Western Civilization 2 Exam 1

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Materialism

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i. The mind is matter, just like everything else.

ii. It seems to follow that a thinking thing is something corporeal. For it seems that the subject of any act can be understood only in terms of something corporeal or in terms of matter… (Commentary on Descartes, p. 173)

iii. Life is just a motion of limbs caused by some principle part inside the body (Leviathan, p. 5)

iv. All these sensible qualities are…merely different motions of the matter by which the object presses on our organs. In us too… the qualities are merely various motions; for they are cuased by motions, and motion produces nothing but motion. (Leviathan, pp. 7-8)

Materialism was a religious idea that came out of the Enlightenment in the 18th century. It was basically Athiesm, claiming that man was wholly matter, therefore there was no "soul" outside the body. They regarded Christians as followers of tales and that man is just a natural machine, not a creation of a "higher being."

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Dualism

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Dualism: the concept that spiritual being and physical being are separate from one another. (Plato)

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Mechanism

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The Mechanistic view of the world, or "Mechanism", emerged as a school of philosophical thought following the scientific revolution. Its central tenet asserts that the world can be best understood on a completely mechanical level as matter governed by the laws of nature, and is closely tied to materialism in that respect. It serves as one of many examples of how the scientific revolution influenced the western world's thinking on matters spiritual as well as material, providing new (possible) answers to age-old questions. In other ways, it also powerfully displays the enlightenment reaction against "superstition" and mysticism.

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Empiricism

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Empiricism is a school of philosophical thought which emphasizes the importance of experience in knowledge, particularly sensory experience. Its doctrines were first formally expounded upon by John Locke, who argued that the mind is a "blank slate" upon which experience and perception leaves it mark--and most importantly, that no knowledge can be arrived at without reference to experience and perception. This sets empiricism in contrast to the rationalism of the time, a central tenet of which was that knowledge can be obtained by reasoning. Empiricism played an enormously important role in the scientific revolution and serves as a cornerstone to the present day scientific method. Locke and Hobbes were both empiricists.

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Rationalism

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Genuine knowledge comes from reason.

Rationalism is any view emphasizing the role or importance of human reason. Extreme rationalism tries to base all knowledge on reason alone. Rationalism typically starts from premises that cannot coherently be denied, then attempts by logical steps to deduce every possible object of knowledge.

Modern rationalism begins with Descartes. Reflection on the nature of perceptual experience, as well as scientific discoveries in physiology and optics, led Descartes (and also Locke) to the view that we are directly aware of ideas, rather than objects. This view gave rise to three questions:

1. Is an idea a true copy of the real thing that it represents? Sensation is not a direct interaction between bodily objects and our sense, but is a physiological process involving representation (for example, an image on the retina). Locke thought that a 'secondary quality' such as a sensation of green could in no way resemble the arrangement of particles in matter that go to produce this sensation, although he thought that 'primary qualities' such as shape, size, number, were really in objects.
2. How can physical objects such as chairs and tables, or even physiological processes in the brain, give rise to mental items such as ideas? This is part of what became known as the mind-body problem.
3. If all the contents of awareness are ideas, how can we know that anything exists apart from ideas?

Descartes tried to address the last problem by reason. He began, echoing Parmenides, with a principle that he thought could not coherently be denied: I think, therefore I am (often given in his original Latin: Cogito ergo sum). From this principle, Descartes went on to construct a complete system of knowledge (which involves proving the existence of God, using, among other means, a version of the ontological argument). His view that reason alone could yield substantial truths about reality strongly influenced those philosophers usually considered modern rationalists (such as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Christian Wolff), while provoking criticism from other philosophers who have retrospectively come to be grouped together as empiricists.

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Body Politic

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A body politic or body corporate or polity is a state or one of its subordinate civil authorities, such as a province, prefecture, county, municipality, city, or district.[1] It is generally understood to mean a geographic area with a corresponding government. Thomas Hobbes considered bodies politic in this sense, in Leviathan.[2] In previous centuries, body politic was also understood to mean "the physical person of the sovereign" (in monarchies and despotisms, the emperor, king, or dictator, and, in republics, the electorate). Today, it may also refer to a representation of the ethnic or gender demographics of a region; for example, in many liberal democracies, cabinets are chosen to represent the body politic

