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165-487: Unless the copyright status of the text of this page or section is clarified and determined to be compatible with Misplaced Pages's content license , the problematic text and revisions or the entire page may be deleted one week after the time of its listing (i.e. after 23:42, 17 October 2024 (UTC)). Until then, this page will be hidden from search engine results until the copyright issue is resolved. The Republic of Letters ( Res Publica Litterarum or Res Publica Literaria )

330-589: A skeptic Bayle only partially accepted the philosophy and principles of rationality. He did draw a strict boundary between morality and religion. The rigor of his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique influenced many of the Enlightenment Encyclopédistes . By the mid-18th century the French Enlightenment had found a focus in the project of the Encyclopédie . The philosophical movement

495-400: A 5 a.m. rising, through a morning of domestic duties, letter writing, and errands, to the afternoons she devoted twice a week to her salon." Although some historians, such as Dena Goodman, associate Geoffrin and other salonnières with intellectual life, other researchers depict the salons as the realm of anti-intellectual socialites. For example, with no education or remarkable mental gifts of

660-525: A God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined; that is, since atheists gave themselves to no supreme authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society. Bayle observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honor and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society. Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law,

825-455: A collection of spaces and resources focused around the court as a center of power and distribution of favors. Lilti paints a picture of a reciprocal relationship between men of letters and salonnières. Salonnières attracted the finest men of letters through gift-giving or regular allowance in order to boost the reputation of the salons. For salon hosts and hostesses, they were not merely sources of information, but also important points of relay in

990-457: A community. The philosophes , by contrast, represented a new generation of men of letters who were consciously controversial and politically subversive. Moreover, they were urbane popularizers, whose style and lifestyle was much more in tune with the sensibilities of the aristocratic elite who set the tone for the reading public. Goodman's approach has found favor with the medical historian Thomas Broman . Building on Habermas, Broman argues that

1155-579: A drab period in the history of science. The century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy ; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry. The influence of science began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Richard Blackmore committed

1320-412: A fiction of equality that never dissolved differences in status but nonetheless made them bearable. The "grands" (high-ranking nobles) only played the game of mutual esteem as long as they kept the upper hand. Men of letters were well aware of this rule, never confusing the politeness of the salons with equality in conversation. As well, the advantages that writers gained from visiting salons extended to

1485-562: A good religion based in instinctive morals and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers, and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology. Several novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including deism and talk of atheism . According to Thomas Paine , deism is the simple belief in God

1650-469: A gradual movement towards an international Respublica with set channels of communication and particular points of focus (e.g. university towns and publishing houses), or simply the home of a respected figure. Many learned periodicals began as imitations or rivals of publications originating after the mid-17th century. It is generally acknowledged that the Journal des Sçavans , a French journal started in 1665,

1815-427: A handful of women to participate in the Enlightenment. "The salonnières of the Enlightenment were a small number of women who knew and admired one another, lived lives of regularity rather than dissipation, and were committed both to their own education and the philosophes' project of Enlightenment." Dena Goodman's notion of the centrality of the salonnières in creating Enlightenment institutions places Madame Geoffrin at

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1980-548: A knighthood and a very lucrative government office. A common theme among most countries which derived Enlightenment ideas from Europe was the intentional non-inclusion of Enlightenment philosophies pertaining to slavery. Originally during the French Revolution, a revolution deeply inspired by Enlightenment philosophy, "France's revolutionary government had denounced slavery, but the property-holding 'revolutionaries' then remembered their bank accounts." Slavery frequently showed

2145-403: A radical critique of worldliness, inspired by Rousseau. These radicals denounced the mechanisms of polite sociability and called for a new model of the independent writer, who would address the public and the nation. Antoine Lilti argues that the salon never provided an egalitarian space. Rather, salons only provided a form of sociability where politeness and congeniality of aristocrats maintained

2310-573: A rhetoric. For her, it was essentially an open-minded discourse of discovery where like-minded intellectuals adopted a traditionally feminine mode of discussion to explore the great problems of life. Enlightenment discourse was purposeful gossip and indissolubly connected with the Parisian salons. In 2003, Susan Dalton published Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Private Spheres . Dalton supports Dena Goodman's view that women played

2475-532: A role in the Enlightenment. In 1995, Anne Goldgar published Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 . Goldgar sees the Republic as a cluster of learned scholars and scientists, whose correspondence and published works (usually in Latin) reveal a community of conservative scholars with preference for substance over style. Lacking any common institutional attachments and finding it difficult to attract aristocratic and courtly patrons,

2640-459: A role in the collapse of the Ancien Régime . This attention to the mechanisms of dissemination and promotion has led historians to debate the importance of the Republic of Letters during the Enlightenment. In 1994, Dena Goodman published The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment . In this feminist work, she described the Enlightenment not as a set of ideas but as

2805-463: A scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity . Modern sociology largely originated from this movement, and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison (and thus the U.S. Constitution), and as popularised by Dugald Stewart was the basis of classical liberalism . In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations , often considered

2970-478: A society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of

3135-476: A society that agreed with Madame Chemineau's (her grandmother's) position." She also states, "Her earliest schoolmasters were Fontenelle , the abbe de Saint-Pierre , and Montesquieu . Madame de Tencin played a large role in Madame Geoffrin's rise in society. Goodman states, "Madame Geoffrin made a daring step for a devout girl when, at the age of eighteen, but already a wife and mother, she began to frequent

3300-417: A sort that leave permanent traces, she was the best representative of the women of her time who held their place in the world solely through their skill in organizing and conducting a salon. She was in no sense a luminary; and conscious that she could not shine by her own light, she was bent upon shining by that of others." Denise Yim adds that "these women considered themselves the purveyors, the disseminators,

3465-474: A strong influence on colonial American letters. During this period, the variety of institutions used for transmitting ideas did not exist in America. Aside from the largely arbitrarily assembled booksellers' stocks, an occasional overseas correspondence, and the publisher's or printer's advertisements to be found in the back of the books, the only way colonial intellectuals could keep alive their philosophical interests

