The
Period of the Enlightenment in
France
The
Philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
The vast intellectual movement which made its
appearance at the close of the "Glorious
Revolution" in England (1688) and continued until
the French Revolution (1789) is called Illuminism,
or the Enlightenment. The new culture, advancing
under the aegis of "reason," launched itself in
bitter opposition to all the past in general, and
in particular to the Middle Ages. According to the
Illuminati -- the exponents of the Enlightenment --
the Middle Ages, victim of philosophical and
religious prejudices, had not made use of "reason,"
and hence they called it the age of obscurantism,
or the Dark Ages. The new philosophy, on the other
hand, was to introduce an age of enlightenment; it
was to dispel the darkness of the past.
I.
French Illuminism and the
"Encyclopedie"
France borrowed Illuminism from England, the
land of its birth. This adoption of Illuminism was
brought about by the great admiration which the
French world of culture felt toward all things
English. French thinkers preferred Locke to
Descartes because the former traced philosophical
problems back to their original basis, sensation.
They admired Newton's mechanism and the English
Constitution. In a word, the cultured French
created for themselves the English myth.
Letters, ties of friendship, and frequent trips
across the Channel by noted Frenchmen of the times,
such as Voltaire, are manifest proof of this lofty
esteem for things English.
However, French thinkers did not receive
Illuminism passively. France was always the land of
clear and distinct ideas (Descartes); and as
soon as Illuminism made its appearance there,
French philosophers were able and quick to elicit
the extreme consequences hidden beneath the surface
of Illuminist thought. Promptly divining the
far-reaching conclusions that could be drawn from
Illuminism, the French adopted it as an efficacious
and speedy means of relieving France from all the
evils that had befallen her after the demise of the
Sun King, Louis XIV. Thus if England was the
birthplace of the new philosophy of the
Enlightenment, France was to become the classic
home of Illuminism.
The French Illuminists placed full confidence in
"reason," which they understood to mean common
sense, a factor equally distributed among men.
Neglect of the use of common sense has produced in
the world class distinctions, differences in
knowledge and language; it has fomented hatred and
wars. Reason must undertake the task of abolishing
or reducing these differences to a minimum; it must
assume the office of formulating a universal
knowledge and establishing a universal organization
of peaceful peoples governed by universal laws.
Nature should be the starting point in the
process of effecting this new organization. But
"nature" for French Illuminism meant human nature
devoid of all moral and religious restraint. French
Illuminism was hence eminently anti-historical and
naturalistic, and consequently tended to give rise
to countless problems of both a doctrinal and
practical nature, the solutions to which are most
contrary to historical tradition and the teachings
of Christian philosophy.
In the doctrinal field, Descartes, a Rationalist
and spiritualist, was replaced by John Locke, whose
empiricism was rapidly reduced to simple sensism by
the French philosophers. Newton's physical
mechanism took the place of traditional
metaphysics. Not only is the world a self-made
machine, but man himself is a self-moving machine
with no dependence whatsoever upon any principle
superior to matter. Julien
Offroy de La Mettrie (1709-1751), author
of L'homme machine; and more
important still, Paul
Heinrich Holbach (1723-1789), German by
birth but French by education and author of Le
Systeme de la nature; and
Claude Adrien
Helvetius (1715-1771), author of De
l'esprit and De l'homme,
were the most outstanding protagonists of this
atheistic materialism.
Of course not all French Illuminists were
atheists as were La Mettrie and Holbach. Many of
them, notably Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, proposed
Deism in place of atheism, if not for speculative
reasons, at least as a support and foundation for
moral activity. Belief in God, in the immortality
of the soul, and in a retribution in the life to
come were affirmed in opposition to atheism.
Voltaire, who fought as ardently against atheism as
he did against the Church, wrote: "If God did not
exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. But all
nature proclaims that He exists."
In the field of religion, French Illuminism
battled against the Catholic Church, its dogmas,
its discipline, its hierarchy. The Church was
judged responsible for all the errors of the past.
In this bitter struggle against the Church,
atheists like La Mettrie and Deists like Voltaire
made common cause and cried out: "Crush the
infamous!"
In politics, a new organization, English in
pattern, was called forth to effect the reforms
demanded by reason. This rational state was
outlined by Charles Louis
de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
(1689-1775) (picture)
in his book L'esprit de lois (The Spirit of
Laws), which was widely read and made a great
impression on the thinkers of the times.
