THE ENLIGHTENMENT: PHILOSOPHES AND PORNOGRAPHERS

Question 1

What is the enlightenment?

Answer 1

• Breaking old traditions
• Criticizing people in a classy way

Question 2

Key value of enlightenment:

Empiricism?

Answer 2

Relying on observation for knowledge, rather than trusting what you’ve been to

Question 3

Key value of enlightenment:

Free-Thinking?

Answer 3

Entertaining a broader spectrum of opinions (including controversial ones)

*EX. Atheism = Not believing in God (this was highly controversial

Question 4

Key value of enlightenment

Criticism of received knowledge?

Answer 4

How can we possibly trust information we have not ourselves verified

Question 5

Key value of enlightenment

Criticism of powerful institutions and people?

Answer 5

Powerful people do not inherently deserve our respect

*Anti-clericalism = Against clergy, not always an atheistic position

*Republicanism = Against monarch

Question 6

What three factors caused the enlightenment?

1. Political factors
2. cultural / intellectual factors
3. Economic factors

Answer 6

1. Political factors
   - Louis XIV revokes permission for Huguenots to practice their religion (migration out of france)
   - James 1 is Catholic, and baptized his son catholic
2. cultural / intellectual factors
   - scientific revolution opens up new ways of thinking about the world
   -End of censorship in England
3. Economic factors
   -Colonial wealth flooding into Europe funds the philosophe lifestyle

Question 7

How are coffee shops owned and what do people do there?

Answer 7

Coffee-houses are public institutions, privately owned

*Offer a space for discussion and exchange outside of the courtly establishment
*Strengthens the town/city economically and culturally, makes it easier to challenge authority

Question 8

What is the Salon?

Answer 8

semi-private institution, privately owned
*Salons take place inside of a private home
*Again, outside of the courtly establishment

Draw powerful ppl away from the court
- No hierarchy here

Question 9

What were the rules of Salon?

Answer 9

Rigid etiquette: certain topics of discussion for certain days, protocol to who sat where, etc.
*Huge patronage opportunities facilitated through the host or hostess

Question 10

Explain the tiers of the estate system

First estate

Second estate

Third estate

Answer 10

*First estate: clergy

*Second estate: nobles (titled aristocrats)

*Third estate: everybody else

Question 11

Who are the Bourgeoisie in the estate system?

Answer 11

members of the Third Estate, living within cities and towns, beginning to constitute a distinct middle class
*Often a professional class: lawyers, accountants, business owners

*The transition of cultural power away from the court and towards the city strengthens the bourgeoisie

Question 12

What is a Salonnière?

Answer 12

a salon hostess
*The most privileged salons tended to be hosted by women (wives of powerful men)

Question 13

Who was the most famous Salonniere?

Answer 13

Mme Geoffrin (1699 – 1777), salon on the rue Saint-Honoré

*Helps transform the salon from a leisurely lounge into a cutting-edge philosophical institutions

*Uses the money of her much older husband

*Received little formal education herself (married at 13) = what’s her relationship to the salon’s activities?

*Important as a patron of philosophes and a connection-maker

Question 14

Why were women so important to the salon?

Answer 14

*Overturning traditional social hierarchies

*An opportunity for well-connected, educated women to enact the values of the Republic of Letters

*Women as regulators (who gets in, what’s being discussed, what are the ground rules, etc.

Question 15

Who were the philosophers invited to the salons?

Answer 15

Men of letters: writers, scholars, public intellectuals

(Different Salons invited different types of men
Ex. Mme Geoffrin invited only artists on Mondays and only men of letters on Wednesday)

International: intellectuals from all over the world traveled to Paris to attend salon

Competition between established philosophers and new comers

Question 16

How did International philosophers get in the Salon?

Answer 16

Letter of introduction: a letter from a mutual acquaintance vouching for you

Question 17

How did philosophers make their living?