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Levelers

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In addition to Parliament royal, English civil war made it possible for power for others. One group was the levellers: small faction in Parliamentary army
-Richard Overton: 1646 wrote An Arrow Against All Tyrants
-clergy as bad as the king (Charles I)
July 1646: Levellers assert a demand for Republican government (“An Agreement for All People”)
-Universal mail franchise, separate Parliament from executive, for fixed Constitution
-Demand: Rep. Parl., Parl., can never have ruling counsel, limited government, taxpower to Parliament, private law: none (do away with privilege, free trade, guarantee against self-incrimination, local control of clergy, religious tolerance, no debtors prison)

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Absolutism

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Absolutism: 1660-1789 a political theory that encouraged rulers to claim complete sovereignty within their territories. To seventeenth and eighteenth century absolutists, complete sovereignty meant that a ruler could make law, dispense justice, create and direct a bureaucracy, declare war, and levy taxation without the formal approval of any other governing authorities. Frequently, such absolutist rulers claimed to govern their territories by the same divine right that established a father’s absolute authority over his household. Absolutist monarchs sought to gather into their own hands command of the state’s armed forces, control over its legal system, and the right to collect and spend the state’s financial resources at will. To achieve these goals, they also needed to create an efficient, centralized bureaucracy that owed its allegiance directly to the monarch himself. The legally privileged estates of nobility and clergy, the political authority of semi-autonomous regions, and the pretensions of independent-minded representative assemblies were all obstacles, in the eyes of absolutists, to strong, centralized monarchical government.

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Hobbes 1st Law of Nature

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Who: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
What:
Difference between right and law.
A natural law is a general, binding rule found out by reason that demands that man must preserve and cannot destroy his life.
His first fundamental law says every man should seek peace but since man can never achieve since man is constantly at war and has every right to preserve himself, even at another man’s disadvantage, then man should defend himself.

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State of Nature

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According to Rousseau, a central claim of the Second Discourse: in the state of nature, human beings and human life are entirely good
What does Rousseau mean by the state of nature?
-Seemingly not what Hobbes meant by it: a world in which human beings interact, but have no common authority over them. For Rousseau, humans in the state of nature do not (meaningfully) interact; rather they live isolated – and therefore he thinks, happy lives/ Of course human beings don’t live as isolated individuals in the state of nature: we are naturally social, bonding with each other in kinship and eventually tribal groups. These points are so obvious that there is no way that Rousseau could have missed them. When he talks about the state of nature as isolated and therefore happy, he must be talking about something else
Compare Hobbes: there is a law of nature that human beings should not kill one another. But this does not just follow from the physical workings of nature. Those workings do tell me: I don’t want to die. But you don’t get the moral rule until you reason: I shouldn’t kill anyone else, since I don’t want them to kill me.
-So a moral rule is really a kind of convention, a rule that we all agree to obey
-Actually, Rousseau means exactly what Hobbes means by the state of nature: a state where there are no conventions. Human beings are isolated in that they stand under no such conventions (even when they interact with one another). If we happen to be killed by another human as opposed to a bolt of lightning, all we can say is: a bad thing happened to us.
-Society, for Rousseau, is essentially a matter of convention. The essential feature of social life is the imposition of conventions. What humans do is to replace natural objects and natural meanings with artificial, cultural, conventional objects and meanings; everyone tries to look good in the eyes of others

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Novel

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Novel: Term “novel” in 16th century could refer to fact or fiction, could function as a synonym of “newes” (nouvelles). Fact/Fiction discourse begins to split with development of newspapers and newsbooks--birth of journalism has been located in this period. Glorious Revolution (1688-89) signals a return to more permissive publishing practices.

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The Atlantic Complex

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18th century trade of many different commodities which mainly focused on slaves, sugar, rum among the countries of England, America, Africa, and West Indies. Trade brought much wealth to ship owners and profits eventually became one of the foundations of American capitalism -John Lock wrote about slavery in his Two Treatises (highly against slavery) -thousands of dead slaves were dumped into the Charleston harbors in order to not pay for burials. People began to not eat fish that came from the river because they were eating the corpses -Slaves wanted to be Baptized, but the though of enslaving Christians hindered idea.

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The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange was a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, food items, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. It was one of the most significant events concerning ecology, agriculture, and culture in all of human history. Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas in 1492 launched the era of large-scale contact between the Old and the New Worlds that resulted in this ecological revolution, hence the name "Columbian" Exchange. The term was coined by Alfred W. Crosby a historian, professor and author, in his 1972 book The Columbian Exchange.

