Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Chapters 14-17 Powerpoint and study group discussion section

PLEASE UTILIZE THIS SECTION FOR UNIT 4 DISCUSSIONS. RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT CONFUSING CONCEPTS OR ABOUT ASSIGNMENTS, OR DIALOGUE IN GENERAL TO TALK HISTORY WITH YOUR CLASSMATES.

28 comments:

OHaiTharJason said...
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michaelacero said...
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COACH NEAL said...
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COACH NEAL said...

“Cogito ergo sum.” Who said this and what does it mean?

RICO;p2012 said...

I thiink that Copernicus had the gretaest impact on society. He was the one who was the 1st to boldly introduce his belief of a heliocentric universe. This courageous action taken by Copernicus was going against the church teaching in the bible that the earth was at the center of the universe. Without him other philosphers may of never came out with their ideas and thinkings.
-Alyssa {RICO}

RICO;p2012 said...
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RICO;p2012 said...
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RICO;p2012 said...
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RICO;p2012 said...

OK so i'm trying to answer the blog#4 but i dont understand how science ties in with the economic and social difficulties during the time of the Enlightenment.:/

"Cogito ergo sum" means "I think therefore i am" this quote was said by natural philosopher Descartes.
-Alyssa {RICO}

COACH NEAL said...

The new science is using (reason and logic) the scientific method to solve societies problems...remember the review session today...Hope that helps..

COACH NEAL said...

What are some of Blaise Pascal's criticism's of the Scientific Revolution?

COACH NEAL said...
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OHaiTharJason said...

I dunno.
I found this site to be very helpful on Catherine the great in certain areas. I'll just leave this here for anyone who needs it...

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/russia/catherine.html

COACH NEAL said...

This observation from Rousseau was often quoted by anthropologist Levi-Strauss, who died recently at the age of one hundred.

"When one proposes to study men, one only needs to look at those nearby; but in order to study man, one has to look afar; for it is necessary to observe the differences in order to discover the properties.”
JJ Rouseau

People knew nothing about other human beings outside their immediate habitation during ninety-nine percent of all human history. That idea and the quotation by Rousseau might be used to explain the intense curiosity of Enlightenment thinkers in understanding humanity and how brief the study of history is in chronological time.

COACH NEAL said...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Which Enlightenment Thinker (Philosophe) said this quote and what does it mean?

COACH NEAL said...

from "Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels."
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 42. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 290.)

"Alternately considered an attack on humanity or a clear-eyed assessment of human strength and weaknesses, the novel is a complex study of human nature and of the moral, philosophical, and scientific thought of Swift's time which has resisted any single definition of meaning for nearly three centuries."

Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels in the 1720's when much of the world was not yet discovered. The novel takes place from 1699 to 1715. Gulliver, a surgeon, narrates his voyages to foreign lands and calls them "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World In Four Parts...by Lemuel Gulliver."

The novel is known as a classic children's story. It was originally received by audiences as merely an exciting adventure. People of this era enjoyed reading literature about travel into unknown lands.
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travel:

On another level, the novel is known as a political satire. Different interpretations have occurred over the years as people discovered analogies between the historical and political events of the eighteenth century and the events in Gulliver's Travels. The novel was censored at times in the 1800's. Critics over the centuries have differed on whether Swift reflected his own views on subjects such as politics and religion or whether these are only the views of his fictitious character Gulliver.

amandazac'12 said...

I don't understand why the church thought the earth was the center of the universe. For what reasons was it benficial in their case to beleive that? Perhaps the bible acknowledged that theory but why? There was absolutely NO proof. Somethings are better left as understood "as is" or "just because", but I am interested in uncovering the churches deeper motive behind supporting that theory. Just curious. Anyone have possible answers?

COACH NEAL said...

The Roman Catholic church accepted the Ptolemaic theory, because biblical passages suggested the sun was in constant motion while Earth remained in one place. Since the Church was in control during this time period, anyone who did not believe in the Ptolemaic theory would be punished, possibly with house arrest.

Source: http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/amber/students/denning/geo.htm

COACH NEAL said...

Test Cheat Sheet:
Joint-Stock Companies relationship to Colonies (English)
Cash Crops between 1650-1750 (most valuable to British/French)
French/Indian War effects on British Government
Treaty of Paris
Seven Years War
American Revolution
War of Austrian Succession
18th Century slave trade
17th Century dominate maritime
18th Century dominate maritime
18th century attitudes towards children, marriage, prostitution, education, literacy
Rococo Art
Neoclassicism Art
Enlightened Despots (all of them)
Salons
Adam Smith, laissez-faire, Wealth of Nations
Locke
Hobbes
Rousseau, General Will
Old Regime
Pugachev Rebellion
Partition of Poland (source:
18th century philosophes
scientific empericism
Mary Wollstonecraft
Diederot's Encyclopedia
Beccaria's famous work and influence
Montesquieu
Deists
Copernicus
"state of nature" Hobbes view, Locke's view
Spinoza's "Ethics"
heliocentrism vs. geocentrism
Royal Society of London
Rene Descartes
Kepler
Galileo vs. Church (yes him again)
Women and Scientific revolution
Tycho Brahe
Newton
Well that should get you thinking. Remember to think about the connection of many of these ideas with the time period, country and other themes that exist...Good Luck

RICO;p2012 said...