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3630-511: A team of 150 others. The Encyclopédie helped in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond. Other publications of the Enlightenment included Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Voltaire's Letters on the English (1733) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764); Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1740); Montesquieu's The Spirit of

3795-494: A transatlantic Republic of Letters began about 1690, when John Dunton launched a series of journalistic ventures, nearly all of them under the aegis of a forward-looking "club" called the Athenian Society , an English predecessor of Harvard's Telltale Club, Franklin's Junto , and other such associations dedicated to mental and moral improvement. The Athenian society took it as one of their particular goals to spread learning in

3960-518: A true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the Word of God alone . He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate. Anthony Collins , one of the English freethinkers , published his "Essay concerning

4125-400: A true periodical press was slow, but once this principle was established it was only a matter of time before printers would perceive that the public was also interested in the world of scholarship. Formerly the domain of "les savants " and " érudits ," the Republic of Letters now became the province of "les curieux ." Historians have long understood that the English and French periodicals had

4290-545: A type of formalized continuity in the salons. Though it has been argued that women did not appear in salon societies, the training of salonnières was undertaken by older women in the same position. Dena Goodman states, "Indeed, the history of the eighteenth century salon is a history of female apprenticeships, where younger women, such as Madame Geoffrin learned from older women, such as Madame de Tencin , and Julie de Lespinasse and Suzanne Necker learned in turn from Madame Geoffrin." Therefore, Madame Geoffrin spent many years in

4455-556: A weekly periodical entitled the Telltale was inaugurated by a group of students, including Ebenezer Pemberton , Charles Chauncy , and Isaac Greenwood . As the Telltale's subtitle – "Criticisms on the Conversation and Behaviours of Scholars to promote right reasoning and good manners" – made explicit, it was a direct imitation of the English genteel periodical. One of the best examples of

4620-457: A wider version of the Enlightenment cultural practices as well as downgrading "all other seemingly enlightened woman." Antoine Lilti, in countering many of Goodman's arguments, would debase the idea that Madame Geoffrin acted as a participant in the new sociability of Enlightenment society. Instead he claims that the politeness and gift giving would have been unthinkable without the presences of fashionable men of letters, which attracted to her salon

4785-426: Is evident, although they do not say so themselves, that Julie de Lespinasse, Madame Geoffrin and Madame Vigee-Lebrun also improved themselves in their own salons. This representation has been debased by much of the recent literature. Janet Burke and Margaret Jacob write that by placing only, "a handful of selfless salonnières (such as Geoffrin) at the centre of Enlightenment history, Goodman is effectively obliterating

4950-426: Is grounded in a ruler's habitual authority and force. It is precisely because of the ruler's authority over-and-against the subject that the subject tacitly consents, and Hume says that the subjects would "never imagine that their consent made him sovereign," rather the authority did so. Similarly, Ferguson did not believe citizens built the state, rather polities grew out of social development. In his 1767 An Essay on

5115-503: Is no reason to contradict the widely held view that the salon was a feminist space insofar as it was more often than not presided over by a woman who gave it tone and structure." However, he states, "But it is one thing to say that the presence of a woman is a distinguishing feature of salons and another to argue that female dominance set them apart from other institutions of elite sociability." He adamantly believes that, "Salonnières generally exercised no political power outside their role in

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5280-544: Is reputed to have offered Madame Geoffrin and her daughter opportunities to present themselves at the French Court. It was an honor that was refused (on more than one occasion) by the salonnières. Another salonnière, the Marquise du Deffand, can be said to have competed against Madame Geoffrin for the friendship of many prominent men of letters. Aldis writes, "There had always been a kind of tacit rivalry between Madame Geoffrin and

5445-452: Is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers." Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by Hutcheson's protégés in Edinburgh : David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a major figure in

5610-691: Is the father of all journals. The first of the Dutch-based ones, and also the first of the genuinely "critical" journals, the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres , edited by Pierre Bayle , appeared in March 1684, followed in 1686 by the Bibliothèque Universelle of Jean Le Clerc . While French and Latin predominated, there was also soon a demand for book news and reviews in German and Dutch. The evolution of

5775-581: The philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution . Francis Hutcheson , a moral philosopher and founding figure of the Scottish Enlightenment , described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue

5940-492: The Declaration of Independence ; and Madison incorporated these ideals into the U.S. Constitution during its framing in 1787. Locke, one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, based his governance philosophy in social contract theory, a subject that permeated Enlightenment political thought. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in this new debate with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of

6105-469: The French Revolution of 1789—both had some intellectual influence from Thomas Jefferson. One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the " consent of the governed " philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the " divine right of kings ." In this view,

6270-505: The Royal Society in 1662, with its open door, was particularly important in legitimizing the Republic of Letters in England and providing a European center of gravity for the movement. The Royal Society primarily promoted science, which was undertaken by gentlemen of means acting independently. The Royal Society created its charters and established a system of governance. Its most famous leader

6435-621: The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom . Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of Locke, Bacon, and Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived. The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries and influenced nations globally, often with a specific local emphasis. For example, in France it became associated with anti-government and anti-Church radicalism, while in Germany it reached deep into

6600-468: The skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England's earliest feminist philosophers. She argued for

6765-544: The state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal and with the right to life , liberty, and property. However, when one citizen breaks the law of nature both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke said that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an "unbiased judge" or common authority, such as courts. In contrast, Rousseau's conception relies on

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6930-739: The suppression of the Jesuits , and the expulsion of religious orders . Contemporary criticism, particularly of these anti-religious concepts, has since been dubbed the Counter-Enlightenment by Sir Isaiah Berlin . The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the Scientific Revolution . Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , René Descartes , Thomas Hobbes , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke , Pierre Bayle , and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . Some of figures of