The Columbian Exchange greatly affected almost every society on earth. New diseases introduced by Europeans (many of which had originated in Asia) to which indigenous people had no immunity, depopulated many cultures. Data for the pre-Columbian population in the Americas is uncertain, but estimates of its disease-induced population losses between 1500 and 1650 range between 50 and 90 percent.[1]

On the other hand, the contact between the two areas circulated a wide variety of new crops and livestock which supported increases in population. Explorers returned to Europe with maize, potatoes, and tomatoes, which became very important crops in Eurasia by the 18th century. Similarly, Europeans introduced manioc and the peanut to tropical Southeast Asia and West Africa, where they flourished and supported growth in populations on soils that otherwise would not produce large yields.

This exchange of plants and animals transformed European, American, African, and Asian ways of life. New foods became staples of human diets, and new growing regions opened up for crops. For example, before AD 1000, potatoes were not grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating Irish Potato Famine.[2] Since being introduced by 16th century Portuguese traders, who brought them from the Americas,[3] maize and manioc replaced traditional African crops as the continent’s most important staple food crops.[4] New crops that had come to Asia from the Americas via Spanish colonizers in the 16th century, including maize and sweet potatoes, contributed to the population growth in Asia, too.[5]

One of the first European exports, the horse, changed the lives of many Native American tribes on the Great Plains, allowing them to shift to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback. Tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, became an Italian trademark, while coffee from Africa and sugar cane from Asia became the main crops of extensive Latin American plantations. Introduced to India by the Portuguese, the chili/paprika from South America is today an integral part of Indian cuisine.

Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no tomatoes in Italy, no coffee in Colombia, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no cattle in Texas, no donkeys in Mexico, no chili peppers in Thailand and India, no cigarettes in France, and no chocolate in Switzerland. The dandelion was brought to America by Europeans for use as an herb.

Of the world's top 20 crops, measured by weight of production in 2007, five (maize, potato, cassava, tomato and sweet potato) originated in the Americas while a sixth, grapes, is most commonly a European plant grafted onto an American rootstock.[6] The remaining Old World origin crops in the top twenty are all grown throughout the world today (cow milk, soybeans, wheat, sugar beet, sugar cane, rice, oranges, onions, sorghum, hen eggs, barley, lettuce and chicory, apples). One-half of the top crop by weight within the United States depends on foods that were first grown in the Americas (but only 39% by value).[7]

Before regular communication had been established between the two hemispheres, the varieties of domesticated animals and infectious diseases, such as smallpox, were strikingly larger in the Old World than in the New, in part because many migrated west or were brought by traders from Asia, so diseases of two continents were suffered by all. "Old World" diseases had a devastating impact on Native American populations because they had no natural immunity to the new diseases. While Europeans and Asians were affected by them, their endemic status in those areas caused some people to build immunity. The smallpox epidemics probably resulted in the largest death tolls for Native Americans.[8]

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Philisophes

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Philosophe is the French word for "philosopher," and was a word that the French enlightenment thinkers usually applied to themselves.[2] The philosophes, like Socrates and many other ancient philosophers, were public intellectuals dedicated to solving the real problems of the world. They wrote on subjects ranging from current affairs to art criticism, and they wrote in every conceivable format. The Swiss philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, wrote a political tract, a treatise on education, a constitution for Poland, an analysis of the effects of the theater on public morals, a best-selling novel, an opera, and a notorious autobiography. The philosophes wrote for a broad educated public of readers who snatched up every Enlightenment book they could find at their local booksellers, even when rulers or churches tried to forbid such works.

Between 1740 and 1789, the Enlightenment acquired its name and, despite heated conflicts between the philosophes and state and religious authorities, gained support in the highest reaches of government. Although philosophe is a French word, the Enlightenment was distinctly cosmopolitan; philosophes could be found from Philadelphia to St. Petersburg. The philosophes considered themselves part of a grand "republic of letters" that transcended national political boundaries. In 1784, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant summed up the program of the Enlightenment in two Latin words: sapere aude, dare to know—have the courage to think for yourself. The philosophes used reason to attack superstition, bigotry, and religious fanaticism, which they considered the chief obstacles to free thought and social reform. Voltaire took religious fanaticism as his chief target: "Once fanaticism has corrupted a mind, the malady is almost incurable....The only remedy for this epidemic malady is the philosophical spirit."

