Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Hi everybody!

Today in the class of Social Sciences Paqui has started the class asking us about some videos of the blog about the Enlightenment because they can help us with the American or British accent. This videos explain some features about the Enlightenment. 
Then we have started correcting the scheme about the features of Enlightenment:
  • Absolute faith in Reason, as the best way to understand the world.
  • Rejection of everything that couldn't be explained through Reason: the authority principle, superstitions, traditions... The authority principle was based on respecting the authority of people because someone has told you that you have to respect it. Some of these traditions were inhuman and so violent.
  • Optimism and trust in progress. People thought that future will be better than present.
  • Knowledge as the basis of happiness. Ignorant people could't be happy, they could seem happy but in fact it was different. This depends on the idea of happiness of everyone and on expectations. In conclusion, individual happiness is not colective happiness.
  • Trust in education considered to be the best way to improve the living conditions of the people. The idea of educating people came from Enlightenment because the countries needed educated people.
  • Religious tolerance: no religion was superior to another and Reason was enough to establish a morality code to determine how to behave. People had to respect the religions, no religion was better and people who didn't want to choose a religion had to follow some morality sules. These were rules of behavior that you follow in a society. 
  • Criticism of absolutism and the estates society and defense of freedom and equality of all the human beings.
  • Etilist movement reserved to educated people.
Immanuel Kant "Dare to know"was one of the most important philosophers of Enlightenment

After Paqui has explained some things about the Encyclopedia: It was another way of transmission. This  was a project of two French philosophers: Denis Diderot and Jean Rond D'Alambert.
People compiled all knowledge of their time in one book and they asked the main scientists and philosophers to write articles for their project.

Encyclopedia means "circular knowledge or learning". At first people wanted to compile Knowledge and it appeared  during the Roman Empire by Pliny the Elder with Historia Naturalis.In the 7th century Saint Isidore of Seville, a bishop of the Visigothic Kingdom and wiseman, wrote the Etymologiae. The Chinese also wrote their own encyclopedic book in the 15th century called Yongle Encyclopedia. Finally a thrird copy was made ordered by the Chinese Emperor.

In 1728 a British publisher, edited Cyclopedia: An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. This book was the precedent of the French Encyclopedia. a French publisher, wanted to translate the Cyclopedia but he completely changed the original project, because they asked different scientists and thinkers of their time to write articles about very different topics.The Encyclopedia was very popular and original. Diderot wrote on the Encyclopedia his main objective, which was "to change the way people think". That´s why the Encyclopedia has been considered one of the Enlightenment capital books, where the use of Reason was better expressed. The most important philosophers wrote articles in the Encyclopedia (Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu).


Then we have started the sheme about The Enlightened thinking and Paqui has told us that we have to do it for homework.

During the class we have also copied some words and expressions:
To trust- confiar
Trust- confianza
Trust me!- Confía en mí 
To damage/hurt- dañar
Dare to know-atrévete a saber
Quote- cita
To dare- atreverse, osar
How you dare...?- ¿Cómo te atreves a...?
Wiseman- sabio
Updated- actualizado
Commitment- compromiso
To commit- comprometerse.
See you!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Good work Carlos! I have found only one small mistake, instead of sheme "scheme". See you!

Cristina Blanco said...

Hello Carlos,
Very good journal indeed!!! It was almost perfect, congratulations. Apart from María’s remark about the word “scheme”, I have seen these small mistakes.
rules
Elitist
I have the feeling that there is some information missing here: Immanuel Kant , whose most famous sentence is "Dare to know" , was one of t

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello,

I agree with Cristina. Your journal is very complete. I like that you explained all the features of Enlightenment. But there are some things about content you could improve:

- First, write a title for your post in the TITLE box

- We talked about the idea of happiness and some students said that if you are illeraterate you can feel happy, but the idea of happiness the enlightened philosophers had was collective happines. That's why they said that education and knowledge were the best way to get collective happiness. The more we know, the more problems we will be able to solve.

- As for religious tolerance, the enlightened philiosophers thought that non religious people can also have a morality code. Religion is not necessary to know what is good or bad.

- Immanuel Kant's quote "Dare to know" reflects the spirit of Enlightenment very well, because it's a challenge to know more, learn about the world and have more tools to improve it.

- Denis Diderot and Jean Rond D'Alambert (People)compiled. You have to erase the word in brackets

- The first person to try to compile the knowledge of his time was Pliny the Elder with Historia Naturalis

- This sentence has no sense here: "Finally a thrird copy was made ordered by the Chinese Emperor." You should erase it.

- The names of books have to be written in Italic font, not in bold: Cyclopedia

- A French publisher, wanted to translate the Cyclopedia but Diderot and D'Alembert completely changed the original project.

You should include the link I sent you about the Encyclopedia, just in case someone wants to read more about this.

Remember that, at the end of the lesson, I explained Rousseau's social contract too.

That's all. See you!