Lecture outline #04:

Science and Exoticism in the Enlightenment

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                                                                        Versailles

1. Cortés to Cook: evolution of the "civilizing process"

A. The absolute state, civility, and discipline in the 17th century
B. The Enlightenment and the disenchantment of the natural world in the 18th century

2. Voyages of Discovery in the 18th Century

A. The project of collecting the world

B. Enlightenment universalism and the rise of cultural relativism: the European conscience in the 18th century

3. The Limits of Enlightenment

A. Enlightenment models of social development
B. The biological classification of humankind

 

Keywords=
courtly civility
natural history
universal man
Linnaeus
Great Chain of Being		 Sites of interest=
The Legacy of Hobbes and Locke
Accounts of Louis XIV
Readings on Absolutism and the Modern State
The Scientific Revolution
The Enlightenment

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