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BACKGROUND ESSAY |
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Illuminism
The greatest exponents of Illuminism were French and English. However, Illuminism also spread to Germany and Italy, although in these countries it did not meet with such widespread development. Germany and Italy accepted Illuminism, but took from it only those principles which were most in conformity with the cultural tradition of these nations. Thus Illuminism was prevalently religious in Germany, and practical in Italy. German Illuminism Germany, involved as it was in religious wars during the seventeenth century, did not participate to any great extent in the general European cultural movement during that turbulent period. Leibnitz, and after him Christian von Wolff, who edited and gave Leibnitz' works wide dissemination, linked Germany once more with the general current of the new culture. For Wolff, a Rationalist and a formalist, philosophy had to concern itself, not with concrete reality but with the "essences" of things; for only the "cogitable" belongs within the limits of philosophical knowledge. For Wolff the "cogitable" is logical possibility, and is utterly immune from contradiction. Such dogmatism and formalism were widely accepted by the German schools; Even Kant himself, in his pre-critical period, was an ardent follower of Wolff. Under the influence of Locke's and Humes's empiricism, a reaction tending toward the study of psychological analysis began to take place. Even Leibnitz spoke of "obscure and confused" representations, which would be mysterious forms of life but not yet ideas or intellectual representations. It was toward this new sphere of thought that the new inquiries directed themselves, and in so doing they cast light upon a new field of culture, namely, art and the enjoyment of the beautiful. The proper faculty of art was held to be "sentiment," the activity of which would be on a middle ground between the theoretical and the practical. Alexander Baumgarten (1714-1762) introduced a new term -- "aesthetics" -- to indicate this new field of study. Thus in Germany there already existed the beginnings of the Romantic movement which was to supersede Illuminism. By the middle of the seventeenth century a new religious movement called Pietism appeared in Germany. Pietism, a reaction against Protestant dogmatism and its obstinate opposition to other religions, minimized the importance of dogma and placed special stress upon subjectivism and sentiment. In religious questions, German Illuminism was divided into two opposing currents of thought. The first of these currents, positivist and rationalist in character, sought to demonstrate the perfect agreement between revelation and reason. According to the Positivists, what was obscure and confused in revelation assumed clear and distinct form in philosophy. Exponents of this trend of thought were Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1796) and the many publications of the time appearing under the name of popular philosophy. The second current of pietistic thought was negative, and essayed, through critical study, to destroy revelation as something false, impossible and contrary to reason. This thesis was advanced by H. Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768) in his Apology. The most representative German thinker of the period was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781), poet, philosopher, historian and author of Education of the Human Race by Divine Revelation. Lessing maintained that the effort of a search for truth is of higher value than the actual possession of it -- a teaching that later passed into Romanticism. Lessing wrote:
History, and religious history in particular, has a progressive and relative value. Progress in history brings Lessing to a consideration of religious history even prior to the Old Testament. He maintains that history, from the earliest times, is not a fabric of errors, prejudices and deceits, as the Illuminist holds, but a history of the education of a people by means of revelation, which progresses from the simpler to ever more elevated and perfect forms. Italian Illuminism Illuminism was imported from France into Italy, where it spread over the peninsula at the same time that Locke's empiricism and Newton's physics were gaining wide acceptance. Proof of Italian interest in Illuminism exists in the fact that the Encyclopedia was printed in Italy in 1758 and again in 1770. The predominance of French sensationalism is also due in no small measure to the influence of Condillac, who was tutor at the ducal court in Parma for ten years. Nevertheless, the need for a critical revision of sensationalism soon made its appearance among Italian thinkers. Antonio Genovesi (1712-1769), Empiricist and sensist, although accepting the data of experience as a starting point, suggested that experience be subjected to the criticism of reason, since reason alone is able to coordinate the data furnished by the senses. This is a tendency to turn sensism toward Rationalism. Italian Illuminists were especially concerned with practical, economic and legislative problems. The principal centers of culture were Naples and Milan. In Naples, besides the above-mentioned Genovesi, we find Pietro Giannone (1676-1748), who gave himself over to the task of establishing the supremacy of the rights of the state over those of the Church. Departing from the field of philosophy into that of theology, he was not immune to error and heresy. Nicola Spedalieri (1740-1795), a priest of the province of Calabria, tried to show that the "rights of man" advocated by the French Revolution had already been proclaimed by the Gospel. In Milan Cesare Beccaria (1738-?1794) wrote Tratto dei Delitti e delle Pene (Treatise on Infractions and the Penalties), and Pietro Verri (1728-1797) found Caffe (Café), a politico-literary review. These men promoted the reform of many laws, including the abolition of torture, which was still in use as a means of punishment, and they prepared the way for the "Risorgimento." This was a movement toward national unification among the many states of the Italian peninsula; it culminated in the establishment of the kingdom of Italy under the house of Savoy and was completed by the seizure of the Papal states in 1870. During this period Giovanni Battista Vico (1668-1744) lived in Naples. Vico, however, is not to be numbered among the Illuminists; he was an exponent of universal culture.
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Lessing's
Philosophy of Religion and the German
Enlightenment, The
Intellectual Roots of the Italian
Enlightenment,
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