7095-624: The Affairs of Europe now turn." Locke's theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Some philosophes argued that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism , the scientific method, religious tolerance , and

7260-762: The Creator with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his creed , which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time. Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of orthodox belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism." Some followed Pierre Bayle and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men. Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in

7425-561: The Criminal Trial, 1787), which established him as an international authority on criminal law. The Enlightenment has long been seen as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture. The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. This thesis has been widely accepted by scholars and has been reinforced by

7590-711: The Enlightenment has become an orthodoxy in the Anglo-Saxon world. Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment ) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries. The Enlightenment featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law , liberty , and progress , toleration and fraternity , constitutional government , and

7755-464: The Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria , George Berkeley , Denis Diderot , David Hume , Immanuel Kant , Lord Monboddo , Montesquieu , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Adam Smith , Hugo Grotius , and Voltaire . One influential Enlightenment publication was the Encyclopédie ( Encyclopedia ). Published between 1751 and 1772 in 35 volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert , and

7920-402: The Enlightenment was a movement of intellectual transparency and laicization. While members of the Republic of Letters lived hermetically sealed from the outside world, talking only to one another, their enlightened successors deliberately placed their ideas before the bar of a nascent public opinion. Broman essentially sees The Republic of Letters as located in the cabinet and the Enlightenment in

8085-580: The Enlightenment were individual liberty , representative government, the rule of law , and religious freedom , in contrast to an absolute monarchy or single party state and the religious persecution of faiths other than those formally established and often controlled outright by the State. By contrast, other intellectual currents included arguments in favour of anti-Christianity , Deism , and even Atheism , accompanied by demands for secular states , bans on religious education, suppression of Monasteries ,

8250-530: The Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was marked by an increasing awareness of the relationship between the mind and the everyday media of the world, and by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism , along with increased questioning of religious dogma — an attitude captured by Kant's essay Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? , where the phrase sapere aude ('dare to know') can be found. The central doctrines of

8415-403: The Enlightenment." Goodman writes: "Geoffrin, who acted as a mentor and model for other salonnières, was responsible for two innovations that set Enlightenment salons apart from their predecessors and from other social and literacy gatherings of the day. She invented the Enlightenment salon. First, she made the one-o'clock dinner rather than the traditional late-night supper the sociable meal of

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8580-509: The French government, was eager to accept Frederick's invitation to live at his palace. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance and prejudice... to enlighten minds, cultivate morality, and to make people as happy as it suits human nature, and as the means at my disposal permit." The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the American Revolution of 1776 and

8745-585: The Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Leopold II of Tuscany and Joseph II of Austria. Joseph was over-enthusiastic, announcing many reforms that had little support so that revolts broke out and his regime became a comedy of errors, and nearly all his programs were reversed. Senior ministers Pombal in Portugal and Johann Friedrich Struensee in Denmark also governed according to Enlightenment ideals. In Poland,

8910-715: The History of Civil Society , Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without agreeing to a social contract. Both Rousseau's and Locke's social contract theories rest on the presupposition of natural rights , which are not a result of law or custom but are things that all men have in pre-political societies and are therefore universal and inalienable. The most famous natural right formulation comes from Locke's Second Treatise, when he introduces

9075-488: The Laws (1748); Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762); Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764); Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776); and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Bacon's empiricism and Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking. Descartes' attempt to construct

9240-501: The Literary Republic, literary women shared such sociability as society at large afforded. This varied widely in America from one locality to one another. Very soon after the introduction of printing with moveable type, the Republic of Letters became closely identified with the press. The printing press also played a prominent role in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through

9405-531: The Marquise du Deffand; the aristocratic Marquise sneered at her rival's low origin for the business and want of education, while Madame Geoffrin might well have ignored her taunts in the success of her salon, indisputably, the most celebrated in Paris and the civilized world."Geoffrin's relationship with her daughter is one exception to the continuity between women in the salons. Madame de la Ferté-Imbault, upon hearing her mother's suggestion to begin her own salon, organized

9570-450: The Monday and Wednesday dinners of Madame Geoffrin was an honor greatly coveted by foreigners passing through Paris. The hostess herself had gained a European reputation even before her journey to Poland, and to dine with Madame Geoffrin was by some people considered almost as great an honor as being presented at Versailles." " Yim continues, "Whether it was Madame Geoffrin's design to attract all

9735-741: The Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades. James Thomson penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton," which mourned the loss of Newton and praised his science and legacy. Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a " science of man ," which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett , Adam Ferguson , John Millar , and William Robertson , all of whom merged

9900-512: The Order of Lanurelus, a type of counter-salon that acted in opposition to the serious salons of the Philosophes. The Order of Lanurelus (of which de la Ferté-Imbault proclaimed herself Grand Mistress) ran from 1771 until around the time of Geoffrin's death in 1777. "It was a forum not for the philosophes and their Republic of Letters, but for the anti-philosophe campaign. Goodman writes, "The battle of

10065-612: The Present Time . The Young Students Library , like the Universal Historical Bibliothèque of 1687, was made up almost entirely of translated pieces, in this case mostly from the Journal des Sçavans , Bayle's Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, and Le Clerc's and La Crose's Bibliothèque Universelle et Historique . The Young Students Library of 1692 was exemplary of the kind of material to be found in later forms of

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10230-560: The Republic of Letters and thus become cosmopolitans. In Paris specialization was taken to new heights where, in addition to existing Académie Française and the Académie des Sciences founded in 1635 and 1666, there were three further royal foundations in the 18th century: the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1701), the Académie de Chirurgie (1730), and the Société de Médecine (1776). By

10395-403: The Republic of Letters; the other, the trivial Enlightenment of the Parisian philosophes . The first is a product of a peculiarly English/British and Protestant liberal political and theological tradition and points to the future; the second lacks the anchor of socio-historical analysis and leads unintentionally to Revolutionary mayhem. In the 1930s, the French historian Paul Hazard homed in on

