Ideas of enlightenment in Western Europe. Age of Enlightenment (Europe)
It is no coincidence that the Enlightenment period in Europe is called the “age of reason”: neither before nor after it were the virtues of human Reason so highly valued. Reason was put on a pedestal by Europeans, and this was done to the detriment of other human abilities, which were not very revered or even deliberately belittled. At that time, Europe seemed to have woken up: the Age of Enlightenment gave the world a galaxy of powerful talents that advanced philosophy, natural sciences, economics, politics, history, and education. Humanity “grew from voluntary immaturity” (Davis, 2005: 439). A gigantic breakthrough was made to new knowledge, although the downside was subsequently a series of extremely brutal European revolutions. Such a continuation was natural: the Enlightenment in Europe cannot be considered only an elitist process - it fundamentally transformed the life of all social strata and classes.
Philosophers of the Enlightenment were primarily engaged in epistemology, that is, they tried to understand what exactly we know and how we acquire new knowledge. A real revolution in philosophy and social sciences produced by the German thinker Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). It was he who most fully and clearly formulated the concept of Enlightenment as the moral and intellectual liberation of the individual. According to Kant, which still sounds very relevant today, “enlightenment is a person’s exit from the state of his minority, in which he is of his own free will. Juvenility is the inability to use one's reason without the guidance of someone else. A self-inflicted minority is one the cause of which is not a lack of judgment, but a lack of determination and courage to use it without the guidance of someone else. Sapere aMe! - have the courage to use your own mind! - this is, therefore, the motto of the Enlightenment” (Kant, 1966: 26-27).
English philosophers John Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685 - 1753) and David Hume (1711-1776) also made a significant contribution to the formation of the spiritual foundations of the Enlightenment. Thus, Locke substantiated the assumption that all human knowledge stems purely from experience. Berkeley went in the same direction, convincingly revealing the role of sensory perception in the formation of human ideas about the external world. Finally, Hume, while studying the mechanisms on which religious faith rests, came to the conclusion that it is impossible to rationally justify it. The research of these thinkers was closely related to the work undertaken in the natural sciences by Isaac Newton (1643-1727). The laws he formulated universal gravity and mechanics determined the basis of the generally accepted picture of the world for more than two hundred years to come. The main idea that the new physics substantiated was that the world around man is a world of order, and order in its most fundamental natural relations, despite the presence of a supernatural root cause, which was assumed by many enlighteners. One of the most important priorities of the Enlightenment was rational economics, and progress - an extremely important concept for that era - was justified both theoretically and practically. In the most advanced European countries, the achievements of scientific thought were “converted” into economic practice; for example, land development using scientifically based Dutch methods radically changed the appearance of a number of low-lying areas of Europe. At the same time, Adam Smith (1723-1790) proposed an innovative “code of laws” of the market, which described the mechanisms of production, competition, and pricing. It is interesting that modern economics is still inspired by the problems posed by this Scottish economist.
In the political sphere, the Enlightenment was marked by the formulation basic principles harmonization of social life and reasonable structure of the state. It was then that the ideas of separation of powers and mutual restraint of the executive and legislative powers were formulated. As presented by Charles Louis de Montesquieu (1689-1755), these postulates, which limited absolute power and have become textbook in our time, sounded like this: “In every state there are three branches of power: legislative, executive power over those things that depend on the rights of the people, and the executive branch associated with civil law. ... But nothing will work if the same person exercises all three powers: the making of laws, the execution of public decrees, and the power to judge crimes” (quoted in Davis, 2005: 444).
The fact that the Enlightenment was based on rational knowledge and the cult of reason explains the fashion for compiling encyclopedias inherent in this era, which sometimes became a kind of mania. The most famous in this field was the grandiose project undertaken by the Frenchman Denis Diderot (1713-1784) which involved the compilation of a fundamental encyclopedia (or explanatory dictionary) of the sciences, arts and crafts. The goal of this undertaking was to summarize all the knowledge accumulated by humanity by that time. The craving for extreme generalization was a reflection of boundless faith in the capabilities of the mind. By the way, during the Age of Enlightenment, the famous Encyclopedia Britannica appeared - a project that turned out to be, although not as large-scale, but much more durable.
So, the culture of the Enlightenment was affirmed by a wide range of people working in a variety of directions. At the same time, two figures personified her in to the greatest extent- on the one hand, by the widest range of professions and many social roles that they brilliantly played in their life path, and on the other, by the contradictions that naturally arose between them. Voltaire (1694-1778), writer, historian and philosopher, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), musician, writer and philosopher, were brought together by great goals. But their views did not coincide in almost anything. While Voltaire appealed to enlightened elites, Rousseau appealed to the people. Voltaire advocated a civilization based on reason, and Rousseau warned against the corrupting influence that it brings with it. Finally, the problem of social inequality worried Voltaire to a much lesser extent than Rousseau. It was the second of these thinkers who came up with the phrase widely quoted by revolutionaries of all subsequent centuries: “Man is born free, and yet he is in chains everywhere.”
