SOCS 641
The Enlightenment and the Birth of the Modern World
Th 7-9:30
Squash 115 (41 Wyllis)
Prof. Michael Printy
[email protected]
Office Hours:
Office: Squash 309
Phone: 685-5259
Fall 2012
The Enlightenment is said to have given birth to democracy, human rights, feminism, emancipation,
and secularism—in short, to the characteristic strivings of Western modernity. Yet it has also been
attacked for paving the way for totalitarianism, racist universalism, and modern bureaucratic genocide.
In this course we will study key texts and ideas from the Enlightenment, placing them in their historical
and social context of the eighteenth century. We will look at revolutions in thinking about history,
economy, society, science, government, and religion. How did the mind of the Enlightenment seek to
shape the future of European society? If traditional religious and political institutions were to be
superseded by secular culture and forms of governance, how was virtue to be preserved in a modern
commercial society? How did the Enlightenment react to its successes and, more importantly, its
failures? Was the Enlightenment exclusively a Western phenomenon? How are conceptualizations of
the Enlightenment today being employed in debates about the nature of modernity and pressing
questions about religion, secularism, and human rights? To answer these questions, we will look at a
few key interpretations of the Enlightenment. Older interpretations maintain that Enlightenment
thinkers refashioned Christianity in their construction of a “Heavenly City,” while others contend that
the “family” of philosophes were the agents of the “Rise of Modern Paganism.” More recent
interpretations have argued that the Enlightenment flowed from a uniformly materialistic and atheistic
source, spread through a clandestine network of courageous thinkers, whereas others characterize it as a
“family” of related national movements.
Assignments: Response papers (2 pp.) and participation
One 10-15 page paper
40%
60%
You must complete each assignment to pass the course
Course readings (marked with an *) are available on Moodle.
Response papers should not merely summarize the assigned text. Ideally, they should form the basis
for discussion in class. You can use your paper to raise questions about the reading or focus on a
specific point. You can also note contradictions or problems in the text. These are meant to be
reflective pieces, so you can also write about passages or ideas that seem unclear or confusing.
The final paper should be an in-depth analysis of one particular work pertinent to the course. A list
of potential topics will be handed out, though you are free to choose your own in consultation with
the instructor. You may also decide to analyze works of music or art when appropriate, after
consultation with the instructor. This paper is not meant to be a full-fledged research paper. The
bulk of you effort should be understanding and presenting the book or work you have chosen.
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However, you will also be expected to give a brief contextualization of you topic and argue for its
significance.
Readings
The following books are available for purchase at Broad Street Books. You may also purchase these
elsewhere. Alternate editions are usually OK, but please be careful when purchasing digital versions.
Since many of these works are out of copyright, cheap digital versions might be simply snatched from
the Internet without any editorial supervision or control, resulting in inferior or unreadable editions.
Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush (Brandeis
University Press, 1983) ISBN: 978-0-87451-264-9
Voltaire, Candide (Bedford-St. Matins, 1999) ISBN: 0-312-14854-2
Voltaire, Letters on England (Penguin, 1980) ISBN: 0140-44386X
Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, trans. Richard
Schwab (University of Chicago Press, 1995) ISBN: 0226134768
Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre, and other Episodes in French Cultural History (Basic
Books, 1984, 2009) ISBN: 0465012744 [First ed. OK]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch
(Cambridge University Press, 1997) ISBN: 0521424453
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women and a Vindication of the Rights of Man
(Oxford, 2009), ISBN: 019955546X
Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2005) ISBN: 0521546818
Schedule
9/13
Introduction: What was the Enlightenment?
Background Lecture: Europe after 1648
Reading: Outram, chapters 1-3; *Horkheimer, “Reason against itself;” *Foucault, “What is
Critique?” “*MacIntyre, After Virtue, chapters 4 and 5; *Israel, “Enlightenment! Which
Enlightenment?”
9/20
The European Crisis of Conscience and the Early Enlightenment
Reading: Voltaire, Letters on England; Anonymous, *Treatise of the Three Imposters; *Cronk,
“Introduction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire
9/27
Mind, Body, and Soul: Rethinking Human Nature
Reading: *Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, chapters 1-4; 10; *La
Mettrie, Man a Machine; *Roy Porter, “The Enlightenment,” in The Greatest Benefit to
Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Suggested: *John Biro, “Hume's New Science of the Mind”
10/4
The Natural Sciences
Outram, chapter 7; *Jan Golinski, “Chemistry,” in The Cambridge History of Science; *Antoine
Lavoisier, “Preface of the Author,” from Elements of Chemistry (1789), trans. Robert Kerr
(1790); *Thomas Hankins, “Natural History and Physiology,” from Science and the
Enlightenment; *Buffon, “Initial Discourse” from Natural History, General and Particular;
*McClellan, “Scientific Institutions and the Organization of Science”
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10/11 The Encylopédie
Readings: D’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encylopedia of Diderot; *Selected Articles
from the Encylopédie; Darnton, “Philosophers Trim the Tree of Knowledge,” in The Great Cat
Massacre
10/18 Social History and the Enlightenment
Readings: Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre; La Vopa, “Conceiving a Public;” *Lessing, “Ernst
and Falk: Dialogues for Freemasons”
10/25 Rousseau: Enlightenment or Counter-Enlightenment?
Readings: Rousseau, “Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts,” “Discourse on the Origin and
Foundations of Inequality among Men,” in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings;
Darnton, “Readers Respond to Rousseau,” in The Great Cat Massacre
11/1
Literature and Social Critique
Reading: Voltaire, Candide; *Anonymous, Therèse Philosophe; *Darnton, “Introduction,” in
Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France
11/8
Enlightenment and European Exploration
Outram, chapters 4-5; *Raynal, “History of the Two Indies,” (selection); *Diderot, Supplement
to the Voyage of Bougainville
11/15 The Religious Enlightenment
Outram, chapter 8; Mendelssohn, Jerusalem; *Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment, chapters 1
and 4
11/29 Thanksgiving Break
11/29 Women and the Enlightenment
Outram, chapter 6; Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women; *Joan B. Landes,
Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution, chapter 1
12/6
The French Revolution and the Enlightenment Legacy
Outram, chapter 9; *Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (selection); *Barruel,
Memoires Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (selection); *Paine, Rights of Man (selection)
Suggested: *Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times, chapters 5-6 (brief survey of French
Revolution)
12/14 Final Paper Due
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