10560-548: The Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge, in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. Some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became

10725-660: The Use of Reason in Propositions the Evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony" (1707), in which he rejects the distinction between "above reason" and "contrary to reason," and demands that revelation should conform to man's natural ideas of God. In the Jefferson Bible , Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels, and the resurrection of Jesus after his death , as he tried to extract

10890-468: The absolutist government was very strong. The early enlightenment emerged in protest to these circumstances, gaining ground under the support of Madame de Pompadour , the mistress of Louis XV . Called the Siècle des Lumières, the philosophical movement of the Enlightenment had already started by the early 18th century, when Pierre Bayle launched the popular and scholarly Enlightenment critique of religion. As

11055-402: The academies they supported. Mixed intellectual company was also found in 18th-century Philadelphia for those who sought it, sometimes in social gatherings modeled upon the salons of London and Paris. Where mixed social intercourse of a literary nature was concerned, Americans were virtuously and patriotically inclined to be wary of European examples. Conscious of the relative purity as well as

11220-459: The afternoon gatherings at the home of Madame de Tencin." After Madame de Tencin's death in December 1749, Madame Geoffrin inherited many of de Tencin's former guests, thereby solidifying her own salon. Madame Geoffrin's popularity in the mid-eighteenth century came during a time where the center of social life was beginning to move away from the French court and toward the salons of Paris. Instead of

11385-454: The age of Pierre Bayle and argued that the cumulative effect of the many different and mordant strands of intellectual curiosity in the last quarter of the 17th century created a European cultural crisis, whose negative harvest the philosophes were to reap. The Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment were insolubly interconnected. Both were movements of criticism. According to Peter Gay , building on Ernst Cassirer 's much earlier study of

11550-466: The arts is also emblematic of a more international connection. Her correspondence with both Catherine the Great of Russia and King Stanislaw August of Poland, as well as several other dignitaries and heads of state often centered around the commission of several paintings that were often hung in her salon. On the relationship between Geoffrin and Stanislaw, the academic Maria Gordon-Smith writes, "The King knew Madame Geoffrin in Paris from his youthful days on

11715-481: The beginning of the Enlightenment. European historians traditionally dated its beginning with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Many historians now date the end of the Enlightenment as the start of the 19th century, with the latest proposed year being the death of Immanuel Kant in 1804. In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates. Philosophers and scientists of

11880-484: The capital, they began to meet together and make their collaboration on the project of Enlightenment direct, and thus suffered the consequences of giving up the mediation that the written word provided. Without this traditional kind of formal mediation, the philosophes needed a new kind of governance. The Parisian salon gave the Republic of Letters source of political order in the person of the salonnière, for she gave order both to social relations among salon guests and to

12045-488: The circulation of praise. From one salon to the next, in conversation as in correspondence, men of letters gladly praised the social groups who welcomed them. In turn, the salon hostess had to be able to prove their capacity to mobilize as many high society contacts as possible in favor of their protégés. Consequently, correspondences openly display network of influence, and the woman of high society employed all their know-how to help benefit those men of letters whose elections to

12210-413: The citizens of their Republic could meet in Parisian salons any day of the week. The salons were literary institutions that relied on a new ethic of polite sociability based on hospitality, distinction, and the entertainment of the elite. The salons were open to intellectuals, who used them to find protectors and sponsors and to fashion themselves as 'hommes du monde.' In the salons after 1770 there emerged

12375-536: The clergy of all churches and was a plea for deism. Roy Porter argues that the reasons for this neglect were the assumptions that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and that it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order. Porter admits that after the 1720s England could claim thinkers to equal Diderot , Voltaire, or Rousseau. However, its leading intellectuals such as Gibbon, Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supportive of

12540-482: The community created the Republic of Letters to boost morale as much as for any intellectual reason. Goldgar argues that, in the transitional period between the 17th century and the Enlightenment, the most important common concern by members of the Republic was their own conduct. In the conception of its own members, ideology, religion, political philosophy, scientific strategy, or any other intellectual or philosophical framework were not as important as their own identity as

12705-466: The company of Madame de Tencin, herself a highly influential salonnière, and in turn, spent much time cultivating her own protégées, namely Madame Necker and Madame Lespinasse, who would attempt to continue the salon tradition after her death. One woman allowed admission into Madame Geoffrin's salon, Madame d'Etioles, who was to become Madame la Marquise de Pompadour after earning the French King's interest,

12870-503: The cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state to provide technical expertise. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society. In the 18th century, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe, and by 1789 there were over 70 official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined

13035-809: The day, and thus she opened up the whole afternoon for talk. Second, she regulated these dinners, fixing a specific day of the week for them. After Geoffrin launched her weekly dinners, the Parisian salon took on the form that made it the social base of the Enlightenment Republic of Letters : a regular and regulated formal gathering hosted by a woman in her own home which served as a forum and locus of intellectual activity." Her dinners were held twice weekly. Mondays were specifically for artists. Wednesdays were generally reserved for Men of Letters. Goodman writes, "Enlightenment salons were working spaces, unlike other Eighteenth-century social gatherings, which took place as their model." She continues, "The Enlightenment

13200-462: The development of free speech and thought. There were immediate practical results. The experiments of Antoine Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris, and the experiments of the Montgolfier brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot air balloon in 1783. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and

13365-523: The discourse in which they engaged. When Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin launched her weekly dinners in 1749, the Enlightenment Republic of Letters found its ‘center of unity’. As a regular and regulated formal gathering hosted by a woman in her own home, the Parisian salon could serve as an independent forum and locus of intellectual activity for a well-governed Republic of Letters. From 1765 until 1776, men of letters and those who wanted to be counted among

13530-401: The earlier, seventeenth-century salons of the high nobility, Madame Geoffrin's salon catered generally to a more philosophical crowd of the Enlightenment period. Goodman, in "Enlightenment Salons," writes, "In the eighteenth century, under the guidance of Madame Geoffrin, Julie de Lespinasse , and Suzanne Necker , the salon was transformed from a noble, leisure institution into an institution of