Century Enlightenment associated with the promotion of ideas of a social contract, natural law, personal freedom, freedom of conscience. Enlightenment figures fought to establish the “kingdom of reason.” Belief in the limitless possibilities of the human mind gave rise to ideas about the possibility of building a society on reasonable, fair principles. Many of the enlighteners pinned their hopes on an enlightened monarch who would put their ideas into practice. The largest representatives of the Enlightenment were J. Locke (1632 – 1704) in England; Voltaire (1694 – 1778), J.J. Rousseau (1712 – 1778), C. Montesquieu (1689 – 1755), D. Diderot (1713 – 1784) in France; G. Lessing (1729 – 1781), N.G. Herder (1744 – 1803), F. Schiller (1759 – 1805) in Germany; T. Jefferson (1743 - 1826), B. Franklin (1706 - 1790) in the USA. In Russia, the ideology of the Enlightenment was presented by M.V. Lomonosov (1711 - 1765), N.I. Novikov (1744 – 1818), A.N. Radishchev (1749 – 1802).
Enlighteners assigned a large place to the dissemination of knowledge in achieving a new social order. French thinkers - members of D. Diderot's circle published from 1751 to 1776 the Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. The encyclopedia, according to their plan, was supposed to unite all the knowledge of humanity that was modern at that time. True, the ideas of the enlighteners were somewhat schematic, which manifested themselves, in particular, in their views on the nature of society and man. They likened society to an organism, and the human body to a mechanical structure. From here they thought it possible to derive absolute laws, following which humanity would be happy.
The merit of the enlighteners lies in their powerful criticism of the contemporary world order, especially royal power and religion. If the criticism of the church and religious obscurantism was well deserved, then the very foundations of the religious worldview were perceived by them too simplistic; some of the enlighteners were materialists.
In the second half of the 18th century, in connection with the pan-European economic and demographic boom, the ruling circles of European states began to affirm the need to modernize the economic and political system. This phenomenon is called enlightened absolutism.
The essence of the policy of enlightened absolutism was to, without essentially changing the state forms of the absolute monarchy, carry out reforms from above in the economic, political, cultural areas, aimed at modernizing outdated phenomena of the feudal order. The policy of enlightened absolutism was carried out partly by the Prussian king Frederick II the Great (1740 - 1785), and most consistently by the German emperor Joseph II (1765 - 1790). Having inherited the Austrian possessions (1780 - 1790), he spent a whole series reforms: liberation of peasants from serfdom, allotment of land to them, improvement of legal proceedings, etc.
The views of the enlighteners prepared the ground for the growth of revolutionary sentiments in society. Absolutism, the political role of the nobility, and the inability to influence the order in the state no longer satisfied the bourgeoisie, which had accumulated enormous wealth. These reasons, as well as the decline in the prestige of royal power and the deterioration of the position of the masses, caused the bourgeois revolution in France(1789 – 1794).
Historical significance The Great French Revolution is that it decisively put an end to the feudal-absolutist system and cleared the ground for the development of capitalism.
England was the leader in the development of productive forces from European countries. She became home industrial revolution in the 18th century. The main sign of the industrial revolution was the replacement of manual labor with mechanical and machine labor as a result of the invention of the steam engine by the Englishman J. Watt in 1769. This invention opened the way to further acceleration and improvement of machine production. There was a transition from manufactories with manual labor to factories and factories based on the use of machines, which meant the final victory of capitalism in the sphere of production.
The result was the complete dominance of England in the world market and in world colonial politics. The 18th century was the time of the creation of the English colonial empire, the main parts of which were North America, including Canada, which was taken from France, and India, from where they also managed to oust the French.
The processes that took place in Great Britain, as it began to be called in the 18th century, are, of course, not characteristic of all of Europe, but this was precisely the pattern that followed for development in all other countries that had embarked on the path of development of capitalism.
Among the most important events of the 18th century is education of the United States of America.
In the middle of the 18th century North America there were 13 English colonies independent from each other. The colonies were governed by governors appointed by the English king. Based on common territory, English language, the presence and awareness of common economic and political interests, and the unity of religion, the American nation was formed. The colonies quickly gained strength, striving for economic and political independence. However, the policy of the English king and parliament was aimed at significantly limiting the freedom of economic activity in the colonies, dooming them to the role of sources of raw materials and huge incomes. This situation did not suit the local population. In the spring of 1775, the armed struggle of the colonists with the royal troops began, and later a standing army was created on the basis of regular training. On July 4, 1776, a congress was held in Philadelphia that adopted the Declaration of Independence, authored by T. Jefferson. The Declaration proclaimed the principle of popular sovereignty as the basis of the state structure, asserting the right of the people to rebel against their enslavers
France, Spain, Holland, and Prussia fought on the side of the American army. On September 3, 1783, a peace treaty was signed, according to which England recognized the independence of the United States. In 1787, the Constitution was adopted, which enshrined the principle of separation of three powers; the United States was proclaimed a Republic with a President elected for four years, Congress and great powers. Supreme Court. All 13 states retained a large degree of autonomy in deciding their internal affairs. The first president in 1789 was the commander-in-chief of the army of the colonists, George Washington.