To spread and popularize these ideas, French
Illuminism made use of a very powerful medium, the
Dictionnaire Raisonne des sciences, des arts et
des metiers, or Encyclopedie, as
it came to be called. This work, which can be
considered fundamental and which spread throughout
France and the rest of Europe, was published
between 1751 and 1780 in thirty-five volumes,
including supplements, illustrations and indexes.
The directors of the Encyclopedie were
Jean Le Rond
d'Alembert (1717?-1783), who wrote the
famous Discours preliminaire as a preface,
and Denis
Diderot (1713-1784) (picture).
However, many other Illuminists also contributed to
the Encyclopedie, and for this reason this
group of writers came to be known as the
Encyclopedists. The most famous of the
Encyclopedists were Voltaire and Rousseau.
The most prominent figure of French Illuminism
and of European contemporary culture is Francois
Marie Arouet, who took the name
Voltaire
(1694-1778) (picture).
He was the author of many works, the most
interesting from the point of view of philosophy
being the following: Lettres anglaises ou
philosophiques, Metaphysique de Newton, Elements de
la philosophie de Newton, and Dictionnaire
philosophique.
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II.
The Sensationalism of Abbe de
Condillac
A typical philosopher of French Illuminism was
Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715-1780), a member
of a distinguished legal family of Grenoble.
Although ordained a Catholic priest, Condillac
never exercised the priestly powers. For about ten
years he was tutor t the ducal court of the Infant
Ferdinand de Bourbon at Parma. His most significant
philosophical work is the Traite des
sensations.
Locke had distinguished two sources of our
ideas, sensation and reflection. Condillac accepted
only the former, and considered reflection as an
activity following upon and connected with
sensation. Moreover, Locke presupposed certain
faculties of the soul, such as thinking,
remembering, reasoning, to be innate and did not
investigate their origin. The task of Condillac was
to show how these activities originate in sensation
alone.
To this end he took as an example a statue,
endowed like man with a soul, but deprived of any
sensation ("tabula rasa") because the soul is
enclosed in marble. The statue is first given the
use of the sense of smell, the least important of
the five senses. A rose is presented to the statue.
The statue has the "sensation" of odor; indeed, it
is entirely identified with the odor of rose. From
this simple olfactory sensation, Condillac believed
he could derive all the so-called spiritual
faculties. Indeed, when the statue turns its entire
capacity for feeling upon the impression of the
rose, attention is achieved.
A faint sensation (produced when the rose is
withdrawn) gives rise to memory; a vivid
memory produces imagination. Through
memory the statue can compare an actual
sensation with a past one, and from this comparison
arises judgment. The practical development
of the spirit proceeds in parallel fashion with its
theoretical unfolding.
From a pleasant or painful sensation the
sentiment of pleasure or pain arises. The
remembrance of a pleasant sensation gives rise to
desire; a vivid desire produces
passion; a stable desire is transformed into
will. The statue acquires all these
faculties with the use of one sense only. By
granting to the statue the use of the other senses,
the number of objects is extended, the
quantity of the ideas is increased, but not
the forms of activity by which it
apprehends.
According to Condillac, neither olfactory nor
gustatory nor auditory nor even visual sensations
give to the statue the idea of spatial extent upon
which our knowledge of the corporeal world is
founded. Only touch is capable of giving the spirit
an idea of the external world, of one's own body
and the bodies of others, because of the
resistance which our physical efforts meet
in the exterior world.
It is to be noted, however, that this is not a
proof of the reality of the external world;
the statue still remains in the world of
sensations, which are subjective
modifications. The external world is
dogmatically presupposed; we are face to face with
metaphysical Skepticism.
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III.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Life and
Works
Born in Geneva in 1712, Rousseau (picture)
led an errant and tormented life. At sixteen, while
apprenticed to an engraver, he ran away and
wandered to Savoy. He found shelter, first, with
the pastor at Confignon and later, in Annecy, with
Madame de Warens, who remained his patroness for
many years. In 1741 he went to Paris, where he was
obliged to earn his living as a copyist of music,
as a tutor, and a secretary. In 1750 he took part
in an open contest sponsored by the Academy of
Dijon, succeeded in winning the prize, and rose to
fame in Europe.