Answer 17

*Patronage: receiving commissions or gifts from a wealthy patron made it possible to be a philosophe = tailoring their messages to appeal to the wealthy aristocrats

*Publishing: some are able to make a little bit of money from their publications

*Many of them had day jobs or family money

Question 18

Who is Voltaire?

Answer 18

Educated by Jesuits,

a formative affair with a Huguenot refuge (when he ran away)

Wrote over 20,000 letters and over 2,000 books and pamphlet

Question 19

What are Voltaire’s key themes?

Answer 19

: anti-clericalism, freedom of thought, separation of church and state, satire

*Insulted and satirized the powerful: spent most of 1717 in the Bastille after accusing the Regent of France of incest with his daughter

Professed Deism, supported toleration (despite being an antisemite and Islamophobe), polygenism

*A beloved figure in the salon scene
*His patron was Mme de Pompadour, mistress of Louis X

Question 20

Who is Denis Diderot?

Answer 20

), particularly close relationship with his sister Denise, “the female Socrates”

*Educated by Jesuits
- Became a writer

Close relationship with Jean-Jacques Rousseau
*Incarcerated for his criticism of the government for 3 months in 1749 = had to disavow his early works to get out again

Question 21

What are Denis Diderot’s key works?

Answer 21

Les Bijoux Indiscrets (1748), L’Encyclopédie (1751), Rameau’s Nephew (posthumously published in 1805)

Wrote porn cuz he was poor and needed money (wife was pregnant and mistress demanding money)

Question 22

Denis Diderot’s personal views?

Answer 22

Some personal views: transition from deism = atheism, materialism, proto-evolutionary theories, critical of the powerful

*Patronized at a distance by Catherine the Great

Question 23

Who is Jean Jacques Rousseau?

Answer 23

raised Protestant in a middle-class family

Moved to Paris in 1642, befriended Diderot and became involved in philosophical discussion

*Moved around frequently due to his many “misfortunes” and controversies

*Had help from philosophers like Voltaire (his great rival)

Question 24

What is Jean Jacques Rousseau’s key ideas?

Answer 24

Social Contract Theory, the noble savage, equality of man and nature, toleration (indifferentism)

Question 25

How radical can you be in a salon?

Answer 25

Even the greats had patrons they needed to keep on side

*Voltaire’s reading public includes a lot of the same élites he satirizes and it makes him famous (you need to keep them happy)

Question 26

How much are these aristocrats willing to be challenged? (in the Salon)

Answer 26

Are the philosophes bravely confronting the élites or are they titillating a bored aristocracy with thrilling taboo subjects?

Question 27

Another definition of the enlightenment?

Answer 27

Seen as:
a sophisticated political, philosophical, and literary movement that openly and cleverly criticized élites and their institutions.

In actuality: there was a lowbrow Enlightenment
deliberately libelous, satirical, and pornographic material that criticized the powerful in much harsher terms than the philosophes

Question 28

What are Plagiarists’ doing?

Answer 28

copying existing books and selling them cheaper
*Makes it very challenging for historians to understand what the “best sellers” of the time were

Mostly anonymous, mostly producing cheaply printed and bound books

Question 29

What are Libelles?

Answer 29

political pamphlet attacking a powerful figure (often with false information)

Question 30

What are Pornographers? And who buys these?

Answer 30

produce sexually explicit material, often imagining the sex lives of real people or indulging in taboo fantasies

*Who is buying these filthy books?
*The same people who are buying Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau
*Possibly an even greater audience = these books spread radical ideas too

Question 31

What books did the French censorship regime try stop?

Answer 31

pursued “immoral” books along with “seditious” ones

*Technically, all texts had to be approved by a government censor and registered

Question 32

What were the Penalties for violating a book ban?

Answer 32

confiscations, fines, and imprisonment

Question 33

Were there other enlightenments?

Answer 33

Yes!

*Scottish Enlightenment

*Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah)

*Catholic Enlightenment (Counter-Enlightenment)

*German Enlightenment