unpack that shift. Let's look at

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the foundations. You really can't talk about

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the Enlightenment without first acknowledging

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that it was, I mean, it was standing on the shoulders

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of the scientific revolution that came just before

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it. Absolutely. It wasn't born out of nothing.

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It was more of an applied expansion of methods

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that were already there. Thinkers like Galileo,

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Kepler. Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton. They had

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already laid out the blueprint. the Enlightenment

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inherited, and then just massively expanded upon

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these new methods. Like empirical inquiry, gaining

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knowledge through observation and testing. And

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rigorous reductionism, breaking complex systems

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down into their smallest, most verifiable parts.

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And of course, the scientific method itself.

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It seems like the biggest gift the scientists

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gave the philosophes was just confidence. That's

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it. The confidence that human reason could decode

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the universe. the confidence that the universe

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operated according to discoverable laws. And

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speaking of blueprints, the philosophical foundation

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was really laid by thinkers who created this

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kind of dualistic starting point. Right. On one

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side, you have Sir Francis Bacon, who championed

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empiricism. He insisted that all knowledge comes

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primarily from sensory experience, from observation.

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For Bacon, you just can't trust deductive logic

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on its own. You have to test, you have to observe,

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you have to categorize. And then on the complete

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opposite side, you've got Rene Descartes with

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his very powerful rationalism. And his method

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began not with the external world, but with doubt,

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systematic doubt. He realized the only thing

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he couldn't possibly doubt was the act of doubting

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itself. Which leads to his foundational kujito

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ergo sum. And this created a dualistic doctrine.

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He separated the realm of the immaterial thinking

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mind, the res cogitans, from the realm of physical

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extended matter, the res extensa. So this intellectual

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wrestling match, you know, between innate internal

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reason and external sensory experience, that

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really defined a lot of the early enlightenment.

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It did, until Locke came along and immediately

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complicated Descartes' dualism. Right. John Locke,

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he picked up that torch of skepticism, but he

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took it in a very different direction. He did.

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Instead of focusing on internal certainty, he

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went back to external experience. He refined

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empiricism in his huge work, The Essay Concerning

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Human Understanding. This is where he introduces

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the idea of the mind as a tabula rasa. A blank

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slate. Yeah. He suggested the mind starts out

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empty, and it just absorbs experience, and that

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experience is the sole source of knowledge. And

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that idea was just incredibly powerful, wasn't

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it? Oh, it was huge. Because it implied that

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human nature was malleable. It wasn't fixed by

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divine decree. And so it could be improved. Through

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better education, a better environment. Precisely.

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So if Descartes was asking, what is the one thing

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I know for sure? Then Locke was asking, how do

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we actually learn anything in the first place?

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Exactly. And then later you get David Hume, who

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comes along in the 1740s and continues this trajectory.

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deepening the skeptical tradition so much that

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he starts to question the very basis of cause

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and effect. He asks if we can ever truly know

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anything about the world outside of our own perceptions.

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So this debate created this rich, dynamic, intellectual

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environment. It led to a schism pretty quickly.

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It did. And this is where it gets really interesting

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because this philosophical starting point led

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to a fundamental split in Enlightenment thought.

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The historian Jonathan Israel has highlighted

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this really well. He argues there were two distinct

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competing lines of thought. Yes. First, you have

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what he calls the moderate Enlightenment. This

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school followed figures like Descartes, Locke,

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and the German philosopher Christian Wolff. And

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their approach was? They were looking for reform,

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you know, abolishing some superstition, promoting

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better government. But they were always trying

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to accommodate the traditional power structures

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and faith. So they were often deistic, believing

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in a creator God who just sort of wound up the

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clock and let it run. Right. They believed in

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a God who set the universe in motion but didn't

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intervene directly. Their goal was to make the

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existing house more modern and habitable, but

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without tearing down the walls of the church

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or the monarchy. So they were reformers, but

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cautious reformers. They valued stability just

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as much as progress. Precisely. They wanted a

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rationalized faith. But the second path, that

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was the radical enlightenment. And this movement

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drew its energy from Baruch Spinoza. The Dutch

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philosopher, yes. His work. which was published

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after he died, asserted the uncompromising unity

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of matter. The unity of matter. What does that

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actually mean in practical terms? And why on

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earth was it so radical? It meant that God and

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nature were one in the same thing, a concept

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called monism or pantheism. Which is a direct

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and, I imagine, terrifying challenge to Descartes'

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mind -body dualism. And to all traditional religious

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teachings which rely on a transcendent God who

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intervenes. If God is just the universe itself,

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then there's no room for miracles or revelation

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or a separate heaven and hell administered by

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a church. It functionally secularizes everything.

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That seems like an immediate non -starter for

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any ruling power whose legitimacy is tied to

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the church. It was. And politically and socially,

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the radicals just took this logic to its absolute

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limit. They pushed for democracy, complete individual

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liberty, total freedom of expression. And the

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eradication of religious authority from public

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life. Completely. including state -sponsored

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religious education. And critically, this radical

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tendency, it separated the basis of morality

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entirely from theology. It argued that morality

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comes from human reason and social necessity,

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not from divine command. Which meant, terrifyingly

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for the moderates, that an atheist could be a

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perfectly moral person. Right. So the moderates

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were trying to create an enlightened monarchy

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and an enlightened Christian society. But the

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radicals were fundamentally anti -clerical and

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pro -democracy. They were advocating for a fully

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secular state. And that tension, that dynamic,

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it explains so much. It explains why the French

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version of the Enlightenment, which we often

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associate with figures like Diderot fighting

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censorship, was so much more volatile and revolutionary

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than, say, the English or German versions. Exactly.

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It was the difference between those who wanted

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to refine the existing structures and those who

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saw reason. as this singular uncompromising force

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that required those structures to be demolished

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and rebuilt from the ground up. Now let's pivot

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to the hard sciences. It's so clear that science

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wasn't just some theoretical hobby. It was integral

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to the whole identity of the Enlightenment. Well,

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completely. Scientific advancement was seen as

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the ultimate tool for overthrowing religious

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and traditional authority. It was proof that

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progress was real and achievable through free

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speech and rational thought. The Enlightenment

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valued empiricism and rational thought as, you

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know, these essential tools for advancement.

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And they categorized the systematic study of

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science under this big heading of natural philosophy.

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Which was then divided into physics. Which dealt

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with mathematics and universal laws like Newton's

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work. And then this other massive kind of jumbled

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up mixture of chemistry and natural history.

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A conglomerate grouping, as the sources put it.

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And natural history included everything from

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anatomy and biology to geology. Why did they

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lump all of those together? Well, largely because

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the tools and the methods hadn't really specialized

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yet. I mean, chemistry was still trying to distinguish

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itself from alchemy. And fields like biology

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and geology were mostly about classification

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and observation, cataloging things. They hadn't

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developed that same rigorous reductionist methodology

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that Newton had applied to physics. Not yet.

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But this emphasis still led to some incredible,

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tangible results. You see Antoine Lavoisier's

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experiments being used to create the first modern

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chemical plants in Paris, which sets the stage

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for industrial production. Or you think about

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the pure spectacle of it all, the Mongolfier

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brothers launching the first manned hot air balloon

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flight in 1783. Imagine seeing that. It's a visible,

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breathtaking demonstration that human reason

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could master the laws of nature and literally

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defy gravity. And this wasn't just about discovery.

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It was about the structure of knowledge itself.

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The old universities, which were still rooted

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in scholasticism. That rigid, authority -based

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medieval method of learning. Right. They were

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largely bypassed and replaced by these new scientific

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societies and academies. And these weren't just

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informal clubs. They were official institutions,

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often chartered by the state or by wealthy patrons,

00:12:33.559 --> 00:12:36.299
to provide technical expertise and advance practical

00:12:36.299 --> 00:12:39.320
knowledge. So knowledge creation literally moved

00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:41.879
out of the cloister and into these organized,

00:12:42.039 --> 00:12:44.559
public -facing institutions like the Royal Society.

00:12:44.779 --> 00:12:46.779
of London or the Academy of Science in Paris.

00:12:47.059 --> 00:12:50.360
This institutional change was absolutely fundamental.

00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:53.480
The sources really highlight this. The main function

00:12:53.480 --> 00:12:56.159
of the university was now seen as just the transmission

00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:59.360
of existing knowledge. But these new academies.

00:12:59.899 --> 00:13:01.919
They were understood to create new knowledge.

00:13:02.159 --> 00:13:04.639
Bernard de Fontenelle even called the 18th century

00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:07.379
the age of academies. He did. He noted that by

00:13:07.379 --> 00:13:10.700
1789, there were over 70 official scientific

00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:13.679
societies across Europe. And the popularization

00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:15.980
of this science was massive. You had figures

00:13:15.980 --> 00:13:19.120
like Voltaire and his mistress, Emily de Châtelet.

00:13:19.399 --> 00:13:21.240
Who was a brilliant scientist in her own right.

00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:24.019
Absolutely. They worked to popularize Newtonianism.

00:13:24.059 --> 00:13:26.700
They translated and explained these incredibly

00:13:26.700 --> 00:13:28.600
complex ideas, making sure these discoveries

00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:31.110
weren't just... find to a small, mathematically

00:13:31.110 --> 00:13:33.909
inclined elite. They brought it into the mainstream

00:13:33.909 --> 00:13:36.850
intellectual dialogue. It became cultural currency.

00:13:37.149 --> 00:13:39.129
You even had poets like James Thompson writing

00:13:39.129 --> 00:13:42.309
a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, praising

00:13:42.309 --> 00:13:45.169
his science. Right. And even though you had figures

00:13:45.169 --> 00:13:47.470
like Rousseau, who criticized the sciences for

00:13:47.470 --> 00:13:50.590
distancing man from nature, the overall narrative

00:13:50.590 --> 00:13:53.690
was clear. Science meant progress, and progress

00:13:53.690 --> 00:13:56.730
meant the overthrow of old, limiting ways of

00:13:56.730 --> 00:13:58.940
thought. So this whole comprehensive intellectual

00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:01.240
effort from that dualistic starting point in

00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:04.179
philosophy to the concrete institutionalized

00:14:04.179 --> 00:14:07.100
results in science is really what made the Enlightenment

00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:09.740
such a transformative force. So if that first

00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:13.659
section establish the reason and empiricism as

00:14:13.659 --> 00:14:15.720
the tools. Then this section deals with the what.

00:14:16.299 --> 00:14:18.600
what they actually built with those tools. And

00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:20.399
when Enlightenment thinkers applied reason to

00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:22.980
the idea of governance, the result was just an

00:14:22.980 --> 00:14:26.240
utterly explosive, direct challenge to the entire

00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:28.559
political order of the West. Absolutely. The

00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:30.899
central political doctrines that emerged were

00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:33.240
things we now take for granted. Individual liberty,

00:14:33.419 --> 00:14:35.740
representative government, the rule of law, religious

00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:38.809
freedom. But at the time... These stood in direct

00:14:38.809 --> 00:14:42.929
systemic contrast to absolute monarchy, to rule

00:14:42.929 --> 00:14:45.509
by divine right, and to state -controlled religious

00:14:45.509 --> 00:14:48.289
persecution. And the foundational debate that

00:14:48.289 --> 00:14:50.710
really underpinned all of this was the concept

00:14:50.710 --> 00:14:54.009
of the social contract. This idea just permeated

00:14:54.009 --> 00:14:56.309
the entire era. It really gets its start with

00:14:56.309 --> 00:14:58.990
Thomas Hobbes and his massive work Leviathan

00:14:58.990 --> 00:15:02.490
back in 1651. Hobbes is so fascinating because

00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:05.230
he developed the fundamentals of liberal thought.