Leaving Paris in 1756, he retired to
Montmorency, where he wrote his two masterpieces,
the Social Contract and
Emile. Instead of bringing him the
fame he expected, these two works evoked the
opposition of civil and ecclesiastical authorities,
and Rousseau was forced to go into exile.
He went first to Switzerland, and then to
England, where he was a guest of David Hume.
Estranged from Hume by suspicions and petty
quarrels, he returned to Paris in 1770; he died of
apoplexy in Ermenonville in 1778. A Calvinist,
Rousseau was early in life converted to
Catholicism, only to abandon it and to return to
Protestantism.
Doctrine
Rousseau is truly the most original figure of
French Illuminism, of which he was not only a
protagonist but also a severe critic. He possessed
the characteristics common to the Illuminati;
namely, a great faith in reason, and a
deep-rooted desire to bring history, tradition, and
society to trial.
On the other hand, he was suspicious of the arts
and sciences, of those very things which were
believed to be the greatest achievements of
Illuminism and considered the paramount factors of
civilization and happiness.
As far as Rousseau is concerned, the growth of
culture produces an increase of indigence and
corruption. The source of true human values is not
the intellect but sentiment, which is
possessed equally by all. Hence his continuous
refrain was: "Let us return to nature." But what
does Rousseau mean by nature?
In his earlier writings Rousseau identified
nature with the primitive state of savage man.
Later, especially under the criticism of Voltaire,
Rousseau took nature to mean the spontaneity
of the process by which man builds his
personality and his world. Nature thus signifies
interiority, integrity, spiritual freedom, as
opposed to that imprisonment and enslavement which
society imposes in the name of civilization.
Hence, to go back to nature means to
restore to man the forces of this natural process,
to place him outside every oppressing bond of
society and the prejudices of civilization.
Rousseau developed these concepts in his two
masterpieces, the Social Contract and
Emile.
The "Social
Contract"
This work contains Rousseau's political thought.
The problem which he proposes to solve is this:
Society implies distinction between sovereign and
subjects, with the submission of the latter to the
former. How is it possible, in a society so
composed, to preserve equality and liberty in the
subjects? Liberty comes to man from nature, and
belongs to every associate of society as an
inalienable right.
Rousseau resolved the question by distinguishing
between "the general will" and "the will of all,"
giving to this latter a meaning opposite the
former. "The general will" is the expression of the
humanity immanent in every man, and for this reason
such a will is inalienable, universal and uniform
in every man. "The will of all," on the contrary,
is the expression of particular interests, of
egoism; it is the font of all inequalities.
According to Rousseau, liberty consists in the
spontaneous coordination of the "general will" and
the "will of all."
Primitive man was free because, without being
forced, he submitted his individualistic interests
to the exigencies of his humanity. The social
contract has not changed this condition, for men,
making such a contract, intended to fuse the
general of all associated persons by a "pactum
unionis" (and not by a "pactum subjectionis," as
Hobbes maintained), in such a manner that their
liberty might be conserved even in society. It is
this "general will," and not any particular group
or person, which is invested with sovereignty.
Laws are just in so far as they express this
general will. Thus every associated person, by
obeying the general will and the laws that flow
from it, does nothing more than obey himself. Hence
hi is still free and feels his entire dignity as a
free man, even in the society of which he forms a
part.
"Emile"
In this work Rousseau offers an example of what
he thinks education, in accordance with the
spontaneity of nature, should be. He says that
nature is good, and hence an education in keeping
with the properties of nature will also be good,
unless this process is destroyed by outside
prejudices. The pupil has to feel himself free in
developing his activities. The educator may never
impose his will upon the pupil by precepts. His
work should consist in preparing the fittest
external conditions for the free unfolding of the
activities of his pupil.
In keeping with his principle that culture and
the sciences are causes of evil and corruption,
Rousseau wants Emile, the hero of his work by that
name, to learn only those notions that will be
necessary to his practical life. Thus he will learn
a trade, that of carpenter. Moral education must
start with the burgeoning of reason, and its norms
will be learned, not from the precepts of the
educator but from the reflections of the pupil
himself. Emile's religion will be a natural one,
that is, belief in God as He reveals Himself in His
works. Only when his education is completed can
Emile enter society, for only then will he be able
to avoid its dangers and enjoy its benefits.
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