Enlightenment writers did not necessarily oppose organized religion, but they strenuously objected to religious intolerance. They believed that the systematic application of reason could do what religious belief could not: improve the human condition by pointing to needed reforms. Reason meant critical, informed, scientific thinking about social issues and problems. The philosophes believed that the spread of knowledge would encourage reform in every aspect of life, from the grain trade to the penal system. Chief among their desired reforms was intellectual freedom—the freedom to use one's own reason and to publish the results. The philosophes wanted freedom of the press and freedom of religion, which they considered "Natural rights" guaranteed by "natural law." In their view, progress depended on these freedoms.[3]

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Salon

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A salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation. These gatherings often consciously following Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est"). The salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings among like-minded people of a 'set': many 20th-century salons could be instanced.

The salon was a Chinese invention of the 16th century which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The word salon first appeared in France in 1664 (from the Italian word salone, itself from sala, the large reception hall of Italian mansions). One important place for the exchange of ideas was the salon, a gathering of the intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites. Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet, réduit, ruelle and alcôve.[1] Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were frequently held in the bedroom (treated as a more private form of drawing room)[2]: a lady, reclining on her bed, would receive close friends who would sit on chairs or stools drawn around. This practice may be contrasted with the greater formalities of Louis XIV's petit lever, where all stood. Ruelle, literally meaning "narrow street" or "lane", designates the space between a bed and the wall in a bedroom; it was used commonly to designate the gatherings of the "précieuses", the intellectual and literary circles that formed around women in the first half of the 17th century. The first renowned salon in France was the Hôtel de Rambouillet not far from the Palais du Louvre in Paris, which its hostess, Roman-born Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet (1588-1665), ran from 1607 until her death.[3][4] She established the rules of etiquette of the salon which resembled the earlier codes of Italian chivalry. The salon evolved into a well-regulated practice that focused on and reflected enlightened public opinion by encouraging the exchange of news and ideas. By the mid-eighteenth century the salon had become an institution in French society and functioned as a major channel of communication among intellectuals.[5]

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Deism

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Who: Many enlightenment philosophers held this view, for example Voltaire

What: “Natural Religion”; The “clockmaker” theory. God as a divine creator who, at the beginning of time, constructed the perfect world and then left it to run on its own.

Where: Europe and colonies

When: Idea gained momentum during the Enlightenment, 18th Century

Why: Deist thinkers did not like the superstition of such things as miracles. It is obvious someone, God, had to create the universe. It is not proven that he had a son. That idea has the authority of a tale.

Significance: See What and Why

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Public Sphere

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With the communications revolution of the Enlightenment came the emergence of the public sphere, coffee houses, salons, clubs, learned societies, Masonic lodges, even taverns. Eighteenth-century elite or “high” culture was small in scale but cosmopolitan and very literate, and it took discussion seriously. A new elite joined together members of the nobility and wealthy people from the middle classes. Among the institutions that produced this new elite were “learned societies.” Such groups organized intellectual life outside of the universities, and they provided libraries, meeting places for discussion, and journals that published members’ papers or organized debates on issues from literature and history to economics and ethics. Elites also met in “academies,” financed by governments to advance knowledge, whether through research into the natural sciences (the Royal Society of London, the French Academy of Literature, both founded in 1660), promoting the national language, or safe-guarding traditions in the arts (the various academies of painting). Learned societies and academies both brought together different social groups (most from the elite) and in so doing, they fostered a sense of common purpose and seriousness.

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General Will

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Who: Rousseau

What: General will is what the body politic (community of citizens) would unanimously do if they were selecting general laws and were choosing/voting with full information, good reasoning, unclouded judgment (bias and emotion can cloud judgment), public spirit, and attempting to discern the common good.

Where: Found in The Social Contract

When: Enlightenment, 18th Century

Significance: People should submit their will to the general will which cannot be wrong and whoever refused would be subject to compulsion, so to express the general will is to express every man's common will. The individual and all his rights are to be handed over to the whole community, and in compelling him to conform the community is only "forcing him to be free".

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Third Estate

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Estates general had three states: State one was the clergy and state two the nobility, which usually combined to defeat the third state, the common people. The fiscal crisis in France led to Louis XVI summoning the Estates General in 1789, which had not been summoned since 1614. His action appeared to many as the only solution to France’s deepening problems. Long-term grievances and short-term hardships had produced bread riots across the country in the spring of 1789. This time the Third Estate made it clear it would not tolerate an arrangement were the first and second estates would rule it out. The leaders of the Third Estate agreed that the three orders should sit together and vote as individuals. More important, they insisted that the Third Estate should have twice as many members as the First and Second. The king’s unwillingness to take a strong stand on voting procedures cost him support. Shortly after the Estates General opened at Versailles in May 1789, the Third Estate, angered by the king’s attitude, took the revolutionary step of leaving the body and declaring itself the National Assembly. Locked out of the Estates General meeting hall on June 20, the Third Estate and a handful of sympathetic nobles and clergymen moved to a nearby indoor tennis court, where they bound themselves by a solemn oath not to separate until they had drafted a constitution for France. This Oath of the Tennis Court can be seen as the beginning of the French Revolution. By claiming the authority to remake the government in the name of the people, the National Assembly was not merely protesting against the rule of Louis XVI but asserting its right to act as the highest sovereign power in the nation. On June 27 the king virtually conceded this right by ordering all the delegates to join the National Assembly.

