Overview

Learn about the age of Newton, Descartes, Pascal, Locke, Rousseau, and more from one of the world’s leading intellectual historians. Modern science, representative democracy, and a wave of wars were caused by a revolution of the intellect that seized Europe between 1600 and 1800. Disrupting the minds of the continent like few things before or since, this revolution challenged previous ways of understanding reality and sparked a profound transformation of European life. The goal of these 24 lectures is to help you better understand the conceptual and cultural revolution of the Enlightenment. In them, you’ll see the birth of modern thought in the dilemmas, debates, and extraordinary works of 17th- and 18th-century minds.

Course Lectures

• Introduction—Intellectual History and Conceptual Change

Revolutions in thought—as opposed to those in politics or science—are influential and far-reaching, affecting our entire sense of legitimate authority.

Duration: 34 min

• The Dawn of the 17th Century—Aristotelian Scholasticism

The intellectual inheritance of the educated world in the 17th century was dominated by Aristotelian scholasticism, a fusion of philosophy and Christian theology.

Duration: 31 min

• The New Vision of Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon transformed the uses of knowledge into power over the forces of nature, criticizing Western intellectual inheritance.

Duration: 31 min

• The New Astronomy and Cosmology

A significant challenge to scholasticism began in astronomy, particularly through neo-Pythagorean thought.

Duration: 31 min

• Descartes’s Dream of Perfect Knowledge

Descartes created a coherent philosophical system that became the major challenge to scholasticism in the first half of the 17th century.

Duration: 31 min

• The Specter of Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes argued that the world and human experience operate according to fixed, mechanical laws with no freedom of the will.

Duration: 31 min

• Skepticism and Jansenism—Blaise Pascal

Pascal exemplified philosophical skepticism and the dependence on religious faith, leading a systematic assault on Aristotelian scholasticism.

Duration: 31 min

8. Newton’s Discovery

By the mid-17th century, critics of Aristotelianism in England communicated via the Royal Society, which published Newton’s work.

Duration: 30 min

• The Newtonian Revolution

Newton’s Principia Mathematica was a pivotal event in Western culture, convinced readers of the world’s order and coherent nature.

Duration: 31 min

10. John Locke—The Revolution in Knowledge

Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding fundamentally changed cultural perceptions of human knowledge.

Duration: 32 min

• The Lockean Moment

Locke suggested the mind starts as a blank slate and that our knowledge of the world is merely probable.

Duration: 32 min

12. Skepticism and Calvinism—Pierre Bayle

Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary challenged the arrogance of reason and underscored the importance of simple, peaceful faith.

Duration: 32 min

• The Moderns—The Generation of 1680-1715

This generation increasingly rejected past authority, believing in induction from experience as the path to truth.

Duration: 32 min

14. Introduction to Deism

Deism reflected belief in a God whose existence is evident in nature, while rejecting traditional religious revelation.

Duration: 33 min

15. The Conflict Between Deism and Christianity

Deism challenged Judeo-Christian theology, leading to conflicts over knowledge of God and the grounds of religious belief.

Duration: 31 min

• Montesquieu and the Problem of Relativism

Montesquieu explored how knowledge and moral ideas are relative to individual experience and circumstances.

Duration: 30 min

17. Voltaire—Bringing England To France

Voltaire’s Lettres Philosophiques significantly popularized the intellectual revolution of the 17th century in France.

Duration: 31 min

• Bishop Joseph Butler and God’s Providence

Bishop Butler argued that human happiness and virtue are interlinked, influencing many, including Thomas Jefferson.

Duration: 31 min

19. The Skeptical Challenge to Optimism—David Hume

Hume critiqued the premise of natural religion and the existence of a benevolent God.

Duration: 32 min

• The Assault upon Philosophical Optimism—Voltaire

Candide reflects Voltaire’s rejection of the notion that the world is “the best of all possible worlds.”

Duration: 31 min

• The Philosophes—The Triumph of the French Enlightenment

The philosophes of 18th-century France critically re-examined knowledge and authority, shaping Enlightenment thought.

Duration: 31 min

• Beccaria and Enlightened Reform

Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments sought to rationalize and reform the criminal laws based on the pursuit of happiness.

Duration: 31 min

• Rousseau’s Dissent

Rousseau critiqued Enlightenment beliefs, arguing that progress leads to moral decay through artificial needs.

Duration: 32 min

24. Materialism & Naturalism—The Boundaries of the Enlightenment

Diderot’s naturalistic worldview marks a significant turn away from Aristotelian scholasticism into modern thought.

Duration: 33 min