HIST 2509 A History of Germany

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HIST 2509 A History of Germany

• Lecture 6-1
• The German Enlightenment

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Announcements

• test results
• -were aiming to return them October 25th or 27th
• -TA office hours tba then

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Immanuel Kant Sapere Aude! (dare to know!)
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Prussian coat of arms
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Prussian coat of arms
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Brandenburg-Prussia
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Kant Serves as Cultural Bridge
http//www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1112130,00.ht
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Todays Main Themes

• What are the features of the German
  Enlightenment?
• Who are its practitioners?
• What conditions give rise to it?
• Draw backs?
• What accounts for its different impact in the
  German lands?

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I. Why the 18th Century?

• Culture up to now closed and private
• -most people (townfolk and peasants) local
• -aristocracy international court culture

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Voltaire French philosophe and guest of
Frederick the Great at Sanssouci, Potsdam
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Sanssouci Palace Potsdam The Prussian Versailles
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I. Why the 18th Century?

• b) wealth accumulation and age of discovery
• -the Atlantic system of trade
• -bureaucracy and education, new networks
• -slow emergence of literate middle class

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II. Innovations

• a) rise of print culture
• -more books, magazines, newspapers
• -new social role for reading public and private
• -correspondence -- A Republic of Letters
• -new institutions (bookshops, lending libraries,
  readings circles, coffeehouses, salons)
• -professional associations, political groups

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Sadly no WiFi here -- an 18th Century Coffeehouse
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Jewish Salons
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Berlinische Monatsschrift (Berlin
Monthly) 1783-1811
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Henriette Herz
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II. Innovations

• b) openness of literary sphere (Öffentlichkeit)
• -culture of reading and writing accessible to
  all
• -limitations in practice economic and
  educational
• c) connection to state-building
• -enlightened absolutism -- der alte Fritz
• -rise of universities, bureaucracy, statecraft
• -capitalism and colonialism

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III. But What is Enlightenment? (Aufklärung)

• a) Main characteristics
• -critical use of reason to better humankind
• -belief in progress, some religious toleration
• -broad European movement with many different
  components and proponents
• b) Intellectual origins
• -pietism (Philip Spener (1635-1705), August
  Hermann Francke (1663-1727), Univcrsity of Halle
• -rationalism (Christian Wolff (1679-1754)

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III. But What is Enlightenment? (Aufklärung)

• -religious toleration (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  (1729-1781)
• Combines pietism and rationalism
• Connected to Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala)
• 3. Nathan the Wise and Moses Mendelssohn

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III. But What is Enlightenment? (Aufklärung)

• Immanual Kant (1724-1804)
• -What is Enlightenment? (1784)
• -critical philosophy
• -reason over passion

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IV. Enlightenment and Its Limits

• a. Jews and the Enlightenment
• b. Gender and the Enlightenment
• c. Race and the Enlightenment
• d. Separation of Macht (power) and Geist (spirit)

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IV. Enlightenment and Its Limits

• a. Jews and the Enlightenment
• -cultural assimilation, reform Judaism, German
  vs. yiddish
• -Moses Mendelsohn adopt the mores and the
  constitution of the land in which you have
  settled, but keep the faith of your fathers
• -translation of Torah into German
• -Judaism as religion based on rule of law and
  reason

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Emancipation in the Air?

• -Christian Wilhelm Dohm, Prussian privy war
  counselor
• On the Civic Improvement of the Jews (1781)
• Joseph II of Austria Patent of Tolerance (1782)
• -still distrust see Kants nation of cheaters

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• b) gender and the Enlightenment
• -quest to discover the essence of human soul
• -women ruled by passion, men by reason
• -despite some exceptions -- separate spheres

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• c) race and the Enlightenment
• -the quest to explain difference
• -slow rise of biology and taxonomy
• -Kant, 1775 On the Different Races of Man
• -self betterment -- who is capable, who isnt?

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