So, a comparison of the socio-economic and political development of the leading countries of Europe in the 18th century shows that the most rapid growth of industry was observed at its two poles - in the far West, in the early bourgeois states, as well as in France with its already developed bourgeois way of life, and on the other hand, in the Far East, in Russia, where, despite the dominance of the feudal system, profound changes are taking place in the economic and social development associated with the era of Peter I.
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Enlightenment (era) Education, the ideological trend of the era of transition from feudalism to capitalism, associated with the struggle of the emerging bourgeoisie and the masses against feudalism. In a number of countries of Western Europe (where P. spread in the 18th century, and partly, for example, in England, in the 17th century), this movement was so broad and influential that its contemporaries already had the idea of what had replaced the “dark Middle Ages.” » the Age of Enlightenment (French siècles des lumières, German Zeit der Aufkiärung, English Age of Enlightenment). The term "P. found in Voltaire, I. Herder and others; it was finally established after I. Kant’s article “What is Enlightenment?” (1784). Historical and philosophical science of the 19th century. began to characterize P. as an era of boundless faith in human reason (“the age of reason”, “the age of philosophers”), in the possibility of rebuilding society on reasonable grounds, as an era of the collapse of theological dogmatism, the triumph of science over medieval scholasticism and church obscurantism. K. Marx and F. Engels showed that P. is a stage in the history of anti-feudal ideology; they distinguished in P. its ideological form and the social and class content behind it. Based on this, Marxist science expanded the scope of the concept of philosophy, which, along with narrow rationalist doctrines, began to include other anti-feudal ideological movements of the era (for example, Rousseauism; the Sturm und Drang movement in Germany). V. I. Lenin in the article “What inheritance are we refusing?” (1897), characterizing the progressive direction of pre-Marxist social thought, for the first time showed that P. took place not only in Western Europe, but also in Russia. Modern Soviet researchers, studying the problems of P., draw on material relating not only to P. in Western European countries and North America, but also similar ideological movements in countries Eastern Europe, East, considering, therefore, P. not as a local, but as a world-historical phenomenon.
Along with the term "P." the term “enlightenment” is used as an unambiguous term; Sometimes these concepts are differentiated, with some scientists considering the concept of “enlightenment” to be broader, others - “P.” One can also find in the literature an understanding of the Enlightenment as a “reduced,” incomplete version of philosophy, as well as as an ideological movement of a “secondary” order (that is, one that arose in some countries under the influence of the ideas of Western European philosophy).
Education in Western Europe and North America. P.'s ideology arose in conditions of crisis of the feudal system, the emergence in its depths of capitalist relations of production, giving rise to new social contradictions and forms of class struggle.
Western European P. was connected with many threads Renaissance. This was recognized and emphasized by the enlighteners themselves. They inherited from the figures of the Renaissance humanistic ideals, admiration for antiquity, historical optimism, and free-thinking. Both the first and the second revalued previous values, questioned old (feudal church) dogmas, traditions and authorities. However, the ideology of P. arose at a more mature stage of the formation of the capitalist structure and the anti-feudal struggle. Therefore, the Enlightenment criticism of feudalism was sharper and deeper than the Renaissance, affecting the entire structure of society and the state. “... In the 18th century, the bourgeoisie became strong enough to create its own ideology, corresponding to its class position...” (F. Engels, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 21, p. 294). P.'s ideologists raised the question of the practical structure of the future society, considering political freedom and civil equality to be its cornerstones; therefore, their criticism was directed not only against the despotism of the church, but also against the despotism of an absolute monarchy. They opposed the entire feudal system with its system of class privileges; V.I. Lenin noted that the enlighteners were inspired by “... heated hostility towards serfdom and all its products in the economic, social and legal field” (Complete collection of works, 5th ed. , vol. 2, p. 519). P.'s ideology became an active factor helping to undermine the old, feudal system. P. (especially in France) was a direct ideological preparation for the bourgeois revolution - P.'s leaders “... enlightened their heads for the approaching revolution...” (F. Engels, see . Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 20, p. 16). In the era of P., advanced anti-feudal ideas ceased to be the property of a narrow circle of ideologists. The number of books, brochures, pamphlets, and leaflets (including banned ones) that propagated educational ideas and addressed to a wide democratic reader increased significantly. The era of P. in Western Europe was preceded by a widespread development in the 17th century. general progress of real knowledge necessary for the needs of material production, trade and navigation. Scientific activities T. Hobbes, R. Descartes, G. W. Leibniz, I. Newton, B. Spinoza and the Dutch Cartesians (see. Cartesianism) marked an important stage in the liberation of science from the spiritual power of religion, the rapid growth of exact and natural sciences - physics, mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, the formation of modern materialism (albeit in its metaphysical, mechanistic form and only in the explanation of nature). Scientific and technological progress accompanied and contributed to the formation of anti-feudal ideology.