13695-401: The egos of others (males) without imposing her own upon them." In relation to her (possible) conception and patronage of the highly regarded historical artist Carle Van Loo's painting, Une Conversation the historian Emma Barker writes, "most recent commentators have agreed in locating the interest and significance of these works in their having been commissioned by an exceptional female patron,

13860-609: The entire Enlightenment include England and others ignore it, although they do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison , Edward Gibbon , John Locke, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope , Joshua Reynolds , and Jonathan Swift . Freethinking , a term describing those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible, can be said to have begun in England no later than 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his "Discourse of Free-thinking," which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacked

14025-429: The establishment of widely disseminated journals. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. The main reason was that it provided correspondence between the author and the person who owned the printing presses – the publisher. This correspondence allowed the author to have a greater control of its production and distribution. The channels opened up by the great publishing houses provided

14190-447: The ever fashionable French model of mistress of the salon, drawing upon feminine social adroitness in arranging meetings of minds, chiefly male, and the ever unfashionable English bluestocking model of no-nonsense, cultivated discourse, chiefly among women. Outside literary salons and clubs, society at large was mixed by nature, as were the families that constituted it. And whether or not men of letters chose to include femme savants in

14355-437: The finest representatives of the Parisian and European aristocracy, and which permitted her to appear as a protector of talents and an accomplished socialite." The historian Steven Kale discounts the entire theory that Madame Geoffrin (and salonnières in general) played a significant role in the Enlightenment. Kale examines the differences in the roles of men and women in the public sphere before and after 1789. He states, "There

14520-934: The first modern geologist. Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in influencing British and French thinkers. Franklin was influential for his political activism and for his advances in physics. The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment ran in both directions across the Atlantic. Thinkers such as Paine, Locke, and Rousseau all take Native American cultural practices as examples of natural freedom. The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu. As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland and Matthew Tindal . There

14685-496: The first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century. It was immediately preceded and influenced by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot 's drafts of Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator. Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher, and politician and one of

14850-400: The formal separation of church and state . The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlaps the Scientific Revolution and the work of Johannes Kepler , Galileo Galilei , Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , and Isaac Newton , among others, as well as the rationalist philosophy of Descartes , Hobbes , Spinoza , Leibniz , and John Locke . Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to

15015-465: The formation of public opinion, and salons were not centers of political intrigue. Kale states, "Salonnières were engaged in a common social practice, the goal of which was not to achieve for women a role in public affairs but to serve the public needs of men, whether intellectuals or politicians, who had the power to determine the limits of women's public participation." Kale rejects the notion that Geoffrin held any semblance of power; his argument debases

15180-419: The fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual, the natural equality of all men, the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state), the view that all legitimate political power must be " representative " and based on the consent of the people, and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever

15345-410: The government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with

15510-403: The grand tour in 1753, when he was entrusted to her care by her father. After his election, Madame Geoffrin became his adviser and agent in all matters connected with the choice and purchase of French Art." In her relationship to salons, Madame Geoffrin occupies a very contentious space in Enlightenment historiography. On the broadest level of representation, Madame Geoffrin stands as one of only

15675-502: The great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece Dei delitti e delle pene (Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764). His treatise, translated into 22 languages, condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology and the classical school of criminology by promoting criminal justice . Francesco Mario Pagano wrote important studies such as Saggi politici (Political Essays, 1783); and Considerazioni sul processo criminale (Considerations on

15840-445: The heart of the Enlightenment sociability. She writes, "Under the guidance of Marie-Therese Geoffrin, Julie de Lespinasse and Suzanne Necker, Parisian salons became the civil working spaces of the project of Enlightenment." Goodman uses Geoffrin to argue that salonnières in the eighteenth century represented a re-shaping of an existing form of sociability that would serve the ambitions of the women who ran them. Goodman states, "In using

16005-568: The hearts and minds of the elite of the eighteenth century was, for a few years, fought out in a single house on the rue Saint-Honoré!" The debate surrounding Madame Geoffrin as a patron of the arts centers around gender divisions and sociability in eighteenth century France. Geoffrin, considered by many contemporaries to be one of the most influential patrons of art, supported many artists and commissioned several works. Dena Goodman, in what has been criticized as perhaps an idealized feminist theory, suggests, "The salonnière's art...allowed her to manage

16170-501: The hostess of a celebrated Parisian salon whose guests included some of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment." Barker argues that the Conversation may be seen to represent a self-consciously feminocentric vision of history." Dena Goodman, in her Republic of Letters , claims that, "the paintings embody the serious spirit of Geoffrin's salon and observes that they depict two activities that dominated salon sociability: conversation and reading out loud." Madame Geoffrin as patron of

16335-554: The importance of the Republic of Letters in influencing the Enlightenment . Today, most British or American historians, whatever their point of entry to debate, occupy a common ground: the Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment were distinct. The mid-17th century had seen the community of the curious take its first tentative steps towards institutionalization with the establishment of permanent literary and scientific academies in Paris and London under royal patronage. The foundation of

16500-404: The inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power." This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion," born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from

16665-440: The intellectual progenitors of Kant , the Enlightenment was the creation of a small group of thinkers, his family of philosophes or ‘party of humanity’, whose coherent anti-Christian, ameliorist, and individualistic programme of reform developed from very specific cultural roots. The Enlightenment was not the offspring of the Republic of Letters, let alone the culmination of three centuries of anti- Augustinian critique, but rather

16830-495: The key to imposing reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated by reason and justice—in other words, be a " philosopher-king ." In several nations, rulers welcomed leaders of the Enlightenment at court and asked them to help design laws and programs to reform the system, typically to build stronger states. These rulers are called "enlightened despots" by historians. They included Frederick