00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:08.200
But he used them to argue for absolute sovereignty.

00:15:08.379 --> 00:15:10.620
It's a strange paradox. He shocked people by

00:15:10.620 --> 00:15:13.159
arguing for the natural equality of all men and

00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:15.279
the existence of individual rights. Even more

00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:17.220
radically, he stated that political order is

00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:20.519
artificial. It's created by humans. And any legitimate

00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:23.179
power has to be representative and based on the

00:15:23.179 --> 00:15:25.419
consent of the people. All in an effort to escape

00:15:25.419 --> 00:15:28.080
the brutal state of nature. A war of all against

00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:31.120
all. So he establishes the ground rules. Consent

00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:33.889
is necessary. Equality exists, and the state

00:15:33.889 --> 00:15:36.750
is artificial, not divinely ordained. But his

00:15:36.750 --> 00:15:39.149
conclusion? That people must surrender all their

00:15:39.149 --> 00:15:41.330
rights to an all -powerful sovereign. That's

00:15:41.330 --> 00:15:43.409
where he diverges so sharply from the later thinkers.

00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:46.019
And that's where John Locke comes in. He becomes

00:15:46.019 --> 00:15:48.440
the most influential social contract theorist

00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.740
for all the revolutionary movements that followed.

00:15:51.940 --> 00:15:54.059
He does. In his two treatises of government,

00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:56.860
Locke completely redefined the state of nature.

00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:00.000
For him, it wasn't some brutal chaos. It was

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.340
a condition where men are rational and they follow

00:16:02.340 --> 00:16:05.039
natural law. And the core tenet of that natural

00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:08.419
law was Locke's famous assertion that all men

00:16:08.419 --> 00:16:11.059
are born equal and possess these inalienable

00:16:11.059 --> 00:16:15.549
natural rights. Life. liberty and property. And

00:16:15.549 --> 00:16:18.129
for Locke, the entire point of civil society,

00:16:18.269 --> 00:16:20.289
the whole reason for government was simply to

00:16:20.289 --> 00:16:23.110
protect those rights, which he argued pre -existed

00:16:23.110 --> 00:16:25.350
the state. So people enter this social contract.

00:16:25.409 --> 00:16:28.049
They see a little bit of power specifically to

00:16:28.049 --> 00:16:31.429
gain access to an unbiased judge, like a court

00:16:31.429 --> 00:16:33.909
system, to resolve disputes and protect their

00:16:33.909 --> 00:16:35.769
property without it all descending into war.

00:16:35.909 --> 00:16:38.230
Exactly. The government is basically just a trustee.

00:16:38.509 --> 00:16:40.950
Its power is limited. And his definition of property

00:16:40.950 --> 00:16:43.389
was revolutionary too, wasn't it? The idea that

00:16:43.389 --> 00:16:45.250
your natural right to property comes from your

00:16:45.250 --> 00:16:47.850
own labor, mixing one's labor with the land.

00:16:48.090 --> 00:16:50.649
That became a cornerstone, not just of liberal

00:16:50.649 --> 00:16:53.350
political thought, but of the emerging liberal

00:16:53.350 --> 00:16:56.919
economic theory. And you just can't overstate

00:16:56.919 --> 00:17:00.480
Locke's tangible historical impact. His formulation,

00:17:00.759 --> 00:17:03.919
life, liberty and property was directly echoed

00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:05.319
in the American Declaration of Independence.

00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:08.779
Even though Jefferson famously swapped out property

00:17:08.779 --> 00:17:12.960
for the more abstract pursuit of happiness. And

00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:15.680
Locke's ideas were also fundamental in shaping

00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:17.960
the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and

00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:20.660
of the Citizen. Then you get Jean -Jacques Rousseau,

00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:23.839
who comes along and complicates the contract

00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:25.779
dramatically. He almost flips it on its head.

00:17:25.900 --> 00:17:28.579
He does. He argued that civil man is corrupted

00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:31.119
by society and social artifice and that natural

00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:34.079
man is self -sufficient and good. So for Rousseau,

00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:36.240
the contract wasn't just about protecting rights

00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:38.299
you already have. It was about achieving a higher

00:17:38.299 --> 00:17:41.079
form of collective moral freedom. Right. People

00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:44.119
join civil society not just for protection, but

00:17:44.119 --> 00:17:46.640
to achieve a kind of unity while still preserving

00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:48.839
individual freedom, which is a very tricky balance.

00:17:49.140 --> 00:17:52.119
And that goal is embodied in his concept of the

00:17:52.119 --> 00:17:55.279
general will. What exactly was the general will

00:17:55.279 --> 00:17:57.819
and how did it function compared to Locke's idea

00:17:57.819 --> 00:18:00.519
of limited government? Well, Locke believed government

00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:03.359
authority had very narrow limits based on consent.

00:18:04.220 --> 00:18:06.700
Rousseau, on the other hand, he emphasized a

00:18:06.700 --> 00:18:09.599
kind of communal sovereignty. Citizens submit

00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:11.839
to the general will, which is the interest of

00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:14.180
the community as a whole, and that will is always

00:18:14.180 --> 00:18:17.259
right. The state becomes a moral agent. It does.

00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:19.119
And this is where it gets really controversial.

00:18:19.460 --> 00:18:22.079
For Rousseau, if a citizen disagrees with the

00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:24.960
general will, he's just mistaken. He's mistaken

00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:27.299
about what his own true self -interest is, and

00:18:27.299 --> 00:18:30.480
he must be forced to be free. forced to obey

00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.940
the collective moral sovereignty. Wow. That is

00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.079
a very high stakes version of the social contract.

00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:37.839
It sounds like it could justify some pretty intense

00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:40.920
state action in the name of moral unity. It certainly

00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:42.940
could. And it creates this massive tension in

00:18:42.940 --> 00:18:45.099
Enlightenment thought. You have Locke leading

00:18:45.099 --> 00:18:48.000
toward a more limited individualist idea of freedom

00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:50.299
and Rousseau leading toward this collective moral

00:18:50.299 --> 00:18:52.519
unity. But it's important to remember that not

00:18:52.519 --> 00:18:55.619
everyone even bought into this contractual model

00:18:55.619 --> 00:18:58.690
at all. We have to acknowledge the critics. especially

00:18:58.690 --> 00:19:01.150
those from the Scottish Enlightenment. David

00:19:01.150 --> 00:19:03.970
Hume, for instance, argued powerfully against

00:19:03.970 --> 00:19:07.470
the idea of some founding contract in his essay

00:19:07.470 --> 00:19:09.809
of the original contract. Right. He basically

00:19:09.809 --> 00:19:12.730
said governments rarely, if ever, actually derive

00:19:12.730 --> 00:19:15.250
from explicit consent. He said they're grounded

00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:18.710
in habitual authority, in military force, in

00:19:18.710 --> 00:19:21.740
long custom. Subjects consent tacitly because

00:19:21.740 --> 00:19:24.160
the ruler already has authority, not because

00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:26.240
they all sat down and signed an agreement. He

00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:28.079
thought the whole idea was a useful political

00:19:28.079 --> 00:19:31.359
fiction, but not a historical reality. And Adam

00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:34.039
Ferguson mirrored that skeptical view. He completely

00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:36.420
rejected the idea that citizens built the state

00:19:36.420 --> 00:19:39.740
in some single abstract contractual moment. Ferguson

00:19:39.740 --> 00:19:42.059
argued that polities grew organically out of

00:19:42.059 --> 00:19:44.500
gradual social development, not some philosophical

00:19:44.500 --> 00:19:47.539
decision. He developed the extremely popular

00:19:47.539 --> 00:19:50.200
four stages of progress theory to explain this.

00:19:50.420 --> 00:19:52.839
Humanity moves from hunting and gathering to

00:19:52.839 --> 00:19:56.079
pastoral to agricultural. And finally, to a commercial

00:19:56.079 --> 00:19:58.859
and civil society. For him, the structure of

00:19:58.859 --> 00:20:00.460
government just reflects the stage of economic

00:20:00.460 --> 00:20:03.200
development. It was a totally sociological, non

00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:05.940
-contractual way of explaining political order.

00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:08.299
Which reframes the entire discussion, doesn't

00:20:08.299 --> 00:20:11.680
it? It moves it from abstract philosophy to what

00:20:11.680 --> 00:20:15.170
is essentially... early sociology. It does. Now,

00:20:15.190 --> 00:20:17.670
moving from theory to practice, this era saw

00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:20.210
the rise of something called enlightened absolutism.

00:20:20.519 --> 00:20:22.819
This was the ultimate compromise, really. The

00:20:22.819 --> 00:20:25.319
idea that absolute monarchs could apply these

00:20:25.319 --> 00:20:28.740
new, rational, enlightened principles to reform

00:20:28.740 --> 00:20:31.339
their states and actually strengthen their rule.

00:20:31.559 --> 00:20:33.240
They often claimed to be the servant of the state

00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:35.660
rather than its owner. It was a fascinating experiment

00:20:35.660 --> 00:20:38.400
in top -down modernity, driven by the belief

00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:40.960
that a single educated ruler could enact reforms

00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:43.859
more efficiently than a messy, slow legislature.

00:20:44.509 --> 00:20:46.170
And you had rulers like Frederick the Great of

00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:48.349
Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joseph

00:20:48.349 --> 00:20:51.049
II of Austria, all trying to do this. Frederick

00:20:51.049 --> 00:20:53.950
the Great explicitly stated his occupation was

00:20:53.950 --> 00:20:57.549
to combat ignorance and prejudice, to enlighten

00:20:57.549 --> 00:21:00.309
minds, cultivate morality, and to make people

00:21:00.309 --> 00:21:02.849
as happy as it suits human nature. That sounds

00:21:02.849 --> 00:21:06.089
incredibly noble, but was trying to be enlightened

00:21:06.089 --> 00:21:09.630
while still maintaining absolute power. ultimately

00:21:09.630 --> 00:21:12.349
a contradiction in terms. It was a profound contradiction,

00:21:12.730 --> 00:21:15.410
and the results were very mixed. While some reforms

00:21:15.410 --> 00:21:18.710
did get enacted, like abolishing torture in some

00:21:18.710 --> 00:21:21.089
places, the underlying power structure often

00:21:21.089 --> 00:21:24.309
resisted any deep change. Joseph II of Austria

00:21:24.309 --> 00:21:26.670
is a great example. He was known for his extreme

00:21:26.670 --> 00:21:30.269
overenthusiasm. He was. He announced all these

00:21:30.269 --> 00:21:33.869
radical reforms, almost overnight religious tolerance,

00:21:34.109 --> 00:21:36.890
the abolition of serfdom. But they lacked popular

00:21:36.890 --> 00:21:39.049
support from the entrenched nobility or even

00:21:39.049 --> 00:21:41.150
from the peasantry themselves. And the consequence

00:21:41.150 --> 00:21:43.849
of that overreach? Widespread revolts across

00:21:43.849 --> 00:21:46.390
his empire. It really demonstrated the limits

00:21:46.390 --> 00:21:48.970
of imposing rationalism without getting any buy

00:21:48.970 --> 00:21:51.390
-in. And so most of his progressive programs

00:21:51.390 --> 00:21:53.789
were just reversed after his death. It confirmed

00:21:53.789 --> 00:21:55.750
that even the most rational reforms couldn't

00:21:55.750 --> 00:21:58.329
survive if they didn't respect existing customs

00:21:58.329 --> 00:22:01.619
or social power dynamics. But the ideals themselves,

00:22:02.019 --> 00:22:03.880
regardless of how they were applied in royal

00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:07.099
courts, they were just too potent to remain contained.