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National Assembly

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Was created in May 1789 when the Third Estate, angered by the king’s attitude, took the revolutionary step of leaving the Estates General and declaring itself the National Assembly. Locked out of the Estates General meeting hall on June 20, the Third Estate and a handful of sympathetic nobles and clergymen moved to a nearby indoor tennis court, where they bound themselves by a solemn oath not to separate until they had drafted a constitution for France. This Oath of the Tennis Court can be seen as the beginning of the French Revolution. By claiming the authority to remake the government in the name of the people, the National Assembly was not merely protesting against the rule of Louis XVI but asserting its right to act as the highest sovereign power in the nation. On June 27 the king virtually conceded this right by ordering all the delegates to join the National Assembly. The storming of the Bastille on July 14 persuaded the king and nobles to agree to the creation of the National Assembly. The “Great Fear” compelled the most sweeping changes of the entire revolutionary period. In an effort to quell rural disorder, on the night of August 4 the Assembly took a giant step toward abolishing all forms of privilege. It eliminated the church tithe, the labor requirement known as corvee, the nobility’s hunting privileges, and a wide variety of tax exemptions and monopolies. In effect, these reforms obliterated the remnants of feudalism. One week later, the Assembly abolished the sale of offices, thereby sweeping away one of the fundament institutions of the old regime. The Assembly issued its charter of liberties, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, in September 1789. It declared property to be a natural right, along with liberty, security and “resistance to oppression.” It declared freedom of speech, religious toleration, and liberty of the press inviolable. All citizens were to be treated equally before the law. No one was to be imprisoned or otherwise punished except in accordance with due process of law. Sovereignty was affirmed to reside in the people, and officers of the government were made subject to deposition if they abused the powers conferred on them.

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Declaration of the Rights of Man

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During the first stages of the French Revolution, the National Assembly issued its first charter of liberties, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, in September 1789. It declared property to be a natural right, along with liberty, security and “resistance to oppression.” It declared freedom of speech, religious toleration, and liberty of the press inviolable. All citizens were to be treated equally before the law. No one was to be imprisoned or otherwise punished except in accordance with due process of law. Sovereignty was affirmed to reside in the people, and officers of the government were made subject to deposition if they abused the powers conferred on them. These were not new ideas, they represented the outcome of Enlightenment discussions and revolutionary debates and deliberations. The Declaration became the preamble to the new constitution, which the Assembly finished in 1791. Who the Declaration meant by “man and the citizen” was up for debate, however. Which men could be trusted to participate in politics and on what terms was a hotly contested issue. So, to a certain extent, were the rights of religious minorities. The revolution gave full civil rights to Protestants, though in areas long divided by religious conflict those rights were challenged by Catholics. The revolution did, hesitantly, give civil rights to Jews, a measure that sparked protest in areas of eastern France. Religious toleration, a central theme of the Enlightenment, meant ending persecution, it did not mean that the regime was prepared to accommodate religious differences.

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Reign of Terror

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The Reign of Terror (1794) was the time period during which Maximilien Robespierre acted as the de facto dictator of France. Robespierre ruled with terror during this time because he believed that with that he could flush out the enemies of the state. Robespierre saw no room for mercy in his Terror, stating that "slowness of judgements is equal to impunity" and "uncertainty of punishment encourages all the guilty". Throughout his Report on the Principles of Political Morality, Robespierre assailed any stalling of action in defense of the Republic. In his thinking, there was not enough that could be done fast enough in defense against enemies at home and abroad. A staunch believer in the teachings of Rousseau, Robespierre believed that it was his duty as a public servant to push the revolution forward, and that the only rational way to do that was to defend it on all fronts.