It permeated the philosophical views of the Enlightenment, which were formed in accordance with the science of that time. Many enlighteners developed materialistic teachings about matter as the only reality possessing an infinite variety of properties. In polemics with theistic teaching (see. Theism) about the creation of the world by God, they considered nature as an initially organized whole, connected by a chain of natural cause-and-effect relationships and laws. In the theory of knowledge, a sensualistic direction was developed (see. Sensationalism), which denied the existence innate ideas(including the idea of God), and considered sensations, perceptions (the result of influence on a person) as the source of human knowledge outside world). Remaining mainly within the framework of mechanistic and metaphysical materialism, the materialists of the P. era (primarily French) approached a dialectical understanding of nature on a number of important issues. For the first time in the history of philosophy, they made atheistic and socio-political conclusions from materialism, directed against the feudal worldview and social system.
The enlighteners contrasted the feudal-religious dogmas about the divine origin of monarchical power and all feudal institutions with rationalistic theories of society and the state, morality and even religion itself ( deism, the idea of “natural religion”, religion of reason).
The cult of reason is associated with the desire of the enlighteners to subordinate the social system to the ideal, rational principle, government agencies(who should, in their opinion, take care of the “common good”), and the lives of people (social mores and customs). The feudal system and its institutions were regarded as “unnatural”, “unreasonable”. In matters of social development, the enlighteners were idealists; their theories, based on abstract ideas about unchanging human nature, about “man in general,” were distinguished by their anti-historicism and metaphysics. But under those conditions these theories, in particular the theory natural law, based on the idea of the innate equality of people, ideologically substantiated the demands of democratic freedoms. The theory was directed against the feudal-absolutist state social contract, according to which the state was not a divine institution, but an institution that arose through the conclusion of an agreement between people; this theory gave the people the right to deprive the power of a sovereign who violates the terms of the contract and poorly protects the natural rights of citizens. Some of the enlighteners pinned their hopes on the “enlightened monarch”, hoping that absolutism, which had already deprived the feudal lords of their political independence and carried out reforms aimed at eliminating provincial isolation and establishing the political unity of the nation, would in the future carry out the necessary bourgeois reforms - an idea arose enlightened absolutism.
However, that part of the educators who largely represented the interests of the people went much further, defending the ideas of popular sovereignty and a democratic republic.
In the field of economics, most educators considered competition between private interests normal and demanded the introduction of free trade and legal guarantees of private property from feudal restrictions and arbitrariness (economic theories are associated with economics physiocrats and other directions classical bourgeois political economy).
The weapon of struggle against the feudal worldview was also history, which they viewed as a “school of morality and politics.” The most characteristic features of the Enlightenment views on history are: the expulsion of theology from the explanation of the historical process; a sharply negative attitude towards the Middle Ages (which were declared an era of ignorance, fanaticism, religious prejudice, and tyranny); admiration for antiquity (here the enlighteners sought confirmation of their ideals); historical optimism, faith in progress, viewed as the progressive development of culture, trade, industry, technology; world-historical approach, the idea of humanity as a single whole, recognition of the natural nature of historical development (subject to certain “natural laws”).
══In accordance with the entire system of views of the Enlightenment, with faith in the great transformative power of reason was their special attention to the problems of education. They not only mercilessly criticized the remnants of the medieval education system, but also introduced new principles into pedagogical science (J. Locke, C. A. Helvetius, D. Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, and later the Swiss democratic pedagogue I. G. Pestalozzi and etc.) - ideas of the decisive influence of the environment on upbringing, natural equality of abilities, the need for upbringing to correspond to human nature, the natural inclinations of the child, the requirement of real education, etc.
Pedagogical figures contrasted Christian-religious morality with its inherent idea of renunciation from worldly goods and the unconditional subordination of the individual to the church-feudal hierarchy with the ideas of emancipation of the individual, emancipation from the bonds of feudal morality, religion, class and other restrictions, individualistic theories of “reasonable egoism,” morality based on common sense. But in the same era (especially on the eve of the Great French Revolution), other ethical and humanistic principles also developed - the idea of a new citizenship arose, which required self-restraint of the individual, discipline of the individual in the spirit of revolutionary morality - the good of the state, the republic is placed above the good of the individual.