00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:10.680
The Enlightenment is universally recognized as

00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:13.259
the intellectual foundation of modern Western

00:22:13.259 --> 00:22:16.180
political culture. And it leads directly to the

00:22:16.180 --> 00:22:18.940
Age of Revolutions. The American Revolution in

00:22:18.940 --> 00:22:23.599
1776 is a primary example of Lockean ideas being

00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:26.420
put into practice. You had figures like Benjamin

00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:28.859
Franklin, who spent a lot of time in Europe bringing

00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:31.400
back the newest ideas, and Thomas Jefferson,

00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:33.859
who incorporated these ideals directly into the

00:22:33.859 --> 00:22:35.980
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

00:22:36.380 --> 00:22:39.000
And the American effort was heavily focused on

00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:41.319
breaking free from a government. King George

00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:44.119
III in Parliament, that they felt didn't adequately

00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:46.779
represent their interests or protect their pre

00:22:46.779 --> 00:22:48.660
-existing Lockean rights. In a way, it was a

00:22:48.660 --> 00:22:50.680
conservative revolution. They were fighting to

00:22:50.680 --> 00:22:52.759
preserve rights they believed they already possessed.

00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.640
Contrast that with the French Revolution in 1789.

00:22:56.099 --> 00:22:59.259
The sources are clear that the ideas of the philosophes

00:22:59.259 --> 00:23:01.579
systematically undermined the legitimacy of the

00:23:01.579 --> 00:23:04.680
old regime, the Ancien Regime. With its rigid

00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:07.920
social hierarchy and absolute monarchical power.

00:23:08.569 --> 00:23:10.950
This was a radical revolution. It wasn't just

00:23:10.950 --> 00:23:13.430
about protection. It was about creating a fundamentally

00:23:13.430 --> 00:23:17.509
new, equal society from scratch. Exactly. Alexis

00:23:17.509 --> 00:23:20.109
de Tocqueville, when he analyzed it decades later,

00:23:20.269 --> 00:23:22.730
he suggested the revolution was the inevitable

00:23:22.730 --> 00:23:25.349
result of this radical opposition that emerged

00:23:25.349 --> 00:23:28.190
between the monarchy and the men of letters.

00:23:28.589 --> 00:23:30.930
These intellectuals, he argued, became a kind

00:23:30.930 --> 00:23:33.670
of substitute aristocracy. Right. They were all

00:23:33.670 --> 00:23:36.009
powerful in the realm of public opinion, but

00:23:36.009 --> 00:23:38.130
they had no real political accountability. And

00:23:38.130 --> 00:23:40.529
their relentless promotion of a discourse of

00:23:40.529 --> 00:23:43.130
equality was just fundamentally opposed to the

00:23:43.130 --> 00:23:45.329
monarchical regime, which led to its violent

00:23:45.329 --> 00:23:47.529
collapse. So whether it was through constitutional

00:23:47.529 --> 00:23:50.369
founding in America or violent upheaval in France,

00:23:50.569 --> 00:23:52.990
the 18th century's political thought replaced

00:23:52.990 --> 00:23:55.329
inherited authority with reason, consent and

00:23:55.329 --> 00:23:57.630
rational law. And it just changed the course

00:23:57.630 --> 00:23:59.789
of. governance forever. The political transformation

00:23:59.789 --> 00:24:02.710
we just discussed, it really required an equally

00:24:02.710 --> 00:24:05.109
dramatic shift in how people viewed the world.

00:24:05.250 --> 00:24:07.630
Specifically, it meant challenging the long -standing

00:24:07.630 --> 00:24:09.690
authority of the church. And this intellectual

00:24:09.690 --> 00:24:12.630
shift was perfectly encapsulated by Immanuel

00:24:12.630 --> 00:24:14.849
Kant's famous challenge to his contemporaries,

00:24:14.950 --> 00:24:18.410
super old. Dare to know or dare to think for

00:24:18.410 --> 00:24:20.769
yourself. That challenge was absolutely essential,

00:24:21.009 --> 00:24:23.539
wasn't it? The Enlightenment was, in many ways,

00:24:23.660 --> 00:24:26.079
this massive intellectual and political response

00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:29.460
to the previous century of horrific religious

00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:32.059
conflict in Europe. Especially the Thirty Years'

00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:35.039
War. The sources really emphasized that the goal

00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.539
was simple but radical. Curtail the political

00:24:38.539 --> 00:24:41.579
power of organized religion and prevent future

00:24:41.579 --> 00:24:44.039
religious wars fueled by doctrinal disputes.

00:24:44.420 --> 00:24:46.880
For the moderate reformers, this meant simplifying

00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.440
faith, reducing it to its moral and rational

00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:52.200
core. John Locke's reasonableness of Christianity

00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:54.319
is a perfect example. He recommended that people

00:24:54.319 --> 00:24:56.539
just focus on the fundamental, simple belief

00:24:56.539 --> 00:24:59.099
in Christ the Redeemer and avoid getting bogged

00:24:59.099 --> 00:25:01.579
down in these detailed, often conflicting theological

00:25:01.579 --> 00:25:04.380
debates that had fueled so much bloodshed. Thomas

00:25:04.380 --> 00:25:06.880
Jefferson took this rationalization impulse to

00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:09.359
its absolute extreme. He created the Jefferson

00:25:09.359 --> 00:25:11.859
Bible. He literally took scissors and glue. And

00:25:11.859 --> 00:25:14.220
cut out any passages dealing with miracles, the

00:25:14.220 --> 00:25:16.660
virgin birth, visitations of angels, the resurrection,

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:19.940
anything supernatural. He wanted to extract what

00:25:19.940 --> 00:25:22.519
he saw as the pure, practical Christian moral

00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:25.359
code, stripped of everything that required faith

00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:28.500
over reason. And this impulse to rationalize

00:25:28.500 --> 00:25:31.319
faith, it opened the door to entirely new religious

00:25:31.319 --> 00:25:34.559
ideas that relied purely on reason. The most

00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:37.180
popular among the intellectual elites was deism.

00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:40.220
The simple belief in a God the Creator who acted

00:25:40.220 --> 00:25:42.599
as a sort of grand architect of a scientifically

00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:45.819
ordered universe. A deist relies solely on personal

00:25:45.819 --> 00:25:48.420
reason. No reference to the Bible, miracles,

00:25:48.539 --> 00:25:51.759
or revelations. Thomas Paine was a major proponent

00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:53.980
of this view. He argued that the deists relies

00:25:53.980 --> 00:25:56.359
only on natural reason and observation to guide

00:25:56.359 --> 00:25:59.220
their creed and rejects the specific dogmas of

00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:01.019
the established churches. And then, of course,

00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:03.180
you had the idea of atheism. Which was widely

00:26:03.180 --> 00:26:05.839
discussed, but it had very few actual proponents

00:26:05.839 --> 00:26:07.980
at the time. Even many of the figures who are

00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:10.140
harshest in their criticism of Orthodox Christianity

00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:13.400
were only skeptics or deists or pantheists, not

00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:16.859
true atheists. Voltaire, for instance, he feared

00:26:16.859 --> 00:26:19.599
that without the belief in a punishing God, the

00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:23.319
entire moral order of society would just collapse

00:26:23.319 --> 00:26:26.240
into anarchy. That was the crucial sticking point

00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:28.099
for most of the mainstream Enlightenment figures.

00:26:28.359 --> 00:26:31.200
They believed morality was just inextricably

00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.880
linked to God. Locke argued that if there were

00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:37.539
no God and no divine law, the result would be

00:26:37.539 --> 00:26:40.640
moral anarchy. Every individual would be a God

00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:44.299
to himself. with their own will as the sole measure

00:26:44.299 --> 00:26:46.740
of action but the radical thinkers following

00:26:46.740 --> 00:26:49.079
the earlier thought of pierre bale they pushed

00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:52.200
back on this bale and his followers argued that

00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:55.180
atheists could indeed be moral men they could

00:26:55.180 --> 00:26:57.819
maintain concepts of honor civic duty and social

00:26:57.819 --> 00:27:00.720
good purely out of social interest and rational

00:27:00.720 --> 00:27:03.160
self -preservation not out of fear of eternal

00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:05.559
consequences right and that argument was a crucial

00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:08.609
step in separating ethics from theology And the

00:27:08.609 --> 00:27:11.349
natural political conclusion of all this religious

00:27:11.349 --> 00:27:13.690
questioning was the push for the separation of

00:27:13.690 --> 00:27:15.970
church and state. A concept that's often credited

00:27:15.970 --> 00:27:18.109
to John Locke and which was really picked up

00:27:18.109 --> 00:27:20.029
and run with by the radical enlightenment movement.

00:27:20.230 --> 00:27:23.089
He developed this concept so powerfully within

00:27:23.089 --> 00:27:26.589
the framework of the social contract. He argued

00:27:26.589 --> 00:27:28.849
that when people form a government, they can

00:27:28.849 --> 00:27:32.000
only cede powers they possess naturally. And

00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:34.099
since rational people can't see control over

00:27:34.099 --> 00:27:36.400
their individual conscience or their inner belief

00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:39.000
to the government, it's an inalienable realm.

00:27:39.220 --> 00:27:41.079
Then it logically follows that the government

00:27:41.079 --> 00:27:43.759
has no authority in the realm of faith. Exactly.

00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:46.700
It created a natural right to liberty of conscience

00:27:46.700 --> 00:27:49.059
that has to be protected from any state authority.

00:27:49.400 --> 00:27:52.180
And these views were immensely influential in

00:27:52.180 --> 00:27:54.140
the American colonies. They guided the drafting

00:27:54.140 --> 00:27:56.339
of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

00:27:56.829 --> 00:27:59.390
And you have Thomas Jefferson explicitly calling

00:27:59.390 --> 00:28:02.529
for a wall of separation between church and state

00:28:02.529 --> 00:28:05.250
at the federal level in his letter to the Danbury

00:28:05.250 --> 00:28:08.109
Baptist Association. It really solidified the

00:28:08.109 --> 00:28:10.490
application of this enlightened principle in

00:28:10.490 --> 00:28:12.529
the American Republic. But the application of

00:28:12.529 --> 00:28:14.849
reason wasn't limited to theology and politics.