16995-405: The large-scale studies by Robert Darnton , Roy Porter , and, most recently, by Jonathan Israel. Enlightenment thought was deeply influential in the political realm. European rulers such as Catherine II of Russia , Joseph II of Austria , and Frederick II of Prussia tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism . Many of

17160-458: The law does not explicitly forbid. Both Locke and Rousseau developed social contract theories in Two Treatises of Government and Discourse on Inequality , respectively. While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed , is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines

17325-462: The law of nature because a person cannot surrender their own rights: freedom is absolute, and no one can take it away. Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one's natural rights. The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as they more often look to absolute monarchs as

17490-520: The learned periodical in England. Expressly lamenting the absence in England of periodicals, the Young Students Library was designed to fill the need in America for periodical literature. For Americans it served, according to David D Hall, as: An expansive vision of learnedness, articulated especially during the Revolutionary period, as a means of advancing 'liberty' and thereby fulfilling

17655-811: The limitations of the Enlightenment ideology as it pertained to European colonialism, since many colonies of Europe operated on a plantation economy fueled by slave labor. In 1791, the Haitian Revolution , a slave rebellion by emancipated slaves against French colonial rule in the colony of Saint-Domingue , broke out. European nations and the United States, despite the strong support for Enlightenment ideals, refused to "[give support] to Saint-Domingue's anti-colonial struggle." The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been hotly debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks on British history make little or no mention of an English Enlightenment. Some surveys of

17820-505: The long-held idea that the female-run salons were, "institutions of democratic sociability." Instead, he bases much of his critics of earlier historians on the idea that salonnières such as Madame Geoffrin reaffirmed the aristocratic institutions of the Old Regime. He writes, "The genius of salons, and of salonnières, lay in their ability to maintain a delicate balance between exclusivity and openness, between "inclusions and exclusions", so that

17985-485: The main goal of enlightenment. According to Derek Hirst , the 1640s and 1650s saw a revived economy characterised by growth in manufacturing, the elaboration of financial and credit instruments, and the commercialisation of communication. The gentry found time for leisure activities, such as horse racing and bowling. In the high culture important innovations included the development of a mass market for music, increased scientific research, and an expansion of publishing. All

18150-493: The major political and intellectual figures behind the American Revolution associated themselves closely with the Enlightenment: Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into

18315-572: The market-place. For most Anglo-American historians, the classic Enlightenment is a forward-looking movement. To these historians, the Republic of Letters are an outdated construction of the 17th century. But in John Pocock 's eyes there are two Enlightenments: one, associated with Edward Gibbon , the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , which is erudite, serious, and scholarly grounded in

18480-446: The middle classes, where it expressed a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without threatening governments or established churches. Government responses varied widely. In France, the government was hostile, and the philosophes fought against its censorship, sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile. The British government, for the most part, ignored the Enlightenment's leaders in England and Scotland, although it did give Newton

18645-574: The model constitution of 1791 expressed Enlightenment ideals, but was in effect for only one year before the nation was partitioned among its neighbors. More enduring were the cultural achievements, which created a nationalist spirit in Poland. Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, saw himself as a leader of the Enlightenment and patronized philosophers and scientists at his court in Berlin. Voltaire, who had been imprisoned and maltreated by

18810-464: The moderate variety, following Descartes, Locke, and Christian Wolff , which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, and, second, the Radical Enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic whereas

18975-454: The moral and collective legislative body constituted by citizens. Locke is known for his statement that individuals have a right to "Life, Liberty, and Property," and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. Tutored by Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury , wrote in 1706: "There is a mighty Light which spreads its self over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom

19140-445: The most eminent foreigners to her salon, thereby spreading the reputation of her home throughout Europe, as Marmontel wrote, or whether this was the natural consequence of the presence of so many philosophes and Encyclopédistes , it was a fact that no foreign minister, no man or woman of note who arrived in Paris failed to call on Madame Geoffrin in the hope of being invited to one of her select dinners." Madame Geoffrin exemplified

19305-499: The most fundamental level. The salonnière played a prominent role in establishing order within the Republic of Letters during the Enlightenment period. Beginning in the 17th century, salons served to bring together nobles and intellectuals in an atmosphere of civility and fair play in order to educate one, refine the other, and create a common medium of cultural exchange based on the shared notion of honnêteté that combined learning, good manners, and conversational skill. But government

19470-416: The nurturers, the very guardians of taste in the belles lettres , in the fine arts, and in the music. Their own peculiar art consisted of pleasing." "Maintaining the tensions between inner satisfaction and outer negation which made Geoffrin the model salonnière was not easy." Antoine Lilti also rejects the notion that Geoffrin and other salonnières 'governed' an intellectual arena. Lilti focuses, rather, on

19635-538: The organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophes in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change. Although much of Enlightenment political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, Hume and Ferguson criticized this camp. Hume's essay Of the Original Contract argues that governments derived from consent are rarely seen and civil government

19800-496: The period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies , Masonic lodges , literary salons , coffeehouses and in printed books , journals , and pamphlets . The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism, socialism , and neoclassicism , trace their intellectual heritage to

19965-504: The philosophical men of letters and talented artists that frequented her house is emblematic of her role as guide and protector. In her salon on the Rue Saint-Honoré , Madame Geoffrin demonstrated qualities of politeness and civility that helped stimulate and regulate intellectual discussion. Her actions as a Parisian salonnière exemplify many of the most important characteristics of Enlightenment sociability. Born in 1699, Madame Geoffrin

20130-600: The political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime. De Tocqueville "clearly designates... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power." It does not require great art or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of

20295-559: The practical Christian moral code of the New Testament . Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of organized religion and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding Judaic law ). Moses Mendelssohn advised affording no political weight to any organized religion but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing. They believed

20460-420: The promise of a republican America. It drew together political radicals and religious dissenters on both sides of the Atlantic, who drew from their shared struggles against a corrupted Parliament and the Church of England a common agenda of constitutional reform. Anglo-American historians have turned their attention to the Enlightenment's dissemination and promotion, inquiring into the mechanisms by which it played