Not only P.’s philosophy, views on history, politics, morality, but also the aesthetic views of the enlighteners, their artistic creativity formed into a single system, permeated with the denial of feudal ideology and the spirit of struggle for the emancipation of the individual. P.’s ideology found expression in various artistic movements of literature and fine arts: educational classicism, educational realism,sentimentalism(which in many ways came into contact with educational realism); none of them became the direction that solely expressed the era; in most cases they coexisted. But all these artistic movements carried an educational ideological message. They were characterized by the affirmation of a certain norm and the denial of everything that violates or distorts it. Enlightenment realism proceeded from a norm established by reason; its violation was denounced or ridiculed in satirical genres of literature, while the affirmation of the norm (a certain ethical or social ideal) was personified in the images of positive heroes of a family novel, the so-called. bourgeois drama. For sentimentalists, the norm of human behavior was “natural,” so they recognized the priority not of reason, but of feelings, which was a unique form of protest against class prejudices, political violence and other forms of violation of the norm (natural rights). The aesthetics of Enlightenment classicism posed the problem of the conflict between the ideal of a person and his real image; The “good nature” of a person was contrasted with a “social” person, a “product of the environment” who violates an ethical norm (ideal). Writers of the P. era are characterized by the desire to bring literature closer to life, to turn it into an effective factor transforming social mores. P.'s literature was distinguished by a pronounced journalistic, propaganda element; she carried high civic ideals, the pathos of establishing a positive hero, etc. In the most outstanding works of educational fiction, the well-known limitations of educational thinking, didacticism, and edification were overcome. Vivid examples of educational fiction were given by Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, P. O. C. Beaumarchais (France), G. E. Lessing, the young I. V. Goethe and F. Schiller (Germany), S. Richardson, G. Fielding , T. J. Smollett, R. B. Sheridan (England) and many others. The leading role among literary genres was played by the satirical and family novel, the “novel of education,” and the satirical and moralizing novel.
Main directions in fine arts This era was classicism, which acquired a distinctly educational connotation (for example, in the work of the architect C. N. Ledoux and the painter J. L. David in France), and educational realism, which spread mainly in painting and graphics (J. B. Greuze in France, W. Hogarth in England, D. N. Khodovetsky in Germany, etc.).
P.'s ideas had a significant influence on music (especially in France, Germany, and Austria). Enlightenmentists (Rousseau and Diderot in France, I. I. Winkelman and Lessing in Germany, etc.) developed a new system of aesthetic (including musical-aesthetic) views. Their views on the tasks of musical and dramatic art directly prepared the operatic reform of K. V. Gluck, who proclaimed “simplicity, truth and naturalness” as the only criteria of beauty for all works of art. The socio-political, ethical and aesthetic ideas of the enlighteners were the spiritual basis for the formation Viennese classical school, clearly manifested in the works of its largest representatives - I. Haydn, W. A. Mozart, whose music is dominated by an optimistic, harmonious worldview, L. Beethoven, in whose work, imbued with the spirit of heroism, the ideas of the Great French Revolution were reflected. The severity of the contradictions between nascent capitalism and feudalism, the underdevelopment of the internal antagonisms of bourgeois society made it possible for educators to act as representatives of the interests of the entire oppressed nation, and determined the courage of bourgeois thought of that time. This allows us to talk about a single educational camp, a single anti-feudal educational ideology, despite the heterogeneity of P., ideological and political differences within the camp of educators on many political, ideological, philosophical and other issues. The difficult situation of the urban and rural poor, who suffered from double (feudal and capitalist) oppression, created conditions for the emergence of a special, egalitarian (see. Egalitarianism) and communist tendencies in educational literature.
Differences in socio-economic conditions and national traditions determined the specifics of P. in different countries.
In England, educational thought had its source in the ideology born of the English bourgeois revolution 17th century However, English politics took shape already in the post-revolutionary era, when the “heroic period” of the revolution ended with a compromise between the big bourgeoisie and part of the landed aristocracy (“The Glorious Revolution” of 1688-89). This class compromise was clearly manifested in the philosophical and political theories of J. Locke. In the conditions of rapid technical progress and the growing economic power of England, Poland at the beginning of the 18th century. took place under the sign of social optimism. The doctrine of universal harmony was very popular (A. Shaftesbury and others). An optimistic outlook colored English philosophical and artistic thought in the first half of the 18th century. (for example, “Essay on Man” by A. Pope, 1732-34). Only the moral defects of society, which could be eliminated by enlightenment and progress, were criticized. The Enlightenment glorified economic prosperity, the pathos of conquering nature, and the enterprising person who did not lose his presence of mind in the most difficult circumstances. D. Defoe was the first to present the contemporary bourgeois as a “natural man.” All subsequent Robinsonades of bourgeois literature, philosophy and political economy go back to “Robinson Crusoe” (1719), in which a single isolated (taken outside of socio-historical connections) individual became the starting point for building an entire system of social relations. However, not all educators shared the optimistic illusions. Some of them rejected the myth of harmony and universal goodness and argued that the well-being of England was based on vices and crimes (B. Mandeville, who directly polemicized with Shaftesbury). J. Swift, who believed in the good nature of man, believed, however, that in a real historically established society there is no harmony or virtue; he finds the ideal “natural state”, inspired by virtuous reason, only in an ironic utopia - the kingdom of intelligent horses (“Gulliver’s Travels”). The struggle between two opposing tendencies - belief in the good nature of man and showing the clash of egoistic interests in real life - permeates the novels of G. Fielding. The idealized “natural man” with his virtues triumphs over the forces of egoism and self-interest in Fielding’s novels. But in the works of Fielding and especially T. J. Smollett, in whose novels it is not kindness, but selfishness, unprincipledness, and greed that appear as the main properties of “human nature,” a crisis of educational optimism was already brewing. English “freethinkers” of the 18th century. - J. Toland, A. Collins, J. Priestley and others - developed the ideas of materialism in a deistic form, propagated the basic ideas of P. - the cult of reason, designed to replace blind faith, the equality of people from birth, freedom of conscience, etc.