Hey Mr. Neal. Thanks for the test cheat sheet. It helps out alott:) so i just have a quick question on the beliefs of Hobbes and Locke. so we basically just need to focus on that one belived in a constatutional monarchy and the other an absolute? i'm still kind of confused on their beliefs of divine right.
-Alyssa

RICO;p2012 said...

Also I need help with #17 on chp. 15 study guide:
Where didi the Agricultural Revolution originate?
Thanks,
-Alyssa

COACH NEAL said...

Hobbes and Lockes views on government, man in the state of nature, society and their famous works....

COACH NEAL said...
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COACH NEAL said...

Check the powerpoint and you'll figure it out...

RICO;p2012 said...

Thanks for the help. I appreciate it. This unit is kind of difficult for me to understand because there's so much going on at one time!:)
-Alyssa

COACH NEAL said...

I want to weigh in on Catherine and Enlightenment/Enlightened Despotism, where she is conventionally placed
in the texts. While she "talked the talk" of the Enlightenment, founded some schools, had herself and the Court vaccinated, wrote the Instructions to the Legislative Commission, corresponded with Voltaire, these were Enlightened window dressing on a regime that was more Despotic than Enlightened, irrespective of her protestations to the contrary. She confirmed gentry privilege (Charter of Nobility) and in so doing both endorsed and expanded serfdom to virtual chattel slavery, especially after Pugachev's uprising; she restricted Jews to the "Pale"; she exiled Radischev for his criticism of autocracy and serfdom (A Journey from St.Petersburg to Moscow.) And then, of course, there's the murders of her husband and Ivan VI.

COACH NEAL said...

Hobbes indeed believed in a social contract, but it did not include unalienable natural rights, as found in Locke and Rousseau. Hobbes said that in order to get out of the “nasty, brutish and short” existence that characterized men in the state of nature- a free for all of greed, murder, theft and deadly competition, man entered into a social contract with a sovereign. This contract entailed that men would surrender their rights to do what ever they pleased, i.e. break into their neighbor’s house and steal away that cute daughter of his, and in exchange they would be provided the security and the stability to build a productive society. Contrary to Locke and Rousseau’s contract, where the power still rests with the governed who always retain certain rights (life, liberty and property) and can justifiably rebel if the sovereign oversteps his bounds, Hobbes says that once the social contract is entered into, it is binding and complete. The power in this configuration rest squarely with the monarch, who has power of life and death over his subjects, and will readily sacrifice rebellious individuals as to better protect the flock. Therefore, Hobbes’ social contract is the classic secular justification for absolutism (as opposed to Divine Right)- the only way to be truly secure in a scary world is to submit completely to an all powerful monarch.

http://www.thenagain.info/Classes/Sources/Hobbes.html

Simply put, for Hobbes, absolutism was the result of a “social contract” in which people submitted to the absolute ruler in exchange for security. This is important as it provides a rational basis for absolute rule and contrasts with the “divine right” justification of absolute monarchs and their attempt to maintain an updated version of the “Great Chain of Being”.

Because Hobbes believed that prior to government, there had been a state of nature. He also believed that government had been formed by an agreement reached by people in order to remove themselves from that state. He was motivated to search for a firm basis of governmental authority independent of religion.

One of the most important ways Hobbes differed from Locke was the idea that once granted to a government by a population, sovereignty could not be taken back and the population was not an appropriate judge of whether the government had abused its power (Locke thought it could be taken back and that people were a good judge of whether their own natural rights had effectively limited the gov's power, and the difference can be explained at least in part by the historical events they lived through).

If a leader can manipulate the concept of "general will" in such a way that he/she can redefine what the people ought to want, then Rousseau's theory starts to look a lot more to me like Hobbes' than like Locke's.

Hobbes believed that power of king originated from the people (Leviathan drawing) not from God. Therefore there was a responsibility of the king to rule his people just, but the people were not allowed to rebel if he was not just because chaos would result. He felt people could not rule with a king because they were too self--centered and timid. Hobbles wrote during the Cromwell's period when Parliament was acting "ugly", so much that Cromwell himself would have to disband it. In Hobbe's mind a king was raised to rule therefore he understood the larger picture and would be more just for the nation. He is the first "enlightened thinker" on this topic though he was not popular with the intellectuals.

Roosevelt said...
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