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The Philosophy of the Enlightenment

Lecture 2

The Mind of the Enlightenment:

First a little on Ernst Cassirer: a student of Hermann Cohen, a neo-Kantian:
(vi): a phenomenology of the philosophic spirit; influence of Hegel on a basic Kantian
framework; (what would a Kantian framework consist in? What is Kants critical philosophy?) the a
priori is revisable, and represents the basic assumptions underlying human and scientific
knowledge in the current epoch. So it makes sense to talk of the The Mind of the
Enlightenment, the spirit of the agethis also owes a lot to Montesquieu, the spirit of the
laws.
Cassirers basic tack: the eighteenth century is building on the revisions in human knowledge
established by the scientific revolution, and self-consciously trying to work out their
implications and apply the methodology to new subjects in order to achieve a new synthesis of
knowledge. But actually Cassirer is as much a neo-Leibnizian as a neo-Kantian, as we shall see.
He is on the lookout for constitutive principles underlying and promoting new discoveries, as
well as for a dynamism underlying the progress of thought.
6 ff: Cassirer maintains that the 18th century is in awe of Newton, and adopts what he claims is
his methodology: hypotheses non fingo: I do not invent hypotheses: deduces laws from the
phenomena. Concern with observation, mathematical precision, beginning with Galileo. But
rejecting some key contributions of the scientific revolution by figures such as Descartes,
Leibniz, and portraying them as rationalists who dogmatically adopted a priori premises, rather
than beginning with experience.
We need to disentangle 3 strands here:
1. what actually took place in the 17th century, and what methodologies actually went into
the making of modern science.
2. how Newton and Locke, as well as 18th C figures like Voltaire and Condillac, often with
a political agenda, interpreted these developments for their own purposes.
3. how Cassirer interprets this in accordance with his Neokantian agenda. Actually, he
does not introduce very much distortion, and his history is surprisingly reliable.
1. Contributions of
Galileo (observation and reason, thought experiment with the two stones dropped from the
tower, analysis of the projectiles path as a parabola, primary vs. secondary qualities);
Kepler (precision + emphasis on realistic interpretation of hypotheses);
Descartes (movable extensions, geometrically described, extirpation of spirits and souls from
natural philosophy: huge impact of the mechanical philosophy);
Newton (reintroduction of force, refines Descartes laws, Galileos analysis of trajectories,
Keplers emphasis on precision, Bacons emphasis on induction: deduction of laws from the
phenomena, hypotheses for causal explanations come afterwards)

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Leibniz: attacks Newtons action at a distance in the same of the mechanical philosophy,
provides new foundations for mechanics with his philosophy of force (energy), posits new
principles of conservation of energy, and of least action, introduces calculus and differential
equations;
Bacons emphasis on experience and the utility of knowledge, Newtons Rules of Philosophizing,
Lockes attack on innate ideas. These 3 become the heroes of the Enlightenment, still to be
seen in an article in a recent Scientific American (since they are also heroes of the American
Revolution: Benjamin Franklin was part of the French Enlightenment!)
2. Voltaire Letters Concerning the English Nation, Condillac, Treatise on Systems
They very much take on credit Newtons and Lockes description of the empirical philosophy
(note that these are not at all the same). In contrast, Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche and
Leibniz had identified reason as essentially divine, with us partaking in it. The eternal truths are
those in the divine mind, and insofar as we can access them, we are able to intuit a priori
truths, such as those of mathematics. As Cassirer says, Voltaire and Condillac and others
reinterpret reason as the original intellectual force which guides the discovery and
determination of truth (13), rather than what is encapsulated in a grand metaphysical system of
deductions.
In actual fact, this is very unfair on Leibniz, who was every inch a Baconian concerning the
supreme utility of knowledge, empirical research, and reason as the Art of Discovery; whereas
Newton was much more of a dogmatist concerning the relation of God to the world.
With Voltaire a central thrust of Enlightenment thought is the detachment of scientific thought
from a theological foundation. It is this rather than an antipathy to reason that characterizes the
movement. And many of those involved are not atheists, e.g. Voltaire, who is a deist. But as is
indicated by his motto, ecrasez linfame!, he is an implacable enemy of the priesthood. Some
of the philosophes, though, are Abbs!
18ff. Locke to Condillac: C accepts the idea that the content of the mind comes from the
senses, but insists that the mind is not passive, but its faculties themselves are formed though
interaction with the environment: his statue. (24-25)
19ff: Hobbes: the body politic. The same kind of analysis that was undertaken for physical
bodies must be conducted for political bodies. How were they formed? The causal approach:
from Aristotle: we understand only what we can construct from original elements.
20ff: Montesquieu tries to do a Newton on this: it is not enough to understand politics
statically, we must account for any political equilibrium in terms of a balance of forces: freedom
is only possible when every force is limited and counterbalanced by an opposing force. Which of
Newtons laws? Histories of nations are but sequences of individual laws.
21-22: The concept of the principle: no longer has absolute, but only relative validity: it marks
a point at which the progress of knowledge has arrived.

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23: reduction of the complex to the simple, diversity to its basic identity. A good example if
Condillacs image of the statue. He begins by giving it just self-movement, from which it
develops the sense of touch, and is able to discriminate itself from its surroundings (concept of
self); then it is given one sense after another, and we see how it is able to build up a more and
more complete psychological arsenal, building up the various faculties like imagination and
judgement all the time concerned only with itself and its simple ideas.
25-6: how Helvetius brings this reductionist method to the point of parody with his ethics,
where he tries to reduce all human behaviour to the lower appetites and passions. All is
motivated by self-interest: egotism, vanity and ambition are the sole causes of all human
behaviour, and altruism, sympathy, morality etc. are reducible to selfish motives.
28ff. Leibniz:
(what do students know of his thought?)
how does his philosophy of substance represent a new trend of thought? In its dynamism: a
substance is a thing that acts (which mere matter by itself cannot do), while action is clearly
spelled out in terms of mechanical consequences: work done. no more in the entire effect than
is contained in the full cause, minimization of action (= work done over time, E x t).
29: a monad is only insofar as it is active. Something is only insofar as it is able to do. Also the
emphasis on development and transformation, the butterfly from the caterpillar
(Swammerdam), is an important factor in early pre-Darwinian theories of evolution.
31: Physics must take its starting point in observation and sense experience. Why? Because
eternal truths only concern essences, not particular existents. To know the latter we must
appeal to experience. Each individual substance is infinitely complex, and its concept infinitely
ramified. We know things by abstracting from this wealth of singular properties. Our
knowledge consists of knowing certain chains of cause and effect, or of deductions of some
abstract truths from others. We do not know the complete concept, so must appeal to
experience. So all the emphasis in Leibnizs epistemology is on the particular, the relative, and
not on deriving knowledge from a priori givens (although this can be done in mathematics,
which deals with abstractions, and wherever we deal with incomplete concepts).
33: The ideal centre of gravity of all philosophy has shifted. New emphasis not on clear and
distinct ideas, but on origin and the logic of individuality. (35-36) Voltaire and others belated
recognition.
La Mettrie
Does his materialism derive from Descartes mechanistic views and rejection of final causes, or
from Locke and Newton?
Is it possible that there is a way of reading Descartes that makes sense of both his mechanistic
writings and his writings in the Meditations? How?