20625-414: The protection by their hosts. The salons provided crucial support in the career of an author, not because they were literary institutions, but, on the contrary, because they allowed men of letters to emerge from the circles of the Republic of Letters and access the resources of aristocratic and royal patronage. As a result, instead of an opposition between the court and the Republic of Letters they are instead

20790-498: The provinciality of their society, Americans did not seek to replicate what they perceived as the decadent societies of London and Paris. Nevertheless, to facilitate social intercourse of a literary nature where women were involved, Americans, led by certain strong-minded women, did draw upon and domesticate two models of such mixed intellectual company, one French and the other English. In America intellectually motivated women consciously emulated these two European models of sociability:

20955-451: The publication of René Descartes ' Discourse on the Method in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything unless there was a well-founded reason for accepting it, and featuring his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and

21120-427: The qualities of politeness that were required for the participation in French high society. She was completely devoted to the management and organization of her salon, and of the patrons that frequented it. Madame Geoffrin could be defined by the ordered consistency of all her actions. "Regularity was part of a greater sense of organization that defined all aspects of Madame Geoffrin's life and every hour of her day, from

21285-461: The radical tendency separated the basis of morality entirely from theology. Both lines of thought were eventually opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment which sought a return to faith. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. After the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, the relationship between church and

21450-415: The result of the singular marriage of Lucretius and Newton . When a handful of French freethinkers in the second quarter of the 18th century encountered the methodology and achievements of Newtonian science, experimental philosophy and unbelief were mixed together in an explosive cocktail, which gave its imbibers the means to develop a new science of man. Since Gay's work was published, his interpretation of

21615-417: The result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions." The "Radical Enlightenment" promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea that is often credited to Locke. According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that

21780-407: The revolutions were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. A governance philosophy where the king was never wrong would be in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government. Alexis de Tocqueville proposed the French Revolution as

21945-416: The roles, duties, and activities of scholarship. Communication, for example, did not have to be from individual to individual; it could take place between academies, and pass thence to scholars, or be encapsulated in literary journals, to be diffused among the whole scholarly community. Literary agents, working for libraries but sharing the values of the learned community, demonstrate this professionalization on

22110-744: The salonnières' practice of politeness and gift giving. In relation to Madame Geoffrin, Lilti writes, "there exists numerous testimonials about the gifts that Madame Geoffrin bestowed upon the writers who regularly attend her salon, from the pieces of the silverware offered to the Suards, the silver pans and 2,000 gold écus presented to Thomas. He continues, "writers were not the only ones to benefit from this generosity. Madame Geoffrin received artists every Monday, securing contracts for them among high society collectors and even commissioned artwork for herself. Madame Geoffrin's notebooks mention that these artists also received regular gifts." For Lilti, Geoffrin's gift giving

22275-495: The same father and creatures of the same God? Voltaire (1763) Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years' War . Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining

22440-409: The sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier. Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies , which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Scientific academies and societies grew out of

22605-544: The sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus (1670) and Ethics (1677). According to Jonathan Israel , these laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first,

22770-558: The second half of the 18th century universities abandoned Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galenist medicine in favor of the mechanist and vitalist ideas of the moderns, so they placed a greater emphasis on learning by seeing. Everywhere in teaching science and medicine the monotonous diet of dictated lectures was supplemented and sometimes totally replaced by practical courses in experimental physics, astronomy, chemistry, anatomy, botany, materia medica , even geology and natural history . The new emphasis on practical learning meant that

22935-747: The social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, Thomas Jefferson calls for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia and authored

23100-442: The social gathering and transforming it to meet their own needs, Madame Geoffrin and salonnières like her created a certain kind of social and intellectual space that could be exploited by the expanding group of intellectuals who were beginning to call themselves "philosophers." The historian Denise Yim loosely agrees with Goodman on the idea that salonnières did use their position for a more serious educational purpose. She writes, "It

23265-414: The standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England and had succeeded such that the culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism, and religious toleration, positions which intellectuals on the continent had to fight against powerful odds. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent and emphasized the improvement of individuals as

23430-411: The state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security or the idea that one cannot infringe on another's natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, as well as the right to preserve life and property. Locke argues against indentured servitude on the basis that enslaving oneself goes against

23595-417: The supposition that "civil man" is corrupted, while "natural man" has no want he cannot fulfill himself. Natural man is only taken out of the state of nature when the inequality associated with private property is established. Rousseau said that people join into civil society via the social contract to achieve unity while preserving individual freedom. This is embodied in the sovereignty of the general will ,

23760-459: The term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet . Some historians have marked the 18th century as

23925-439: The term in its Latin form ( Respublica literaria ) is in a letter by Francesco Barbaro to Poggio Bracciolini dated July 6, 1417. Currently, the consensus is that Pierre Bayle first translated the term in his journal Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in 1684. But there are some historians who disagree and some have gone so far as to say that its origin dates back to Plato's Republic . Historians are presently debating

24090-413: The tone, guided the conversation, and could influence the fortunes of those appearing there." She continues, "The most influential salonnière was perhaps Madame Geoffrin of the rue Saint-Honoré, who managed to attract the largest number of distinguished foreigners to her home." A lady of great renown, Geoffrin's salon catered to a wide range of foreign dignitaries and distinguished guests. "An invitation to

24255-530: The trends were discussed in depth at the newly established coffee houses . In the Scottish Enlightenment , the principles of sociability, equality, and utility were disseminated in schools and universities, many of which used sophisticated teaching methods which blended philosophy with daily life. Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as schools, universities, reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums, and masonic lodges. The Scottish network

24420-429: The university now offered a much more welcoming environment to the Republic of Letters. Although most professors and teachers were still uninterested in membership, the ideological and pedagogical changes across the century created the conditions in which the pursuit of curiosity in the university world became much more possible and even attractive. Institutions – academies, journals, literary societies – took over some of