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Republic of Virtue

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When: 1793-1794

Who: Maximilien Robespierre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

What: The "Republic of Virtue" was a period in French history (1793-1794) where Maximilien Robespierre remained in power. Many proponents of the Republic of Virtue developed their notion of civic virtue from the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The "Republic of Virtue" was part of the de-Christianization of the French Revolution. The de-Christianization process included the closing of churches, Protestant and Catholic, as well as selling many church buildings to the highest bidders. Many churches became store-houses for arms or grain. The statues of kings on the cathedral at Notre Dame were beheaded. However, the largest step in the de-Christianization of France was the establishment of the Cult of Reason to replace Christianity. This, however, was rejected by Maximilien Robespierre because he was opposed to the atheistic ideals of the Cult of Reason. He establishes the Cult of the Supreme Being in June 1794 but neither cult attracted many followers. The new French Revolutionary Calendar was created during the Republic of Virtue as well. The first year started on September 22, 1792, the beginning of the Republic. Twelve months of exactly thirty days each received new names derived from nature. Ten-day décades replaced the seven-day week, allowing for only one day of rest, eliminating the Sunday of the Christian calendar. This new calendar remained in practice for twenty two years.

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Edmond Burke

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Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
In Britain the conservative cause was strengthened by the publication in 1790 of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. A Whig politician who sympathized with the American revolutionaries, Burke nevertheless attacked the Revolution in France as a monstrous crime against the social order. The French failure to pay proper respect to tradition and custom had destroyed the fabric of French civilization, woven by centuries of national history. Burke’s famous pamphlet helped arouse sympathy for the counterrevolutionary cause. That sympathy did not turn to active opposition until France became a threat to international stability and the individual ambitions of the great powers. Burke’s writings became a point of reference for nineteenth-century conservatives. Burke did not oppose all change; he had argued, for instance, that the British should let the North American colonies go. But he opposed talk of natural rights, which he considered dangerous abstractions. He believed enthusiasm for constitutions to be misguided and the Enlightenment’s emphasis on what he called the “conquering power of reason” to be dangerous. Instead, Burke counseled deference to experience, tradition, and history.
What was the basis of early nineteenth century conservatism? At the Congress of Vienna and in the Restoration generally, the most important guiding concept was “legitimacy.” Legitimacy might be best understood as a code word for a new political order. Conservatives aimed to make legitimate – and thus to solidify – both the monarchy’s authority and a hierarchical social order. The most thoughtful conservatives of the period did not believe that the old order would survive completely intact. They did believe, however, that the monarchy guaranteed political stability, that the nobility were the rightful leaders of the nation, and that both needed to play active and effective roles in public life. Conservatives believed that change had to be slow, incremental, and managed in order to strengthen the structures of authority. Conserving the past and cultivating tradition would ensure an orderly future.

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Napoleon Bonaparte

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Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821): French general who seized power (overthrew the Directory) and ruled as dictator (1799-1814). After successful conquest of much of Europe, he was defeated by Russian and Prussian forces and died in exile.

* many military victories
* 1799 declared a “temporary consul” who provided “confidence from below, authority from above”
* A strong, popular leader who was not king
* His regime remade revolutionary politics and the French state, transformed the nature of Euro warfare, and left a legacy of conflict and legends
* Good leader: strengths in creating financial, legal, or military plans and then to master their every detail; in his capacity for inspiring others, even those who initially opposed him; and belief that he was the destined savior of France
* Overthrew government in 1799 and governed in the name of the Republic
* His regime had the appearance of consulting with the people, but its most important feature was the centralization of authority
* Reorganized the state: fair system of taxation, emphasis on centralization, replaced elected officials with prefects
* Significant accomplishment: completion of the legal reforms begun during the revolutionary period and the promulgation of a new legal code in 1804 (Napoleonic Code: abolition of feudal privileges, set conditions for exercising property rights, paternal authority and subordinance of women and children
* Rationalized educational system
* Concordat with the pope (1801)
* Married Josephine de Beauharnais a Creole from Martinique
* Napoleon’s wars of expansion

o Defeated European coalition of Austria, Prussia and Britain—out of this victory, created his new empire and affiliated states

* Reforms were a mixed blessing:

o Welcomed: His reforms that provided for more efficient, less corrupt administration, a workable tax structure o French also levied taxes, drafted men, and required states to support occupying armies—common people thought the local lord and priest had been replaced by the French tax collector and army recruiting board—this view cost Napoleon the support of revolutionaries, former Enlightenment thinkers, and liberals