In France, P. at first borrowed many ideas from the British, but, unlike the “post-revolutionary” English P., the French applied them on the eve of the revolution, in conditions of intense political struggle. Enlightenment criticism was more effective here and received a huge public response, being directed primarily against feudal institutions, rather than social mores. P. 18th century had such brilliant predecessors here as P. Gassendi, P. Bayle and the outstanding revolutionary democrat, materialist, atheist J. Meslier. The ideological leaders of the “older generation” of French enlighteners of the 18th century. there were Voltaire and C. Montesquieu. The philosophical basis of their views was deism. From a position of reason, French educators fought against the religious worldview, resolutely speaking out against the Catholic Church, against feudal despotism and justice; they made a great contribution to the development of the Enlightenment philosophy of history. Believing in historical progress, they usually did not associate it with political development masses, pinning their hopes on an “enlightened monarch” (Voltaire) or promoting a constitutional monarchy on the English model and "separation of powers" theory(Montesquieu). The figures of the 2nd stage of the French P. - D. Diderot, C. A. Helvetius, P. A. Holbach and others - were for the most part materialists and atheists. The central event of this stage was the publication of the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts (1751-80). This publication, which extended anti-feudal criticism to all areas of ideology, included Diderot, the main organizer of the Encyclopedia, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Holbach, F. Quesnay, A. Turgot, E. B. Condillac, J. A. Condorcet and many others (see. Encyclopedists). As the revolution approached, the influence of works that contained more radical criticism of the feudal system and were perceived as a direct call for revolution grew (primarily J. J. Rousseau’s treatise “On the Social Contract...”, 1762). Rousseau believed that, having gotten rid of the class system, people should voluntarily limit their freedom in the name of the interests of society. In a future rational society, instead of a sum of personal interests competing with each other, a single will will be established, the bearer of which will be the state. The new citizenship will limit the good of each for the good of all. This was the root of ascetic virtue Jacobins - followers of Rousseau. The doctrine of a new morality and the kingdom of reason, despite the subjective conviction of the French enlighteners that their projects brought happiness to all humanity, in fact was “... nothing more than the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie...” (Engels F. , see Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 20, p. 17). The creators of early communist utopian theories - Meslier, Morelli, G. B. Mably - became the spokesmen for the special aspirations and aspirations of the lower classes and the emerging democratic ideology.
In the countries of the Near and Middle East, educational ideas developed in the 2nd half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. under the influence of both Western European and Russian P. (the conductors of his ideas were often representatives of the eastern peoples who were part of Russian Empire, for example M.F. Akhundov). The constitutional movement in Turkey, associated with the name of Namık Kemal, Ibrahim Shinasi and others, was of an educational nature (see. "New Ottomans"). Iranian educators, under the leadership of Mirza Malkom Khan, fought to transform the country into a constitutional monarchy. The enlighteners of Syria, Egypt (Butrus al-Bustani, F. Marrash, Abd-arrahman al-Kawakibi, Rafaa al-Tahtawi), Iran (Malkom Khan, Abdarrahman Talibov), Turkey (I. Shinasi, N. Kemal) were united by the belief in the power of education and enlightenment (which seemed to them the most important means of transforming society and liberating the people), faith in unlimited possibilities human mind, propaganda of Western European science and culture, call for national unity, criticism of the feudal system and colonialism. The ideas of the Enlightenment found expression in journalism and fiction; Sketches, essays, pamphlets, edifying and philosophical stories (Selim al-Bustani, Farah Antun), a historical novel (J. Zeidan), an educational and everyday novel (N. Kemal, Ahmed Midhat, etc.) appeared. Translations of Western European literature and the emergence of national journalism contributed to the formation of a prosaic literary language.
XV-XVII centuries In Western Europe it is called the Renaissance. It was during this era that the prerequisites for bourgeois social relations were laid, the relationship between church and state changed, and the worldview of humanism was formed as the basis of a new secular consciousness.