24585-654: The vernacular. One of the plans of this group in 1691 was the publication of translations from the Acta Eruditorum , the Journal des Sçavans , the Bibliothèque Universelle , and the Giornale de' Letterati . The outcome was the formation of The Young Students Library, containing Extracts and Abridgements of the Most Valuable Books Printed in England and in the Foreign Journals from the year Sixty-Five to

24750-410: The wedding, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named also Marie Thérèse, and the future Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault. Her second child, a son, (who was to die later in childhood) was born two years later. It was not until Madame Geoffrin was over thirty years old that her connection to the salons would become established. Her husband, Pierre François Geoffrin died 20 December 1749, a fact that

24915-622: The widower Pierre François Geoffrin, a lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard and a prosperous general cashier of the Saint-Gobain Venetian mirror manufactory. Despite the fact that he was forty-nine years old, and Marie Thérèse was barely fourteen years old, Monsieur Geoffrin had inherited a substantial fortune from his first wife, and the chance for "an excellent settlement" was thought to be quite suitable by Madame Chemineau. The marriage took place on 19 July 1713. Nearly two years after

25080-628: Was Isaac Newton , president from 1703 until his death in 1727. Other notable members include diarist John Evelyn , writer Thomas Sprat , and scientist Robert Hooke , the Society's first curator of experiments. It played an international role to adjudicate scientific findings, and published the journal "Philosophical Transactions" edited by Henry Oldenburg . The seventeenth century saw new academies open in France, Germany, and elsewhere. By 1700 they were found in most major cultural centers. They helped local members contact like-minded intellectuals elsewhere in

25245-589: Was "predominantly liberal Calvinist , Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment." In France, Voltaire said "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen , physician and chemist; James Anderson , agronomist ; Joseph Black , physicist and chemist; and James Hutton,

25410-493: Was a French salon holder who has been referred to as one of the leading female figures in the French Enlightenment . From 1750 to 1777, Madame Geoffrin played host to many of the most influential Philosophes and Encyclopédistes of her time. Her association with several prominent dignitaries and public figures from across Europe has earned Madame Geoffrin international recognition. Her patronage and dedication to both

25575-704: Was a great emphasis upon liberty , republicanism , and religious tolerance . There was no respect for monarchy or inherited political power. Deists reconciled science and religion by rejecting prophecies, miracles, and biblical theology. Leading deists included Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason and Thomas Jefferson in his short Jefferson Bible, from which he removed all supernatural aspects. Marie Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se Rodet Geoffrin Marie Thérèse Geoffrin ( French pronunciation: [maʁi teʁɛz ʁɔdɛ ʒɔfʁɛ̃] , née Rodet ; 26 June 1699 – 6 October 1777)

25740-409: Was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy , was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history , which included anatomy , biology , geology, mineralogy , and zoology . As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized

25905-412: Was for the socialites who exchanged little gifts with each other, but instead made a financial relationship part of urbane sociability––especially when the rapport became more or less permanent in the form of allowances, such as the ones that Madame Geoffrin bestowed upon d'Alembert , Thomas, and the abbé Morellet." Madame Geoffrin's personal acquaintance with many other influential salonnières indicates

26070-479: Was hardly noticed by Mme Geoffrin's visitors—indeed, Madame Geoffrin hardly seemed to notice herself. Geoffrin was unable to receive a formalized education. It has been suggested, most notably by Dena Goodman, that the salon itself acted as a schoolhouse, where Geoffrin and other salonnières could train. Goodman writes, "For Madame Geoffrin, the salon was a socially acceptable substitute for a formal education denied her not just by her grandmother, but more generally by

26235-491: Was led by Voltaire and Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law , and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution . While

26400-530: Was needed because, while the Republic of Letters was structured in theory by egalitarian principles of reciprocity and exchange, the reality of intellectual practice fell far short of this ideal. French men of letters in particular found themselves increasingly engaged in divisive quarrels rather than in constructive debate. With the establishment of Paris as the capital of the Republic, French men of letters had enriched traditional epistolary relations with direct verbal ones. That is, finding themselves drawn together by

26565-430: Was not a game, and the salonnières were not simply ladies of leisure killing time. On the contrary, Enlightenment salonnières were precisely those women who fought the general malaise of the period by taking up their métier." Madame Geoffrin's role was central to her identity as a French hostess. Historian Denise Yim writes: "The most distinguished salonnières were discerning women who selected their company with care, set

26730-403: Was nothing more than a reaffirmation of social inequities. He states, "the exchange of gifts, of course, was a common practice in all areas of high society, but it took on a particular social signification in the case of gifts given to men of letters, since the absence of reciprocity rendered the relationship asymmetrical. It was more about simply reinforcing a social bond through gift-giving, as it

26895-474: Was the first child of a bourgeois named Pierre Rodet, a valet de chambre for the Duchess of Burgundy, and Angélique Thérèse Chemineau, the daughter of a Parisian Banker. Marie Thérèse's mother died a year later in giving birth to her son Louis. At age seven, Marie Thérèse and her brother were taken to live with their grandmother Madame Chemineau on the rue Saint-Honoré. At thirteen, she was engaged to be married to

27060-597: Was the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas. It fostered communication among the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment , or philosophes as they were called in France. These communities that transcended national boundaries formed the basis of a metaphysical Republic. Because of societal constraints on women, the Republic of Letters consisted mostly of men. The Republic of Letters relied heavily on handwritten letters for correspondence. The first known occurrence of

27225-700: Was through the reporting in periodical literature . Examples include Benjamin Franklin , who cultivated his perspicuous style in imitation of the Spectator . Jonathan Edwards 's manuscript Catalogue of reading reveals that he not only knew the Spectator before 1720 but was so enamored of Richard Steele that he tried to get his hands on everything: the Guardian , the Englishman , the Reader , and more. At Harvard College in 1721

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