* Reasons for decline:

o Established the Continental System (1806) to “choke Britain’s trade and force its surrender”  The system failed bc: Britain retained control of the seas and its Naval blockade countered Napoleon’s system. o his “unmasterable ambition”: unsuccessful goal of making Europe into new Roman Empire, ruled from Paris—people wondered if his empire would simply represent a more dangerous absolutism than the monarchies of the 18th century. o His new kind of army (raised as a revolutionary militia, had now become a trained, conscript army of native Frenchmen, loyal, well-supplied by a nation whose economy was committed to serving the war effort, and led by talented generals) crushed his enemies (the Russians, Prussians, Austrians, Swedes, and Britains who joined up against them) o Downfall began with his invasion of Spain in 1808—it was the first indication that he could be beat, and encouraged resistance elsewhere o Disruption of alliance with Russia o Final defeat: 1815: stopped by Britain and Prussia and exiled to St. Helena island

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Civil Code of 1804

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Who: Napoleon Bonaparte

When: 1804

What: The Napoleonic Code was instated in 1804. After the French Revolution, codification became not only possible but almost necessary. Powerful control groups such as the manors and the guilds had been destroyed; the secular power of the church had been suppressed; and the provinces had been transformed into subdivisions of the new national state. The Napoleonic Code, therefore, was founded on the premise that, for the first time in history, a purely rational law should be created, free from all past prejudices and deriving its content from “sublimated common sense”; its moral justification was to be found not in ancient custom or monarchical paternalism but in its conformity to the dictates of reason. Under the code all male citizens are equal: primogeniture, hereditary nobility, and class privileges are extinguished; civilian institutions are emancipated from ecclesiastical control; freedom of person, freedom of contract, and inviolability of private property are fundamental principles. The first book of the code deals with the law of persons: the enjoyment of civil rights, the protection of personality, domicile, guardianship, tutorship, relations of parents and children, marriage, personal relations of spouses, and the dissolution of marriage by annulment or divorce. The code subordinated women to their fathers and husbands, who controlled all family property, determined the fate of children, and were favored in divorce proceedings. The second book deals with the law of things: the regulation of property rights—ownership, usufruct, and servitudes. The third book deals with the methods of acquiring rights: by succession, donation, marriage settlement, and obligations. In the last chapters, the code regulates a number of nominate contracts, legal and conventional mortgages, limitations of actions, and prescriptions of rights.

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Romanticism

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Who:

Literary: Jena Group (Schlegel brothers)’s Das Athenäum, Mme. de Staël’s De l’Allemagne, Mary Godwin Shelley Frankenstein

Visual: Germany: Caspar David Friedrich; England: J.M.W. Turner; John Constable; France: Théodore Géricault; Eugène Delacroix; Spain: Francisco de Goya

Poets: George Gordon, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge

What:

European artistic and cultural movement

Reaction against Enlightenment emphasizing

• The imagination and emotions

• The individual as a social being and independently

• Negative view of progress—idealization of country life/people and children

• Debt to Rousseau

When: 1790s-1830s (in Europe); 1820s-1860s (in U.S.)

Significance: Nature versus man, inspiring the sublime. Orientalism—Rosetta stone and Egyptian Institute. Emphasis on idyllic lifestyle. The rise of nationalism, especially in response to Napoleon’s invasions. Freedom in composition in poetry and art. Influenced transcendentalism.

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Conservatism

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Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to preserve")[1] is a political attitude that advocates institutions and traditional practices that have developed organically,[2][3] thus emphasizing stability and continuity.[3] The first established use of the term in a political context was by François-René de Chateaubriand in 1819, following the French Revolution.[4] The term has since been used to describe a variety of politicians with a wide range of views.

In Western politics, the term conservatism often refers to the school of thought based on British politician Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution. Though his legacy as a conservative is disputed, he wrote against the excesses of mob rule.[5][6][7]

R. J. White wrote: "To put conservatism in a bottle with a label is like trying to liquify the atmosphere ... The difficulty arises from the nature of the thing. For conservatism is less a political doctrine than a habit of mind, a mode of feeling, a way of living."[8] Russell Kirk considered conservatism "the negation of ideology."[9]

Historians use the word "conservative" to describe governments and leaders from the earliest recorded times, but it was not until the Age of Enlightenment, and the reaction to events surrounding the French Revolution of 1789, that modern conservatism rose as a distinct political attitude or train of thought. Many point to the rise of a conservative disposition in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, specifically to the works of influential Anglican theologian, Richard Hooker, emphasizing moderation in the political balancing of interests towards the goals of social harmony and common good. Edmund Burke's polemic Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) helped conservatism gain prominence. Edmund Burke opposed the French Revolution, which he saw as violent and chaotic. Burke wrote, "A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation," but insisted that further change be organic rather than revolutionary.