00:28:14.970 --> 00:28:17.890
It was applied to human behavior itself, which

00:28:17.890 --> 00:28:19.990
led to the birth of the modern social sciences.

00:28:20.230 --> 00:28:22.930
Right. Thinkers in the Scottish Enlightenment.

00:28:23.210 --> 00:28:25.549
especially David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and Adam

00:28:25.549 --> 00:28:28.869
Smith, they focused on creating a rigorous science

00:28:28.869 --> 00:28:31.569
of man. This meant merging the philosophical

00:28:31.569 --> 00:28:33.950
study of human nature with a strong awareness

00:28:33.950 --> 00:28:36.369
of the social, economic, and historical forces

00:28:36.369 --> 00:28:39.410
that determine behavior. And this focus on sociability,

00:28:39.630 --> 00:28:42.609
equality, and utility in Scotland is the direct

00:28:42.609 --> 00:28:44.930
origin of modern sociology and anthropology.

00:28:45.690 --> 00:28:48.730
And in the realm of wealth, 1776, the same year

00:28:48.730 --> 00:28:51.549
as the American Declaration, saw Adam Smith truly

00:28:51.549 --> 00:28:54.150
establish the field of modern economics with

00:28:54.150 --> 00:28:56.690
the publication of The Wealth of Nations. And

00:28:56.690 --> 00:28:58.750
that work had an immediate and continuing impact

00:28:58.750 --> 00:29:01.049
on British economic policy. It championed the

00:29:01.049 --> 00:29:02.710
principles of, let's say, fair free markets,

00:29:02.910 --> 00:29:05.190
minimal government intervention, the invisible

00:29:05.190 --> 00:29:07.980
hand. Smith's emphasis on the division of labor

00:29:07.980 --> 00:29:10.599
and specialization, showing how collective wealth

00:29:10.599 --> 00:29:13.259
is created, it provided a rational, scientific

00:29:13.259 --> 00:29:16.660
justification for a commercial society. The legal

00:29:16.660 --> 00:29:19.000
system also saw a revolutionary critique based

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:22.380
purely on reason. Cesar Beccaria's 1764 masterpiece

00:29:22.380 --> 00:29:25.180
on crimes and punishments is considered a founding

00:29:25.180 --> 00:29:28.079
work in penology and classical criminology. Vicario

00:29:28.079 --> 00:29:30.319
argued that the justice system of his day was

00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:33.859
just irrational, cruel, and ineffective. He condemned

00:29:33.859 --> 00:29:36.799
the use of torture, arguing that it only guaranteed

00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:39.140
that the strong or guilty would survive while

00:29:39.140 --> 00:29:41.660
the weak or innocent would confess under duress.

00:29:41.819 --> 00:29:44.099
And he fiercely condemned the death penalty.

00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:47.240
His core argument was that punishment must be

00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:49.799
certain, prompt, and proportionate to the crime.

00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:52.460
It should only serve to deter future offenses,

00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:54.819
not to exact some kind of religious vengeance

00:29:54.819 --> 00:29:57.809
or brutal spectacle. The certainty of a small

00:29:57.809 --> 00:30:00.589
punishment, he argued, was a more rational deterrent

00:30:00.589 --> 00:30:02.869
than the severity of a remote one. His work was

00:30:02.869 --> 00:30:05.329
translated into 22 languages. It had an immediate

00:30:05.329 --> 00:30:07.710
and revolutionary impact on legal reform across

00:30:07.710 --> 00:30:09.910
Europe. So from challenging the divine source

00:30:09.910 --> 00:30:12.789
of morality to rationally structuring society

00:30:12.789 --> 00:30:15.230
and law, the Enlightenment just utterly transformed

00:30:15.230 --> 00:30:18.190
the three pillars of civilization, faith, law,

00:30:18.450 --> 00:30:21.569
and wealth. Now, for ideas to actually challenge

00:30:21.569 --> 00:30:24.049
entrenched power structures, they have to circulate.

00:30:24.299 --> 00:30:26.779
They have to move effectively and rapidly. Exactly.

00:30:26.980 --> 00:30:29.000
And the Enlightenment wasn't just about brilliant

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.779
individuals writing books in isolation. It was

00:30:31.779 --> 00:30:34.380
a vast cultural movement. And it was powered

00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:37.680
by new, highly effective channels of dissemination

00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:40.630
and communication. The intellectual elite, they

00:30:40.630 --> 00:30:43.069
operated primarily within what they called the

00:30:43.069 --> 00:30:45.569
Republic of Letters. A term coined by Pierre

00:30:45.569 --> 00:30:49.069
Bayle back in 1664. It described this kind of

00:30:49.069 --> 00:30:51.829
imaginary egalitarian realm that was governed

00:30:51.829 --> 00:30:54.490
by shared knowledge and acted across political

00:30:54.490 --> 00:30:56.710
and national boundaries. It sounds like an early

00:30:56.710 --> 00:30:59.910
borderless intellectual network relying on letters,

00:31:00.049 --> 00:31:02.730
journals, personal travel. It was a forum dedicated

00:31:02.730 --> 00:31:05.349
to the free public examination of everything.

00:31:05.759 --> 00:31:08.240
from theological arguments to new forms of government.

00:31:08.420 --> 00:31:10.619
And women played an absolutely crucial role in

00:31:10.619 --> 00:31:12.680
this, didn't they? Especially as seleniers in

00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:15.000
the Parisian salons. Their role was indispensable.

00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:17.819
They acted as the legitimate governors of the

00:31:17.819 --> 00:31:20.579
intellectual discourse. They set the tone, chose

00:31:20.579 --> 00:31:23.420
the topics, mediated disputes, and made sure

00:31:23.420 --> 00:31:25.940
the debate was polite and rational. The salons

00:31:25.940 --> 00:31:28.660
became the primary civil working spaces for the

00:31:28.660 --> 00:31:31.480
entire project of the Enlightenment. They hosted

00:31:31.480 --> 00:31:33.980
discussions among the greatest minds of the day.

00:31:34.380 --> 00:31:38.059
Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire. They were all there.

00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:40.440
But while the established men of letters, the

00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:43.039
successful philosophers, operated in this elite,

00:31:43.059 --> 00:31:47.440
polite sphere, there was a far more venomous,

00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:50.319
oppositional literary realm bubbling up from

00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:53.059
underneath. Yes, Crub Street. This was the domain

00:31:53.059 --> 00:31:56.079
of poorly paid, bitter writers. the Grub Street

00:31:56.079 --> 00:31:58.839
hacks, who were marginalized by the official

00:31:58.839 --> 00:32:01.480
censored publishing guilds. They were highly

00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:04.519
educated but perpetually poor, and they fed their

00:32:04.519 --> 00:32:06.500
resentment by turning their intellectual skills

00:32:06.500 --> 00:32:09.339
toward highly subversive literature. They found

00:32:09.339 --> 00:32:11.220
their outlet in these critical pamphlets called

00:32:11.220 --> 00:32:13.619
libels. And these libels, they weren't discussing

00:32:13.619 --> 00:32:16.579
abstract political theory. They were pure, often

00:32:16.579 --> 00:32:19.180
vulgar, character assassination. They slandered

00:32:19.180 --> 00:32:22.119
the court, the church, the aristocracy, the academies,

00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:24.809
the salons. Everything elevated and respectable,

00:32:25.170 --> 00:32:27.470
including the monarchy itself. The historian

00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:29.690
Robert Darnton argues that this oppositional

00:32:29.690 --> 00:32:32.390
literary sphere was absolutely critical. He says

00:32:32.390 --> 00:32:34.109
the high -minded Enlightenment taught people

00:32:34.109 --> 00:32:36.250
how to think. But Grub Street provided the targets.

00:32:37.150 --> 00:32:40.569
By relentlessly attacking royal mistresses, financial

00:32:40.569 --> 00:32:43.269
corruption, and the moral hypocrisy of the clergy

00:32:43.269 --> 00:32:45.990
with these sensationalist stories, they effectively

00:32:45.990 --> 00:32:48.609
desacralized authority in the eyes of the common

00:32:48.609 --> 00:32:50.910
educated reader. Which paved the way for revolutionary

00:32:50.910 --> 00:32:54.930
sentiment. It did. And the ability of this literature,

00:32:55.109 --> 00:32:57.250
whether as elite or subversive, to even reach

00:32:57.250 --> 00:32:59.910
the public was due to a traumatic shift in print

00:32:59.910 --> 00:33:02.089
culture. People call it the reading revolution.

00:33:02.650 --> 00:33:04.809
Increased efficiency in production lowered prices

00:33:04.809 --> 00:33:07.109
drastically. So you have this explosion of books,

00:33:07.210 --> 00:33:09.349
pamphlets, journals. And literacy rates just

00:33:09.349 --> 00:33:11.289
shot up. They actually doubled in France over

00:33:11.289 --> 00:33:13.390
the 18th century alone. And the reading revolution

00:33:13.390 --> 00:33:15.910
itself changed how people interacted with ideas.

00:33:16.750 --> 00:33:20.269
Before 1750, reading was intensive. Right. People

00:33:20.269 --> 00:33:23.170
owned only a few books, a Bible, an almanac,

00:33:23.170 --> 00:33:24.970
and they read them repeatedly, often allowed

00:33:24.970 --> 00:33:28.450
in groups. But after 1750, the trend became extensive.

00:33:28.809 --> 00:33:32.069
Many books read once, quickly and crucially read

00:33:32.069 --> 00:33:35.210
alone. And this shift meant knowledge consumption

00:33:35.210 --> 00:33:38.529
became more individual and private, which fosters

00:33:38.529 --> 00:33:41.480
a spirit of critical thinking. When you read

00:33:41.480 --> 00:33:44.099
the same book over and over, you internalize

00:33:44.099 --> 00:33:46.220
authority. But when you read dozens of different

00:33:46.220 --> 00:33:49.200
books, you start to compare, contrast, and criticize.

00:33:49.599 --> 00:33:51.720
And that hunger for reading reached far beyond

00:33:51.720 --> 00:33:54.799
the elite. There's evidence of lower -class engagement,

00:33:55.160 --> 00:33:58.140
particularly with the Bibliothèque Bleue, the

00:33:58.140 --> 00:34:00.559
Blue Library. These were cheaply produced books

00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:03.720
published in Troy, France, specifically targeted

00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:06.460
at a rural and semi -literate audience. They

00:34:06.460 --> 00:34:09.280
had simplified almanacs, practical advice, condensed

00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:12.139
novels. Now, censorship, of course, was rampant,

00:34:12.139 --> 00:34:14.639
especially in France. The government tried desperately

00:34:14.639 --> 00:34:17.460
to control the flow of ideas. Which led to many

00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:19.780
publishing companies just relocating outside

00:34:19.780 --> 00:34:22.119
of France to places like Geneva or the Netherlands

00:34:22.119 --> 00:34:24.559
and then smuggling materials back across the

00:34:24.559 --> 00:34:26.480
border. And what's really telling is what readers

00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:29.599
actually bought clandestinely. Records of smuggled

00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:31.860
books show that people weren't only after Locke

00:34:31.860 --> 00:34:33.969
and Rousseau. They were highly interested in

00:34:33.969 --> 00:34:36.650
sensationalist stories about corruption, pornography,

00:34:37.090 --> 00:34:40.550
and those political libels. It shows a huge commercial

00:34:40.550 --> 00:34:43.710
demand for this low -brow subversive literature

00:34:43.710 --> 00:34:46.349
that was undermining the regime. The single greatest

00:34:46.349 --> 00:34:49.480
engine. for synthesizing and disseminating Enlightenment

00:34:49.480 --> 00:34:52.840
ideas has to be the Encyclopédie. Oh, absolutely

00:34:52.840 --> 00:34:56.440
monumental. Compiled by Denis Diderot, Jean -Laurent

00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:59.760
de Lambert, and 150 contributors, it spanned

00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:03.679
35 volumes. It wasn't just a list of facts. It

00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:05.519
was a weapon for spreading Enlightened thought

00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:07.679
across Europe. And the structural organization

00:35:07.679 --> 00:35:11.059
alone was radical. Diderot's figurative system

00:35:11.059 --> 00:35:13.179
of human knowledge organized everything into

00:35:13.179 --> 00:35:16.449
three main branches. memory, reason, and imagination.

