Michael Furgiuele

HIST 616

First Examination

Dr. R. Luehrs, Instructor

January 25, 2005

 

What happened to the ideals of the Enlightenment during the French Revolution? How might EITHER the new conservatism OR the new German philosophy be considered as a response to both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution?

 

 

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth-century is associated with the identification of reason, progress, and the stability of nature which combines scientific and mathematical theories and breaks the ideas that all truth is known solely through religion.    From our lecture and study guide, we are able to identify the concepts associated with the Enlightenment and their impact on French society during the revolution.  In addition, we are able to recognize the impact that the Revolution eventually had on the longevity of the Enlightenment and how the remaining theories created a path toward nationalism and the Germany philosophy.

 

As writers, philosophers, poets and other intellectuals created a new system of thinking through solid and verifiable evidence; their impact was reflected in political, social and religious thought.  The French Revolution “shaped modern debates about political theory, the nature of historical change, the meaning of democracy, and the effects of social equality” (Kramer, 2001, p.16).  Unlike earlier philosophers like Voltaire, the theorists of the French Revolution were more radical.  Writers were more direct in their criticism of social and political inequities.  Writers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “wrote with passion and emotion” (Kramer, 2001, p.17).  Their ideas reflected the ideas of the Enlightenment, however, their ideas pushed for more national resolution and solidarity rather than “Stressing the universal value of reason” (Kramer, 2001, p.17).  Rousseau wrote of liberty and equality and spawned the revolutionary phrase “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” (Kramer, 2001).  Many of the revolutionaries were able to bring about a sense of liberty and equality by abolishing “legal privileges and promoted freedom of speech, press, religion, and trade” (Kramer, 2001, p.19).  Even the church lost much of its power during this period which also reflected the power of the Enlightenment to secure mans own decision over himself and his future.  However, at the end of the revolution and the Reign of Terror initiated by the Jacobins at the close of the eighteenth-century, Rousseau’s ideas of fraternite – or nationalism took a more prominent role.

 

Dr. Kramer points out that the French Revolution was the beginning and the end of the Enlightenment (lecture 4).  At the close of the revolution, many of the ideas of reason, progress and nature (lecture 3) were initiated, including advancements in human rights, legal reforms, and a government ruled by the people.  “Thus, though the Revolution broke much of the late Enlightenment optimism and much of the confident belief in human rights, reason, equality, and social change, it also provided the great modern example of radical ideas in action” (Kramer, 2001, p.20)

 

Like other nations who viewed the French Revolution as a historic point in intellectual thought (lecture 5), Germany embraced the ideas of Rousseau’s nationalism.  The early nineteenth-century became known as the “German “philosophical revolution” (Kramer, 2001, p.26).  German theorists such as Immanuel Kant, Johann Herder, and J.G. Fichte became contributors to Germany’s response to the ideas brought about during the French Revolution and supported the new idea of nationalism while creating a new “German Idealism, which stressed the role of mind over senses” (Kramer, 2001, p.27).

 

While Immanuel Kant embraced the ideals of the Enlightenment and acknowledged the contributions of Locke and England’s David Hume, Kant disagreed with the idea that knowledge is formed solely through sensory experience (lecture 6).  The mind of man accepts what the senses are providing but must have a basis of interpreting these sensory meanings.  As such, Kant reinforced that empirical data alone cannot be the sole basis for understanding.

 

Johann Herder rejected the Enlightenment theories of universalism as detailed by French writers and philosophers including Voltaire (lecture 6).  Herder drew a distinction between nationalistic human rights and universal human rights by adapting the theory of the Volksgeist which claimed that “each nation has its own distinctive spirit” (Kramer, 2001, p.28).  Herder blasted the ideas of the French ideas that what is good for one country should be equally projected to all nations.  He believed that each nation had its own identity routed in tradition and heritage and that this sense of nationalism is more important that universal equality.

 

Like Locke in France, Johann Gottlieb Fichte combined several elements from Herder and Kant to form a radical philosophical approach.  Fichte rejected the standard laws of science and mathematics and went beyond Newtonian physics to say that it is the individual mind which creates its own reality and existence (lecture 6).  Fichte believed in the Volksgeist theory developed by Herder in which “he argued that the Germans had a primordial spirit, different from that of the French that comprehended the world in a different way” (Kramer, 2001, p.29). Like Kant, he reinforced the idea that “the mind constructs the world” (Kramer, 2001, p.29).  Fichte’s ideas developed a renewed sense in national history and culture in which Dr. Kramer suggested “The new German theories stressed the distinctiveness of German culture but also emphasized a culturally specific Idealism rather than the empiricism and universalism of the earlier Enlightenment” (Kramer, 2001, p.30).

 

The philosophies of the early eighteenth-century Enlightenment laid the foundations for reforms which were gained during the French Revolution.  The ideas of reason, progress, and nature were transformed into Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite by the direct thinkers during the revolution.  Finally, the concepts surrounding Fraternite based on heritage and tradition generated further ideals in Germany and other nations and aid in the development of nationalism during the early nineteenth-century.