Fully becoming characteristic features era of modern times is carried out in the 18th century. Modernization is a complex, multifaceted process that took place in Europe over a century and a half and covered all spheres of social life. In production, modernization meant industrialization - the ever-increasing use of machines. IN social sphere modernization is closely related to urbanization - the unprecedented growth of cities, which has led to their predominant position in the economic life of society. In the political sphere, modernization meant democratization political structures, laying the preconditions for the formation of civil society and the rule of law. In the spiritual sphere, modernization is associated with secularization - the liberation of all spheres of public and personal life from the tutelage of religion and the church, their secularization, as well as the intensive development of literacy, education, and scientific knowledge about nature and society. The ideological basis for the modernization of public life in modern times has become the ideology of enlightenment. Figures of the Enlightenment era left a deep mark on philosophy, science, art, literature and politics. They developed a new worldview designed to liberate human thought, free it from the framework of medieval traditionalism. Europe 18th century In terms of civilization, it did not yet represent a holistic entity. The peoples of Europe differed in their level of economic development, political organization, and the nature of their culture. Therefore, the ideology of education in each country differed in its own national characteristics. The ideology of enlightenment developed in its most striking, classical forms in France. French enlightenment of the 18th century. It had a significant impact not only on its own country, but also on a number of other countries. French literature and the French language became fashionable in Europe, and France became the center of all European intellectual life. The largest representatives of the French enlightenment were: Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot. Constant conflicts with the authorities gave French educators a reputation as radicals. For all their radicalism, French enlighteners showed moderation and caution when one of the basic principles on which European statehood was based—the principle of monarchism—was brought up for discussion. The educational movement received significant development in England. There are no radical slogans or militant calls in the political program of the English enlighteners. The reason is clear: most of the political goals of education were achieved in England back in early XVIII V. 18th century It went down in history as the century of enlightened absolutism. The policy of absolutism in a number of European countries, expressed in the destruction “from above” and in the transformation of the most outdated feudal institutions. It was during this period that the level of public education rose, the principle of freedom of conscience was introduced, and in some cases concern for the lower classes was shown. The implementation of the policy of enlightened absolutism was to a certain extent a reflection of the ideas of the Enlightenment. Taking advantage of the popularity of their ideas, they portrayed their activities as “a union of philosophers and sovereigns.” But the main motivation was the monarchy’s awareness of the growing weakness of their support - landowners and the strengthening of the position of the third estate in the person of the bourgeoisie. The perception of the ideas of the French Revolution by the population of Europe left no room for doubt that the despotic regime in an enlightened or unenlightened form had outlived its time, and that the European bourgeoisie saw liberation from absolutism as the key to future economic prosperity.
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Western European culture of the Enlightenment
The special place of this era, covering the end of the 17th-18th centuries, was reflected in the epithets it received: “The Age of Reason”, “The Age of Enlightenment.
Enlightenment is a necessary step in the cultural development of any country that is parting with the feudal way of life. Education is fundamentally democratic; it is a culture for the people. It sees its main task in upbringing and education, in introducing knowledge to everyone. Like any significant cultural and historical era. The Enlightenment formed its ideal and sought to compare it with reality, to implement it as quickly and as fully as possible in practice.
The Age of Enlightenment is one of the brightest in the development of philosophy and spiritual culture in Europe.
The main values of the Enlightenment
Having put forward the idea of personality formation, enlighteners showed that a person has reason, spiritual and physical strength People come into the world equal, with their own needs and interests, the satisfaction of which lies in the establishment of reasonable and fair forms of human coexistence. The minds of educators are concerned with the idea of equality, which is only before God, but also before the laws, before other people. The idea of equality of all people before the law, before humanity - the first characteristic feature era of Enlightenment.
The enlighteners saw the solution to all social troubles in the dissemination of knowledge. And not without their participation, rationalism, which developed in Western European thought back in the Middle Ages, won in the Age of Enlightenment. In the article "Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" I. Kant wrote:
Enlightenment is a person’s exit from the state of his minority, in which he finds himself through his own fault. Juvenility is the inability to use one's reason without the guidance of someone else. Juvenility through one's own fault is one the cause of which is not a lack of reason, but a lack of determination and courage to use it.
It is not surprising that religion in the form in which the church presented it seemed to the atheist enlighteners in the heat of the struggle of extremes as the enemy of man. In the eyes of enlightenment deists. God turned into a force that only brought a certain order to the eternally existing matter. During the Enlightenment, the idea of God as a great mechanic and of the world as a huge mechanism became especially popular.
Thanks to the achievements of natural sciences, the idea arose that the time of miracles and mysteries was over, that all the secrets of the universe had been revealed, and that the Universe and society obeyed logical laws accessible to the human mind. The victory of reason is the second characteristic feature of the era.
The third characteristic feature of the Enlightenment is historical optimism.
The Age of Enlightenment can rightly be called the “golden age of utopia.” The Enlightenment, first of all, included faith in the possibility of changing a person for the better, “rationally” transforming political and social foundations.
A reference point for the creators of utopias in the 18th century. served as the “natural” or “natural” state of society, not aware of private property and oppression, division into classes, not drowning in luxury and not burdened with poverty, not affected by vices, living in accordance with reason, and not according to “artificial” laws. It was a purely fictitious, speculative type of society, which, as Rousseau noted, may never have existed and which, most likely, will never exist in reality.