00:35:16.829 --> 00:35:19.550
And wait, he placed theology next to black magic?

00:35:19.809 --> 00:35:22.070
That is an astonishing editorial choice. How

00:35:22.070 --> 00:35:23.929
did they get away with that? That was the genius

00:35:23.929 --> 00:35:25.889
of their subtle defiance. By putting theology

00:35:25.889 --> 00:35:29.150
on a peripheral branch right next to superstition

00:35:29.150 --> 00:35:31.550
and divination, they were implicitly critiquing

00:35:31.550 --> 00:35:33.849
the church's traditional monopoly on truth. It

00:35:33.849 --> 00:35:36.550
was a structurally secularizing project. It suggested

00:35:36.550 --> 00:35:38.929
theology was just another field of human inquiry,

00:35:39.090 --> 00:35:41.659
and a flawed one at that. The success was immense,

00:35:41.900 --> 00:35:44.719
despite repeated attempts by the church and state

00:35:44.719 --> 00:35:48.380
to ban it. Estimates suggest around 25 ,000 copies

00:35:48.380 --> 00:35:50.280
were circulating before the French Revolution.

00:35:50.579 --> 00:35:53.800
It just systematized the new rational worldview.

00:35:54.119 --> 00:35:56.260
But these ideas didn't just spread through books.

00:35:56.480 --> 00:35:59.980
They thrived in physical spaces of social interaction.

00:36:00.559 --> 00:36:03.119
They fostered what we call the public sphere.

00:36:03.639 --> 00:36:06.320
This rational, critical realm that was independent

00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:09.059
of state or church authority founded on shared

00:36:09.059 --> 00:36:11.260
reason and debate. We've already mentioned the

00:36:11.260 --> 00:36:14.280
salons as these vital elite spaces, but equally

00:36:14.280 --> 00:36:18.019
important were the coffee houses and cafes. The

00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:20.059
coffee houses in London were called penny universities.

00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:22.980
For the cost of a cup of coffee, anyone could

00:36:22.980 --> 00:36:25.159
get access to conversations with doctors, lawyers,

00:36:25.320 --> 00:36:27.780
merchants, and read the latest pamphlets. There

00:36:27.780 --> 00:36:30.539
were also the nerve centers for brutes publics

00:36:30.539 --> 00:36:32.780
or public rumor, which was often considered.

00:36:32.940 --> 00:36:34.960
more reliable source of information than the

00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:37.639
official censored newspapers. And what's so unique

00:36:37.639 --> 00:36:40.480
about them is their cross -class appeal. They

00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:42.960
attracted this diverse clientele, which actually

00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:45.380
sparked fear among nobles who wanted to preserve

00:36:45.380 --> 00:36:48.699
rigid class distinctions. The famous Café Procope

00:36:48.699 --> 00:36:52.019
in Paris, established way back in 1686, that

00:36:52.019 --> 00:36:54.320
was the unofficial office where Diderot and de

00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:56.559
Lambert made the crucial decision to create the

00:36:56.559 --> 00:36:59.389
Encyclopédie. And beyond the cafes, you had debating

00:36:59.389 --> 00:37:01.449
societies. These were commercial enterprises

00:37:01.449 --> 00:37:04.849
that often welcomed huge crowds, maybe 800 to

00:37:04.849 --> 00:37:07.690
1 ,200 spectators a night, as long as they paid

00:37:07.690 --> 00:37:10.170
the entrance fee. And they were open to all classes

00:37:10.170 --> 00:37:12.750
and both genders. They discuss everything, religion,

00:37:13.050 --> 00:37:16.429
politics, the role of women. The enforced anonymity

00:37:16.429 --> 00:37:18.610
of the submissions and the egalitarian nature

00:37:18.610 --> 00:37:20.969
of the debate helped spread these ideas to a

00:37:20.969 --> 00:37:23.469
vast audience. And finally, you have the highly

00:37:23.469 --> 00:37:27.139
secretive. but internationally influential Masonic

00:37:27.139 --> 00:37:29.880
lodges. Figures like Diderot, Voltaire, Franklin,

00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:32.559
Washington, they were all members. They promoted

00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:35.980
the core Enlightenment ideals, liberty, fraternity,

00:37:36.019 --> 00:37:39.280
equality, in a private, non -state setting. And

00:37:39.280 --> 00:37:41.699
crucially, they provided a private model for

00:37:41.699 --> 00:37:44.440
constitutional self -government, with constitutions

00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:46.099
and elections, which was inherently political,

00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:48.179
especially in continental Europe, where such

00:37:48.179 --> 00:37:51.239
practices were illegal. Their international reach

00:37:51.239 --> 00:37:54.159
meant they were an undeniable force in diffusing

00:37:54.159 --> 00:37:57.199
this culture of reasoned critical thought. This

00:37:57.199 --> 00:37:59.400
whole section really proves that the Enlightenment

00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:02.500
was a total cultural project. A new philosophy,

00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:06.039
a new science, a new economy, and a new structure

00:38:06.039 --> 00:38:08.860
of public life, all working in concert. What's

00:38:08.860 --> 00:38:10.699
so fascinating about the Enlightenment is that

00:38:10.699 --> 00:38:13.300
it wasn't this, you know, monolithic thing that

00:38:13.300 --> 00:38:16.179
just marched across Europe. It adapted locally.

00:38:16.219 --> 00:38:18.739
It created these distinct national variations.

00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:21.860
Right. The ideas were adopted and modified to

00:38:21.860 --> 00:38:25.519
solve local problems. In France, La Lumiere became

00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:28.679
highly associated with anti -government and anti

00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:31.099
-church radicalism. Which was largely due to

00:38:31.099 --> 00:38:33.400
the hostility of the centralized monarchy and

00:38:33.400 --> 00:38:34.960
the strength of that radical Enlightenment we

00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:37.809
talked about earlier. But in contrast, Germany's

00:38:37.809 --> 00:38:40.210
de -aufklärung reached deep into the middle classes,

00:38:40.409 --> 00:38:43.449
and it had a much more spiritualistic and nationalistic

00:38:43.449 --> 00:38:45.750
tone. It was less threatening to the established

00:38:45.750 --> 00:38:47.929
churches and governments. It was more focused

00:38:47.929 --> 00:38:50.670
on self -improvement, reason, and moral cultivation,

00:38:50.929 --> 00:38:53.809
rather than on democratic revolution. Exactly.

00:38:53.869 --> 00:38:56.269
And the German movement included major figures

00:38:56.269 --> 00:38:59.030
like Goethe, Herder, and Schiller, who together

00:38:59.030 --> 00:39:01.409
formed the movement known as Weimar Classicism.

00:39:02.200 --> 00:39:04.840
Herder, for instance, argued that every group

00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:07.500
had its own unique identity, its Volksgeist,

00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:09.860
expressed in its language and culture. Which

00:39:09.860 --> 00:39:12.159
legitimized the promotion of German nationalism

00:39:12.159 --> 00:39:14.940
as a form of intellectual progress. And then

00:39:14.940 --> 00:39:17.000
there's Scotland, which was often described as

00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:20.960
a hotbed of genius. Voltaire famously said, we

00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:23.099
look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization.

00:39:23.539 --> 00:39:25.320
The Scottish movement focused heavily on the

00:39:25.320 --> 00:39:27.880
practical application of ideas. sociability,

00:39:28.179 --> 00:39:31.019
equality, utility, and on creating that rigorous

00:39:31.019 --> 00:39:33.800
science of man we discussed with figures like

00:39:33.800 --> 00:39:36.320
David Hume and Adam Smith. He was pragmatic and

00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:38.800
deeply concerned with moral improvement. It's

00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:41.300
also so crucial to recognize the movement's reach

00:39:41.300 --> 00:39:44.530
beyond Western Europe. In Bourbon Spain and Spanish

00:39:44.530 --> 00:39:47.670
America, the era saw King Charles III implement

00:39:47.670 --> 00:39:50.309
these reforms that curtailed church power, promoted

00:39:50.309 --> 00:39:53.030
freer trade, and sponsored massive scientific

00:39:53.030 --> 00:39:55.829
expeditions. Like the ones supported by Alexander

00:39:55.829 --> 00:39:58.230
von Humboldt to discover the economic potential

00:39:58.230 --> 00:40:00.889
and classify the natural resources of the empire.

00:40:01.389 --> 00:40:03.809
And this political application of Enlightenment

00:40:03.809 --> 00:40:06.849
ideals, it culminated, however briefly, in the

00:40:06.849 --> 00:40:09.750
Spanish Constitution of 1812. A document that

00:40:09.750 --> 00:40:11.909
established three branches of government and

00:40:11.909 --> 00:40:14.530
universal manhood suffrage, which was truly progressive

00:40:14.530 --> 00:40:17.949
for the time. But it also explicitly excluded

00:40:17.949 --> 00:40:22.170
those with African ancestry, a critical, heartbreakingly

00:40:22.170 --> 00:40:24.730
early example of the limitations of these ideals

00:40:24.730 --> 00:40:27.050
when they were faced with economic and racial

00:40:27.050 --> 00:40:29.690
prejudice. Which leads us to the more contemporary

00:40:29.690 --> 00:40:32.489
historical view. that the Enlightenment involved

00:40:32.489 --> 00:40:35.550
extensive cross -border interaction and global

00:40:35.550 --> 00:40:38.690
integration. It wasn't just ideas spreading from

00:40:38.690 --> 00:40:41.070
Europe, but a shared international phenomenon

00:40:41.070 --> 00:40:44.449
where non -European actors adapted and used the

00:40:44.449 --> 00:40:46.570
ideas for their own purposes. You just have to

00:40:46.570 --> 00:40:48.980
look at Haiti. The Haitian Revolution, the only

00:40:48.980 --> 00:40:51.719
successful slave revolt in history, was led by

00:40:51.719 --> 00:40:53.699
Toussaint Louverture. And he mobilized radical

00:40:53.699 --> 00:40:55.880
Parisian ideas and fused them with the specific

00:40:55.880 --> 00:40:59.039
lived experiences of African -born slaves. Louverture

00:40:59.039 --> 00:41:00.940
had read the critique of European colonialism.