Western conservatism has also been influenced by the Counter-Enlightenment works of Joseph de Maistre. Maistre argued for the restoration of hereditary monarchy, which he considered to be a divinely sanctioned institution, and for the indirect authority of the Pope over temporal matters. He also defended the principle of hierarchical authority, which the Revolution sought to destroy. Maistre published in 1819 his masterpiece Du Pape ("On the Pope"). The work is divided into four parts. In the first he argues that, in the church, the pope is sovereign, and that it is an essential characteristic of all sovereign power that its decisions should be subject to no appeal. Consequently, the pope is infallible in his teaching, since it is by his teaching that he exercises his sovereignty. In the remaining divisions the author examines the relations of the pope and the temporal powers, civilization and the welfare of nations, and the schismatic churches. He argues that nations require protection against abuses of power by a sovereignty superior to all others, and that this sovereignty should be that of the papacy, the historical saviour and maker of European civilization.

Conservatives strongly support the right of property, and Carl B. Cone, in Burke and the Nature of Politics, pointed out that this view, expressed as philosophy, served the interests of the people involved.[10] Conservatives diverge from classical liberalism in the tradition of Adam Smith.[11] Some conservatives look to a modified free market order, such as the American System, ordoliberalism, or Friedrich List's National System. The latter view differs from strict laissez-faire, in that the state's role is to promote competition while maintaining the national interest, community and identity.

Most conservatives strongly support the sovereign nation, and patriotically identify with their own nation. Nationalist separatist movements may simultaneously be both radical and conservative.

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James Cook

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Captain James Cook FRS RN (7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728 – 14 February 1779) was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.[1]

Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager[2] and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This allowed General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham, and helped to bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment both in his personal career and in the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.

Cook charted many areas and recorded several islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. His achievements can be attributed to a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, courage in exploring dangerous locations to confirm the facts (for example dipping into the Antarctic circle repeatedly and exploring around the Great Barrier Reef), an ability to lead men in adverse conditions, and boldness both with regard to the extent of his explorations and his willingness to exceed the instructions given to him by the Admiralty.[2]

Cook died in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779.

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The Categorical Imperative

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The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as modern deontological ethics. Introduced in Kant's ("Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals"), it may be defined as the standard of rationality from which all moral requirements derive.

According to Kant, human beings occupy a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in one ultimate commandment of reason, or imperative, from which all duties and obligations derive. He defined an imperative as any proposition that declares a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary. A hypothetical imperative compels action in a given circumstance: if I wish to quench my thirst, I must drink something. A categorical imperative, on the other hand, denotes an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an end in itself. It is best known in its first formulation:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."[1]

Kant expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the popular moral philosophy of his day, believing that it could never surpass the level of hypothetical imperatives: a utilitarian says that murder is wrong because it does not maximize good for the greatest number of people, but this is irrelevant to someone who is concerned only with maximizing the positive outcome for themselves. Consequently, Kant argued, hypothetical moral systems cannot persuade moral action or be regarded as bases for moral judgments against others, because the imperatives on which they are based rely too heavily on subjective considerations. He presented a deontological moral system, based on the demands of the categorical imperative, as an alternative.

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Natural Right

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Rousseau: You must abandon your natural right for the body politic and general will.

Hobbes: absolutism "natural right=anarchy"

Kant: natural right to use reason within the public sphere

Burke: natural rights are inherited

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Versimilitude

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the making of a fictional story to seem real. Reacting against Romance. Criticizes the "old way".

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Coffee

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Coffee houses
relates to public sphere
coffee was brought to the new world.

The great soberer: was thought to cure hangovers

Emblematic of middle class

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Dual Revolution

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French and Industrial (economic)

Democratic and Naturalism ideas

Nationalism

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Genius

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Romanticism
Lord Byron
"Prometheus": Goethe
Arrogance

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Third of May, 1808

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Painting by Francisco Goya

articulates spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies during occupation of 1808.

centers light on the spaniard making him christlike

Romantic art

19th century

one of first paintings of modern era

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Adalbert von Chamisso

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Cosmopolitan noble trying to reorder Europe after Napoleon

Voyage of Rurik
early 19th century
botanist of ship
diary of expedition

from Germany

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Moral Theory

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Immanuel Kant

What makes something good or bad?

Derived from reason

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Divine Command Theory

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Good is that which God commands us to do

moral laws: universal, derived from God, not objective, absolute

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Kant's account of Enlightenment

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Have courage to use own understanding

Rationality

18th century