The Renaissance ideal of a free personality acquires the attribute of universality and responsibility: a person of the Enlightenment thinks not only about himself, but also about others, about his place in society. The focus of educators is on the problem of the best social order. The Enlighteners believed in the possibility of building a harmonious society.
Profound changes in the socio-political and spiritual life of Europe associated with the emergence and development of bourgeois economic relations determined the main dominants of the culture of the 18th century.
The main centers of the Enlightenment were England, France, and Germany. In 1689, the year of the last revolution in England, the Age of Enlightenment began. It was a glorious era, begun with one revolution and ended with three: industrial - in England, political - in France, philosophical and aesthetic - in Germany. For a hundred years - from 1689 to 1789. - the world has changed. The remnants of feudalism were eroding more and more, bourgeois relations, finally established after the Great French Revolution, were making themselves known more and more loudly.
The 18th century also prepared the way for the dominance of bourgeois culture. The old, feudal ideology was replaced by the time of philosophers, sociologists, economists, and writers of the new age of Enlightenment.
In philosophy, the Enlightenment opposed all metaphysics (the science of supersensible principles and principles of being). It contributed to the development of any kind of rationalism (recognizing reason as the basis of human cognition and behavior), in science - the development of natural science, the achievement of which it often uses to justify the scientific legitimacy of views and faith in progress. It is no coincidence that the period of Enlightenment itself in some countries was called after philosophers. In France, for example, this period was called the century of Voltaire, in Germany - the century of Kant.
In the history of mankind, enlighteners were concerned global problems: How did the state appear? When and why did inequality arise? What is progress? And there were just as rational answers to these questions as in those cases when it came to the “mechanism” of the universe.
In the field of morality and pedagogy, the Enlightenment preached the ideals of humanity and placed great hopes on the magical power of education.
In the field of politics, jurisprudence and socio-economic life - the liberation of man from unjust bonds, the equality of all people before the law, before humanity. For the first time the era had to decide in such acute forms a long-known question about human dignity. It was transformed in different ways in different fields of activity, but inevitably led to fundamentally new, inherently innovative discoveries. If we talk about art, for example, it is no coincidence that this era was so unexpectedly, but so effectively forced to respond not only to the problem of “art and revolution,” but also to the problem of artistic discovery, born in the depths of the emerging new type of consciousness.
The Enlighteners were materialists and idealists, supporters of rationalism, sensationalism (they considered sensations to be the basis of knowledge and behavior) and even divine providence (they trusted in the will of God). Some of them believed in the inevitable progress of mankind, while others viewed history as social regression. Hence the uniqueness of the conflict between the historical consciousness of the era and the historical knowledge it developed - a conflict that became all the more aggravated the more thoroughly the era itself determined its historical preferences, its special role in the current and future development of mankind.
As a movement of social thought, the Enlightenment represented a certain unity. It consisted in a special state of mind, intellectual inclinations and preferences. These are, first of all, the goals and ideals of the Enlightenment, such as freedom, welfare and happiness of people, peace, non-violence, religious tolerance, etc., as well as the famous freethinking, a critical attitude towards authorities of all kinds, and rejection of dogmas, including church ones.
The Age of Enlightenment was a major turning point in the spiritual development of Europe, influencing almost all spheres of socio-political and cultural life. Having debunked the political and legal norms, aesthetic and ethical codes of the old class society, the enlighteners did titanic work to create a positive system of values, addressed primarily to man, regardless of his social affiliation, which organically entered the blood and flesh of Western civilization.
Enlighteners came from different classes and estates: aristocracy, nobles, clergy, employees, representatives of commercial and industrial circles. The conditions in which they lived were also varied. In each country, the educational movement bore the imprint of national identity.
Features of the Enlightenment in European countries
English and Scottish Enlightenment
The special role of England in the history of the European Enlightenment lay, first of all, in the fact that it was its homeland and in many respects a pioneer. In England in the 17th-18th centuries. after the revolution and civil wars sharp contradictions in society were smoothed out. The development of parliamentarism led to the strengthening of legal forms of political struggle. The English Church did not oppose itself to the Enlightenment, and to some extent even responded to its ideal of religious tolerance. This contributed cultural development country, since it made it possible to maintain a balance between traditional values, the custodian of which was the church, and the innovative ones brought by the Enlightenment. All this made England a kind of model of social progress. It is no coincidence that in the 18th century. all the main currents of English social thought found their continuation and development in other European countries.
In basic terms political program The English Enlightenment was formulated by the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). His main work, “An Essay on Human Understanding” (1690), contained a positive program that was accepted not only by English but also by French educators. According to Locke, the inalienable human rights include three basic rights: life, liberty and property. Locke's right to property is closely connected with a high assessment of human labor. He was convinced that the property of every person is the result of his labor. Legal equality of individuals is a necessary result of the acceptance of three inalienable rights.