00:41:01.159 --> 00:41:03.300
He was thoroughly versed in the language of rights.

00:41:03.539 --> 00:41:06.239
And the resulting revolution was so powerful

00:41:06.239 --> 00:41:08.340
that it forced the French National Convention

00:41:08.340 --> 00:41:12.030
to abolish slavery in 1794. The Haitian Revolution

00:41:12.030 --> 00:41:14.510
is the ultimate example of the Enlightenment's

00:41:14.510 --> 00:41:17.469
radical ideals being taken more seriously by

00:41:17.469 --> 00:41:19.570
the oppressed than by the oppressors who wrote

00:41:19.570 --> 00:41:21.869
them down. And in Asia, you see this profound

00:41:21.869 --> 00:41:24.809
fusion of local traditions with Enlightenment

00:41:24.809 --> 00:41:28.050
concepts. In Japan, for example, the Confucian

00:41:28.050 --> 00:41:31.409
idea of re, which means order and harmony, was

00:41:31.409 --> 00:41:34.469
co -opted and adapted to represent laissez -faire

00:41:34.469 --> 00:41:37.050
economics and social order. And the potent slogan

00:41:37.050 --> 00:41:39.369
civilization and enlightenment was used across

00:41:39.369 --> 00:41:42.570
Japan, China and Korea by the 1880s to address

00:41:42.570 --> 00:41:44.630
the challenges of modernization and globalization.

00:41:45.090 --> 00:41:47.489
They weren't just adopting Western thought belatedly.

00:41:47.489 --> 00:41:49.690
They were using the language of reason and progress.

00:41:50.139 --> 00:41:52.380
to advance their own specific localized purposes

00:41:52.380 --> 00:41:54.800
and internal reforms. Even in India, you had

00:41:54.800 --> 00:41:57.039
figures like Tipu Sultan, an enlightened monarch,

00:41:57.420 --> 00:41:59.480
and a founding member of the French Jacobin Club.

00:41:59.639 --> 00:42:01.980
And Ram Mayahoy of the Bengal Renaissance, who

00:42:01.980 --> 00:42:04.699
promoted reforms based on a religion of reason,

00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:07.300
demanding reforms to traditional Hindu society.

00:42:07.699 --> 00:42:10.400
The ideas were invoked by historical actors all

00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:13.079
around the world to modernize their societies

00:42:13.079 --> 00:42:16.500
and achieve sovereignty. It proved that reason

00:42:16.500 --> 00:42:19.260
and liberty were universal concepts, even if

00:42:19.260 --> 00:42:21.360
their European originators really struggled to

00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:23.460
apply them universally. Which means we cannot

00:42:23.460 --> 00:42:25.860
complete this deep dive without seriously acknowledging

00:42:25.860 --> 00:42:28.380
the darker side and historical critique that

00:42:28.380 --> 00:42:31.440
shadows the Enlightenment. While the ideals promoted

00:42:31.440 --> 00:42:33.780
universal liberty, the application was often

00:42:33.780 --> 00:42:36.679
deeply flawed and hit critical. That is the essential

00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:39.670
contradiction we have to confront. Despite promoting

00:42:39.670 --> 00:42:42.130
universal liberty and human rights, the rights

00:42:42.130 --> 00:42:44.489
of women and non -white people were generally

00:42:44.489 --> 00:42:47.989
overlooked or explicitly curtailed. Mary Wollstonecraft

00:42:47.989 --> 00:42:51.650
has a rare early exception. She argued fiercely

00:42:51.650 --> 00:42:54.190
in the Remeter. A vindication of the rights of

00:42:54.190 --> 00:42:56.530
women that women, like men, should be treated

00:42:56.530 --> 00:42:58.769
as rational beings who deserve equal education

00:42:58.769 --> 00:43:01.510
and political agency. And the economic engine

00:43:01.510 --> 00:43:04.130
of many European nations relied directly on systems

00:43:04.130 --> 00:43:06.510
that contradicted every single espoused ideal

00:43:06.510 --> 00:43:09.889
of liberty. European nations refused to support

00:43:09.889 --> 00:43:12.349
anti -colonial struggles like Haiti's. It demonstrated

00:43:12.349 --> 00:43:14.969
the practical limits of the ideology when faced

00:43:14.969 --> 00:43:17.150
with colonial profit and plantation economies.

00:43:17.570 --> 00:43:20.650
The system itself was fundamentally anti -enlightenment,

00:43:20.849 --> 00:43:23.110
yet it was protected by the very governments

00:43:23.110 --> 00:43:27.130
espousing these rational ideals. And most damningly,

00:43:27.130 --> 00:43:29.789
this era saw the emergence of scientific racism.

00:43:30.199 --> 00:43:32.639
Using the new research methods of the age classification,

00:43:33.099 --> 00:43:35.880
measurement, observation thinkers systematically

00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:38.579
sought to categorize and rank human populations.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:42.440
They used new research to classify non -European

00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:45.619
peoples as irrational and inferior, which effectively

00:43:45.619 --> 00:43:48.119
justified European dominance and the institution

00:43:48.119 --> 00:43:51.519
of slavery. Thinkers debated concepts like monogenism.

00:43:51.769 --> 00:43:54.190
The idea that all races came from a single origin,

00:43:54.289 --> 00:43:57.250
Adam and Eve, but that some degenerated in polygenism.

00:43:57.289 --> 00:43:59.909
The idea that different races had separate origins,

00:43:59.989 --> 00:44:02.489
making them fundamentally unequal. These concepts

00:44:02.489 --> 00:44:04.650
became popular intellectual debates used for

00:44:04.650 --> 00:44:07.489
social classification. They transformed old prejudices

00:44:07.489 --> 00:44:10.309
into new, supposedly scientific justifications

00:44:10.309 --> 00:44:12.969
for exploitation. It's a stark reminder. That

00:44:12.969 --> 00:44:15.969
the application of reason can be turned to horrific

00:44:15.969 --> 00:44:19.429
structural ends if the inherent biases of the

00:44:19.429 --> 00:44:22.269
practitioners are not questioned or checked by

00:44:22.269 --> 00:44:25.090
true universal compassion. So what does this

00:44:25.090 --> 00:44:27.070
all mean when we synthesize the sources? I mean,

00:44:27.090 --> 00:44:28.769
at the end of the day, the age of enlightenment

00:44:28.769 --> 00:44:31.449
was characterized by this profound and radical

00:44:31.449 --> 00:44:34.730
transformation. The substitution of reason, empirical

00:44:34.730 --> 00:44:38.110
inquiry, and individual conscience for traditional

00:44:38.110 --> 00:44:40.929
authority, for religious dogma, and for inherited

00:44:40.929 --> 00:44:43.469
privilege. And the lasting legacies are just

00:44:43.469 --> 00:44:45.630
undeniable and structural. We're talking about

00:44:45.630 --> 00:44:47.829
constitutional government, the modern concept

00:44:47.829 --> 00:44:50.349
of universal human rights, however imperfectly

00:44:50.349 --> 00:44:52.980
it's been applied. Free market economics, as

00:44:52.980 --> 00:44:55.619
defined by Adam Smith, and a widespread cultural

00:44:55.619 --> 00:44:58.519
reliance on print media and vigorous public debate

00:44:58.519 --> 00:45:00.820
to shape our collective life. And the impact

00:45:00.820 --> 00:45:03.340
didn't just stop in 1804 with Kant's death. As

00:45:03.340 --> 00:45:05.380
the sources point out, all those 19th century

00:45:05.380 --> 00:45:08.199
movements like liberalism, neoclassicism, even

00:45:08.199 --> 00:45:11.019
the early foundations of modern sociology. They

00:45:11.019 --> 00:45:13.300
all explicitly trace their entire intellectual

00:45:13.300 --> 00:45:17.139
heritage right back to this period. The structures

00:45:17.139 --> 00:45:20.980
of law and thought we inhabit today are. fundamentally,

00:45:21.099 --> 00:45:23.920
Enlightenment structures. The Enlightenment aimed

00:45:23.920 --> 00:45:26.539
at liberating human beings from fear and superstition,

00:45:26.679 --> 00:45:29.500
installing them as masters of their own destiny

00:45:29.500 --> 00:45:33.019
through reason. Yet the 20th century saw philosophers

00:45:33.019 --> 00:45:35.519
from the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and

00:45:35.519 --> 00:45:38.139
Theodor Adorno, offer this searing critique.

00:45:38.750 --> 00:45:41.409
They argued that the wholly enlightened earth

00:45:41.409 --> 00:45:44.170
radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant.

00:45:44.309 --> 00:45:46.269
Referencing the failures of the 20th century

00:45:46.269 --> 00:45:48.710
that grew out of the scientific rationalism of

00:45:48.710 --> 00:45:50.789
the 18th. And this raises an important question

00:45:50.789 --> 00:45:53.349
for you, the listener. If the core promise of

00:45:53.349 --> 00:45:55.170
the Enlightenment was human progress through

00:45:55.170 --> 00:45:57.909
reason, to what extent did it ultimately succeed

00:45:57.909 --> 00:46:01.269
in truly eradicating fear, superstition, and

00:46:01.269 --> 00:46:04.099
inequality in the world? Or did it merely introduce

00:46:04.099 --> 00:46:06.480
new, more sophisticated, and perhaps more dangerous

00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:09.099
forms of all three, just cloaked in the legitimacy

00:46:09.099 --> 00:46:12.260
of science and logic? Welcome to The Debate.

00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:14.800
Today, we're turning our attention to one of

00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:17.619
the most foundational and, I think, most fiercely

00:46:17.619 --> 00:46:20.960
argued periods in modern history, the Age of

00:46:20.960 --> 00:46:24.079
Enlightenment. It spans roughly the century from

00:46:24.079 --> 00:46:26.440
the late 1600s through the French Revolution

00:46:26.440 --> 00:46:30.099
in 1789. And it's an era that, well, it really

00:46:30.099 --> 00:46:33.420
championed reason. individual liberty, and the

00:46:33.420 --> 00:46:37.320
systematic idea of progress. And while the fundamental

00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:41.079
principles are widely celebrated, the core philosophical

00:46:41.079 --> 00:46:44.280
and political nature of the movement itself remains

00:46:44.280 --> 00:46:48.860
highly contested. Indeed. The central question

00:46:48.860 --> 00:46:51.059
for us today is whether the Enlightenment was

00:46:51.059 --> 00:46:54.019
primarily a radical force, one that was fundamentally

00:46:54.019 --> 00:46:57.380
dedicated to overthrowing tradition, dismantling

00:46:57.380 --> 00:46:59.900
the church, and restructuring all existing political

00:46:59.900 --> 00:47:03.659
authority, Or, on the other hand, was it a moderate

00:47:03.659 --> 00:47:06.539
movement, a more pragmatic pursuit of gradual

00:47:06.539 --> 00:47:09.539
reform and accommodation within the established

00:47:09.539 --> 00:47:12.199
frameworks of government and religion? You know,

00:47:12.239 --> 00:47:15.820
was it a hammer or a scalpel? And I will be arguing

00:47:15.820 --> 00:47:18.000
that while the intellectual critique was undoubtedly

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:21.059
sharp, the widespread and politically dominant

00:47:21.059 --> 00:47:23.539
form of the movement across 18th century Europe

00:47:23.539 --> 00:47:26.360
was overwhelmingly moderate. It was focused on

00:47:26.360 --> 00:47:28.679
gradual controlled reform and political stability,

00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:31.780
often achieved through pragmatic collaboration

00:47:31.780 --> 00:47:35.820
with absolute monarchs. And my position is firm.

