Hume and Rousseau: Historical and Philosophical Context

Hume: Historical Context

England after the Revolution of 1688:

• Bourgeois revolution, parliamentary monarchy, supremacy of Parliament.
• Individual rights and religious freedoms.
• Political and economic freedom: abolition of monopolies.
• England becomes the leading economic power, industrial and capitalist.

Pre-revolutionary France:

• Enlightened despotism: everything for the people but without the people.
• Increasing influence of figured secularization, deism, atheism.

Rousseau: Historical Context

Pre-revolutionary France:

• Enlightened despotism: the monarch has absolute power he receives from God. The king is the sovereign (who has all authority).
• Influence of Enlightenment ideas in the monarchies of the continent to girders of the nobility and high bourgeoisie.
• Implantation of a state educational system.
• Secularization.
• Theme of these monarchies: everything for the people but without the people.

England:

• The king reigns but does not govern, parliamentary government elected.
• Democratization of politics.

North American Colonies:

• Enlightened ideas advocated not only by some noble and bourgeois, but by the people.
• Independence of the colonies in 1776.
• U.S. Constitution.

Socio-Cultural Context

The Enlightenment appears (a new cultural, political, social, and educational movement) that spans Europe and America.

Defends:

1. Confidence in critical reasoning and the ability to know oneself.
2. Education and knowledge development.
3. The process of mankind to know more and better will make us happier and will allow us to advance.

• Scotland: Hume and Smith.
• England: Locke and Bentham.
• France: Encyclopedists and materialists.
• Germany: Kant.

Introduction of economic liberalism: the abolition of monopolies and private property becomes a fundamental right. The industrial revolution begins (steam engine). Cities grow, and the proletariat emerges.

Philosophical Context

Illustration (eighteenth century).

1. Rationalism and empiricism.
2. Hume: moral emotivism - human acts are not derived from reason, but from feelings.
3. French illustration: 1st generation (Montesquieu and Voltaire), 2nd generation (encyclopedic).
4. Rousseau does not share the ideals of the Enlightenment. Anticipates Romanticism ideas.
5. Kant: synthesis criticism of rationalism and empiricism. Moral formalism.