00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:40.300
The enduring intellectual heritage of the Enlightenment

00:47:40.300 --> 00:47:43.820
was inherently radical. Its foundational texts

00:47:43.820 --> 00:47:47.039
and its ultimate long -term consequences aimed

00:47:47.039 --> 00:47:50.340
at revolutionary transformation, even if that

00:47:50.340 --> 00:47:54.699
transformation was often resisted. or delayed

00:47:54.699 --> 00:47:57.880
by the powers of the day. So to begin, let's

00:47:57.880 --> 00:48:00.820
look under the hood. What was really powering

00:48:00.820 --> 00:48:03.760
this intellectual revolution? When we talk about

00:48:03.760 --> 00:48:06.420
the most uncompromising thinkers, the ones who

00:48:06.420 --> 00:48:09.420
truly define the trajectory of modernity, we

00:48:09.420 --> 00:48:11.619
are talking about what the historian Jonathan

00:48:11.619 --> 00:48:14.420
Israel has termed the radical enlightenment.

00:48:14.820 --> 00:48:18.519
And this current was deeply inspired by the philosophy

00:48:18.519 --> 00:48:24.159
of Baruch Spinoza. Right. Spinoza's ideas were

00:48:24.159 --> 00:48:27.440
politically explosive. And they were explosive

00:48:27.440 --> 00:48:31.239
because they offered a pantheistic view of God,

00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:34.960
that God is nature, which completely eliminated

00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:38.760
the need for an external, transcendent religious

00:48:38.760 --> 00:48:42.579
authority. This intellectual move provided the

00:48:42.579 --> 00:48:45.599
basis for a complete separation of morality from

00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:48.519
theology, and it radically undermined the divine

00:48:48.519 --> 00:48:51.820
right of kings. The advocates of this strain,

00:48:52.019 --> 00:48:54.820
well, they pushed explicitly for democracy, for

00:48:54.820 --> 00:48:57.699
full individual liberty, and for freedom of expression.

00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:01.500
This is a complete rupture with the past, not

00:49:01.500 --> 00:49:04.679
an attempted accommodation. Furthermore, the

00:49:04.679 --> 00:49:07.579
very methodology of the era, famously articulated

00:49:07.579 --> 00:49:11.739
by Kant, urged humanity toward sape aude, dare

00:49:11.739 --> 00:49:15.539
to know. This was a rallying cry to emancipate

00:49:15.539 --> 00:49:18.429
human consciousness. It demanded that we subject

00:49:18.429 --> 00:49:21.949
all inherited authority, religious dogma, monarchical

00:49:21.949 --> 00:49:25.690
privilege, social hierarchy, to critical, rational

00:49:25.690 --> 00:49:28.210
examination. When you apply that kind of universal

00:49:28.210 --> 00:49:31.130
rationality to every single problem, the result

00:49:31.130 --> 00:49:34.010
is inherently revolutionary. Just look at the

00:49:34.010 --> 00:49:36.309
American Revolution and the subsequent systematic

00:49:36.309 --> 00:49:39.050
dismantling of the Ancien Regime in France. They

00:49:39.050 --> 00:49:41.710
show this radical potential beautifully. I'm

00:49:41.710 --> 00:49:44.050
sorry, but I just don't buy that the radical

00:49:44.050 --> 00:49:47.250
fringe defined the political reality of the 18th

00:49:47.250 --> 00:49:50.090
century. That radical current, while certainly

00:49:50.090 --> 00:49:53.150
intellectually potent, was often confined to

00:49:53.150 --> 00:49:55.929
philosophical circles. It was censored, and it

00:49:55.929 --> 00:49:58.969
was relegated to the margins of real political

00:49:58.969 --> 00:50:01.820
power. The moderate variety of the Enlightenment,

00:50:01.900 --> 00:50:04.519
which was far more widespread and, I would argue,

00:50:04.579 --> 00:50:07.440
more politically successful, it followed different

00:50:07.440 --> 00:50:10.380
figures. Descartes, Locke in his more constrained

00:50:10.380 --> 00:50:13.340
capacity, Christian Wolff in Germany, and it

00:50:13.340 --> 00:50:15.860
consciously sought compatibility between reform

00:50:15.860 --> 00:50:18.860
and traditional structures. But that's a compromise

00:50:18.860 --> 00:50:21.920
of the core idea. Well, let me finish. The strongest

00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:24.699
evidence for moderation is found in its institutional

00:50:24.699 --> 00:50:28.320
success. The most visible, most effective application

00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:30.480
of Enlightenment thinking in the 18th century

00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:34.079
was Enlightened Absolutism. And these weren't

00:50:34.079 --> 00:50:36.440
minor states. We're talking about the major powers.

00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:39.059
Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the

00:50:39.059 --> 00:50:42.400
Great of Russia, Joseph II of Austria. These

00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:45.340
monarchs, they sought out philosophes. They implemented

00:50:45.340 --> 00:50:48.360
significant reforms, modernizing legal codes,

00:50:48.539 --> 00:50:51.000
promoting religious tolerance, rationalizing

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:53.969
the state bureaucracy. And this is the key distinction.

00:50:54.210 --> 00:50:57.110
They did this to build stronger, more efficient

00:50:57.110 --> 00:51:00.429
states, not to build republics. They used reason

00:51:00.429 --> 00:51:03.349
as a management tool. Voltaire, a titan of the

00:51:03.349 --> 00:51:06.050
French Lumières, he exemplified this. He explicitly

00:51:06.050 --> 00:51:08.869
despised the idea of democracy, viewing the common

00:51:08.869 --> 00:51:11.110
people as too ignorant for self -governance.

00:51:11.269 --> 00:51:13.949
He believed the ideal ruler was simply an absolute

00:51:13.949 --> 00:51:16.750
monarch who was enlightened, one who acted based

00:51:16.750 --> 00:51:20.989
on reason and justice, but who maintained absolute

00:51:20.989 --> 00:51:25.610
power. This is the very definition of a pragmatic,

00:51:25.969 --> 00:51:29.269
non -revolutionary political goal. I acknowledge

00:51:29.269 --> 00:51:32.010
that many regimes resisted the full implications

00:51:32.010 --> 00:51:35.250
of radicalism. Of course, censorship was rife.

00:51:35.309 --> 00:51:37.789
And the French crown was certainly hostile to

00:51:37.789 --> 00:51:40.670
many philosophes. But we have to be careful not

00:51:40.670 --> 00:51:42.829
to confuse what was politically convenient at

00:51:42.829 --> 00:51:45.750
the time with the long -term true power of the

00:51:45.750 --> 00:51:48.619
philosophical critique. The fact that the ideas

00:51:48.619 --> 00:51:51.239
themselves fundamentally undermine the authority

00:51:51.239 --> 00:51:53.480
of the monarchy and religious officials is the

00:51:53.480 --> 00:51:56.000
crucial point. Look at the discourse itself.

00:51:56.820 --> 00:51:59.239
Alexis de Tocqueville, in analyzing the political

00:51:59.239 --> 00:52:01.719
literature of the French philosophes, he observed

00:52:01.719 --> 00:52:04.320
that their persistent abstract arguments for

00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:06.840
universal equality fundamentally opposed the

00:52:06.840 --> 00:52:09.780
entire legitimacy of the old regime. The move

00:52:09.780 --> 00:52:12.019
from viewing political power as derived from

00:52:12.019 --> 00:52:14.480
divine right to viewing it as dependent upon

00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:16.659
the consent of the governed as articulated by

00:52:16.659 --> 00:52:19.239
Locke and Rousseau, that is not a measured reform.

00:52:19.539 --> 00:52:23.139
That is a fundamental radical transformation

00:52:23.139 --> 00:52:28.219
of the very basis of political legitimacy. Whether

00:52:28.219 --> 00:52:30.920
the practical revolution took decades or centuries

00:52:30.920 --> 00:52:34.000
to materialize, that doesn't negate the revolutionary

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:37.500
nature of the intellectual shift. That is a powerful

00:52:37.500 --> 00:52:40.380
analysis, but it seems to miss the messy political

00:52:40.380 --> 00:52:43.659
reality. We see that when attempts were made

00:52:43.659 --> 00:52:46.500
at immediate radical overhaul, they were profoundly

00:52:46.500 --> 00:52:49.280
destabilizing. I mean, they were often unsustainable.

00:52:49.400 --> 00:52:53.239
Take Joseph II of Austria. He was perhaps the

00:52:53.239 --> 00:52:55.239
most ideologically committed of the enlightened

00:52:55.239 --> 00:52:58.280
despots, announcing these sweeping decrees from

00:52:58.280 --> 00:53:00.699
abolishing serfdom to reorganizing the church.

00:53:00.860 --> 00:53:03.949
And the result? widespread revolt, resistance

00:53:03.949 --> 00:53:06.730
from the nobility, from the church, his reign

00:53:06.730 --> 00:53:10.349
became a comedy of errors, and nearly all his

00:53:10.349 --> 00:53:12.449
radical programs were reversed upon his death.

00:53:12.670 --> 00:53:16.449
This suggests that true, immediate, radical political

00:53:16.449 --> 00:53:19.949
application was often just too volatile to sustain,

00:53:20.130 --> 00:53:23.130
which reinforced the need for controlled, slow

00:53:23.130 --> 00:53:25.889
-moving moderation. And you can contrast that

00:53:25.889 --> 00:53:28.480
with the German Aufklärung. This was a successful

00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:31.039
movement precisely because it was integrated

00:53:31.039 --> 00:53:34.679
deeply into society, focusing on moral improvement

00:53:34.679 --> 00:53:37.500
and building a sense of nationhood, all while

00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:40.559
supporting the standing order. It achieved reform

00:53:40.559 --> 00:53:43.159
without ever threatening governments or established

00:53:43.159 --> 00:53:46.239
churches. When reform is successful and sustained,

00:53:46.539 --> 00:53:48.559
it's generally because it's controlled by the

00:53:48.559 --> 00:53:50.800
sovereign and therefore fundamentally moderate.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:53.380
But the success of those controlled reforms,

00:53:53.659 --> 00:53:56.369
even if implemented by an emperor, They were

00:53:56.369 --> 00:53:59.010
built on principles that were at their root inherently

00:53:59.010 --> 00:54:01.969
radical. I'm talking about the core concepts

00:54:01.969 --> 00:54:05.170
of individual liberty and natural rights. These

00:54:05.170 --> 00:54:08.050
concepts, life, liberty, and property, according

00:54:08.050 --> 00:54:10.610
to Locke, are philosophical tools designed to

00:54:10.610 --> 00:54:12.929
fundamentally limit the reach of government authority.

00:54:13.230 --> 00:54:15.849
They form the foundation of modern Western political

00:54:15.849 --> 00:54:18.909
culture precisely because they introduce a zone

00:54:18.909 --> 00:54:20.849
of individual autonomy that the state cannot

00:54:20.849 --> 00:54:24.179
legitimately breach. The core radical push wasn't

00:54:24.179 --> 00:54:26.980
just about political structure. It was the application

00:54:26.980 --> 00:54:30.340
of rationality to every sphere of human experience.

00:54:30.539 --> 00:54:32.960
When you insist that all authority must justify

00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:35.659
itself before the tribunal of reason, you challenge

00:54:35.659 --> 00:54:38.179
the very premise of inherited, unearned authority.

00:54:38.420 --> 00:54:40.840
And that methodological shift is revolutionary,

00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:43.539
even if specific political applications were

00:54:43.539 --> 00:54:45.800
tentative. That's an interesting point, though.

00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:48.539
I would frame the ambiguity of those core concepts

00:54:48.539 --> 00:54:51.800
differently. I find that even foundational principles

00:54:51.800 --> 00:54:54.880
like natural rights show the limits of radical

00:54:54.880 --> 00:54:57.780
purity. They demonstrate the accommodations made

00:54:57.780 --> 00:55:00.579
to political power. You cite Locke on natural

00:55:00.579 --> 00:55:03.699
rights as the radical foundation, yet even he,

00:55:03.880 --> 00:55:06.559
the champion of liberty, introduced a notable

00:55:06.559 --> 00:55:09.719
caveat. While he argued against absolute slavery

00:55:09.719 --> 00:55:13.369
in principle, he permitted the enslavement of

00:55:13.369 --> 00:55:16.349
a lawful captive in time of war. Now this seemingly

00:55:16.349 --> 00:55:18.650
minor exception demonstrates that even at the

00:55:18.650 --> 00:55:20.909
conceptual level, these thinkers were making

00:55:20.909 --> 00:55:24.030
pragmatic accommodations to existing power structures.

00:55:24.329 --> 00:55:26.789
And let's also consider the concept of property

00:55:26.789 --> 00:55:29.670
in his triad. For many of the moderate British

00:55:29.670 --> 00:55:32.449
Whig thinkers who adopted Locke, protecting established

00:55:32.449 --> 00:55:35.389
property rights became paramount. This focus

00:55:35.389 --> 00:55:38.170
reinforced the established social hierarchy and

00:55:38.170 --> 00:55:41.280
served to limit, rather than expand, radical

00:55:41.280 --> 00:55:44.219
democratic participation. So the philosophy was

00:55:44.219 --> 00:55:48.039
easily co -opted and moderated by those in power.

00:55:48.420 --> 00:55:52.139
I'm not convinced that focusing on the inconsistencies

00:55:52.139 --> 00:55:55.039
of one figure or the conservative interpretations

00:55:55.039 --> 00:55:58.639
of one concept really captures the expansive,

00:55:59.000 --> 00:56:02.500
boundary -breaking nature of the ideas. We often

00:56:02.500 --> 00:56:05.599
fall into the trap of analyzing the Enlightenment

00:56:05.599 --> 00:56:09.840
solely as the singular European academic phenomenon.

00:56:10.699 --> 00:56:13.519
And recent scholarship has profoundly challenged

00:56:13.519 --> 00:56:16.320
that narrow view, highlighting the Enlightenment

00:56:16.320 --> 00:56:19.260
as a response to global interaction and cross

00:56:19.260 --> 00:56:21.519
-border critiques. But that global fragmentation

00:56:21.519 --> 00:56:24.380
you mention, however, actually reinforces the

00:56:24.380 --> 00:56:27.480
argument for moderation. The idea of a singular

00:56:27.480 --> 00:56:30.360
radical Enlightenment just ignores the highly

00:56:30.360 --> 00:56:33.019
fragmented nature of the movement across national

00:56:33.019 --> 00:56:36.880
lines. Look at the English case. Leading intellectuals

00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:40.039
like Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, and especially

00:56:40.039 --> 00:56:43.039
Edmund Burke were generally conservative. They

00:56:43.039 --> 00:56:45.599
staunchly supported the established order. And

00:56:45.599 --> 00:56:48.219
why? Because the English Enlightenment had largely

00:56:48.219 --> 00:56:51.039
succeeded early on in establishing a moderate

00:56:51.039 --> 00:56:53.699
political liberalism and religious toleration

00:56:53.699 --> 00:56:56.280
through the Glorious Revolution. There was simply

00:56:56.280 --> 00:56:59.119
no need for a radical philosophical overthrow.

00:56:59.920 --> 00:57:03.219
In fact, after 1789, figures like Burke became

00:57:03.219 --> 00:57:05.440
the most articulate counter -revolutionaries

00:57:05.440 --> 00:57:07.719
in Europe, using their moderate Enlightenment

00:57:07.719 --> 00:57:10.780
principles to actively defend traditional institutions

00:57:10.780 --> 00:57:13.860
against what they saw as the radical excesses

00:57:13.860 --> 00:57:16.860
of the French Revolution. This shows the movement

00:57:16.860 --> 00:57:20.900
could become a force for stability, entirely

00:57:20.900 --> 00:57:23.260
comfortable with the established framework. I

00:57:23.260 --> 00:57:25.800
see why you think that, but let me give you a

00:57:25.800 --> 00:57:28.500
different perspective. one that's rooted in those

00:57:28.500 --> 00:57:31.480
very global interactions that I think prove the

00:57:31.480 --> 00:57:34.760
ideas were inherently radical. Consider the Haitian

00:57:34.760 --> 00:57:37.880
Revolution. This was not a revolt led by European

00:57:37.880 --> 00:57:41.000
courtiers seeking incremental reforms. Here,

00:57:41.139 --> 00:57:43.840
radical ideas from the French Revolution, universal

00:57:43.840 --> 00:57:47.980
liberty, human equality, were mobilized, weaponized

00:57:47.980 --> 00:57:51.300
by enslaved people. Figures like Toussaint Louverture,

00:57:51.440 --> 00:57:53.800
who read Raynal's powerful critique of colonialism.

00:57:54.590 --> 00:57:56.949
They used these Enlightenment concepts to achieve

00:57:56.949 --> 00:58:00.050
the systematic and immediate overthrow of a colonial

00:58:00.050 --> 00:58:03.510
system built entirely on chattel slavery. The

00:58:03.510 --> 00:58:06.349
Haitian Revolution was an uncompromising, full

00:58:06.349 --> 00:58:08.650
-scale transformation that happened precisely

00:58:08.650 --> 00:58:11.849
because the core ideas possessed a universal

00:58:11.849 --> 00:58:15.050
and uncompromising potential. The radical core

00:58:15.050 --> 00:58:17.449
was always there, ready to be ignited by those

00:58:17.449 --> 00:58:19.690
on the receiving end of European power. This

00:58:19.690 --> 00:58:22.670
proves that the moderate veneer adopted in European

00:58:22.670 --> 00:58:26.119
courts was a matter of convenience, not conviction.

00:58:26.619 --> 00:58:30.260
That is an undeniably powerful counterexample,

00:58:30.280 --> 00:58:32.679
and it does illustrate the revolutionary potential

00:58:32.679 --> 00:58:35.679
when those ideas escape the filtering mechanisms

00:58:35.679 --> 00:58:38.760
of state power. But when we look at the Age of

00:58:38.760 --> 00:58:40.719
Enlightenment in the context of the political

00:58:40.719 --> 00:58:43.179
structures that defined 18th century Europe,

00:58:43.420 --> 00:58:46.800
the story remains one of moderation. The vast

00:58:46.800 --> 00:58:49.519
majority of people were still governed by monarchs

00:58:49.519 --> 00:58:52.480
who had best tolerated rational governance in

00:58:52.480 --> 00:58:54.800
the name of efficiency. The Age of Enlightenment

00:58:54.800 --> 00:58:57.099
was characterized less by universal revolution

00:58:57.099 --> 00:59:00.320
and more by widespread locally adapted attempts

00:59:00.320 --> 00:59:03.360
at rational administration. The historical dominance

00:59:03.360 --> 00:59:05.800
of enlightened absolutism and the intellectual

00:59:05.800 --> 00:59:08.219
tradition of figures like Descartes and Wolff

00:59:08.219 --> 00:59:10.679
demonstrate that many powerful currents sought

00:59:10.679 --> 00:59:13.659
to utilize reason for incremental change, often

00:59:13.659 --> 00:59:16.380
in accommodation with, not in opposition to,

00:59:16.480 --> 00:59:19.920
the existing authorities. Conversely, the Enlightenment,

00:59:20.119 --> 00:59:22.699
viewed through its foundational texts, those

00:59:22.699 --> 00:59:25.079
Spinozist arguments for philosophical liberty,

00:59:25.699 --> 00:59:27.780
Rousseau's commitment to popular sovereignty,

00:59:28.440 --> 00:59:31.059
Kant's demand for universal critique, and its

00:59:31.059 --> 00:59:34.480
ultimate long -term political impact, was fundamentally

00:59:34.480 --> 00:59:37.880
defined by a deep intellectual commitment to

00:59:37.880 --> 00:59:41.639
radical transformation. It led directly, if sometimes

00:59:41.639 --> 00:59:44.639
indirectly and unevenly, to the great Atlantic

00:59:44.639 --> 00:59:47.460
revolutions, And it continues to shape global

00:59:47.460 --> 00:59:50.239
movements today that seek to subject inherited

00:59:50.239 --> 00:59:53.880
authority to the tribunal of reason. That core

00:59:53.880 --> 00:59:56.599
philosophical challenge is inherently revolutionary

00:59:56.599 --> 01:00:00.039
and I believe defines the era's lasting legacy.

01:00:00.420 --> 01:00:03.820
Ultimately, we are discussing the tension between

01:00:03.820 --> 01:00:06.239
intellectual theory and political stability.

01:00:06.940 --> 01:00:08.980
The Age of Enlightenment was both the source

01:00:08.980 --> 01:00:11.880
of radical, world -changing critique and the

01:00:11.880 --> 01:00:14.739
era of measured, pragmatic political practice.

01:00:15.480 --> 01:00:17.780
Understanding the success and the sheer prevalence

01:00:17.780 --> 01:00:20.519
of the moderate, controlled reforms implemented

01:00:20.519 --> 01:00:23.320
by monarchs like Frederick and Catherine remains

01:00:23.320 --> 01:00:25.619
essential for understanding how foundational

01:00:25.619 --> 01:00:28.880
ideas are translated into political action. The

01:00:28.880 --> 01:00:31.440
way these concepts were adapted for state efficiency

01:00:31.440 --> 01:00:34.159
rather than immediate liberty highlights the

01:00:34.159 --> 01:00:36.800
complexity of this pivotal century and demonstrates

01:00:36.800 --> 01:00:39.280
that not every push for reason is a push for

01:00:39.280 --> 01:00:42.059
revolution. And this dynamic tension ensures

01:00:42.059 --> 01:00:43.679
that the debate over the Enlightenment's true

01:00:43.679 --> 01:00:45.619
nature will and should continue.