The Enlightenment, Albert Einstein and John Locke

Philosophers of the Enlightenment believed in the universe as a machine. This means that matter, energy, space, and time were unchanging. People like Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg challenged this theory in some ways.

Isaac Newton believed in the parts of the universe as unchanging. He used the bucket theory to prove this. Basically that theory is that if one spins water in a bucket, the water will continue to spin after the bucket is stopped. That is because the water rotates in relation to the presence of absolute space. Even our thoughts happen in absolute time and space. What this comes down to is that a planet moves around the sun because of gravitational forces emitted by the sun.

Albert Einstein undermined this view with his theory of relativity. In other words, space-time became connected with the distribution of matter and energy. Einstein essentially proved Newton right in some things but went much further to expand his theories. For weak gravitational force of slow-moving bodies, their theories are the same. According to Einstein, the sun would distort the field around it, so the planet would choose the shortest path to rotate around it.

Werner Heisenberg essentially claims that particles in space cannot be localized to a certain distance or else the momentum will become random. "Heisenberg was the first to discover a systematic mathematical theory that describes the small scale behavior of Nature, as opposed to the large scales that Galileo and Newton could observe with the naked eye" (Marburger). Heisenberg came up with the uncertainty theory, which would directly oppose Newton's ideas of absolute.

These two scientists were not directly opposed to Newton's views, but they developed future theories, which undermined Newton's.

John Locke firmly believed in natural law, which essentially meant that every person had the right to life, liberty, and property. In addition to that, the government had a duty to the people it governed in the way of a social contract, and that government must govern justly. "No one is by virtue of birth more moral or knowledgeable than anyone else. Since all moral behavior arises from one's empirical experiences, that means that immoral behavior is primarily a product of the environment rather than the individual. If you accept that line of reasoning that means that you can change moral and intellectual outcomes in human development by changing the environment" (Hooker).

Adolf Hitler's idea about natural law was that strong people used terror to dominate weak. To change society for the better, changing the environment was necessary. Therefore, things like eugenics could be justified because they would change the environment promoting positive change for people.

Social Darwinism is the idea that all social problems are inherited, based on bad genetics. Therefore, the entire eugenics movements would be one of Social Darwinism, in order to improve humans genetically. These Social Darwinists believed themselves to be saviors who would rid the world of mental illness, poverty, and a variety of other evils. In Mein Kamp, Hitler wrote that "The stronger has to rule and must not mate with the weaker. Only the born weakling can consider this cruel" (Hitler). Hitler expands this theory to believe that dark-skinned people were destroyers of culture. Aryan people were God's chosen people and by natural law, white people should rule. The rulers would do the dark-skinned people a service by showing them the value of hard work and morals. They would learn to emulate the better culture.

Hitler warped the ideas of both Locke and Social Darwinism in order to achieve his own ends. He used natural law to justify doing things for people's own good. He used social Darwinism to justify the superiority of white people, and eventually the extermination of the Jews.

John Locke and other thinkers of the Enlightenment believed that human beings were fundamentally rational and that it was possible to be freed of hatred and violence. Sigmund Freud was pessimistic about this possibility.

The reason Freud was pessimistic had to do with his theory of psychoanalysis. Essentially he believes that we are controlled by three different forces-the id, the ego, and the superego. Only one of these is controlled consciously. In other words, much of who we are and what we do are controlled unconsciously or subconsciously. The id is unconscious and contains what is inherited as well as our instincts. The ego is conscious and it controls the demands of the id and instincts. The ego also responds to stimulation and allows us to experience pleasure. The superego represents the influence of other people and things in our lives. Freud believed that instinct was the ultimate cause of our behaviors, and since instinct cannot be controlled or taught to be rational, Freud would disagree with Locke. Freud also believed that our two basic instincts are love and destructiveness and that all that we do goes toward one of those two. "The purpose of Eros is to establish and preserve unity through relationships. The purpose of destructiveness is to undo those connections via destruction" (Freud 18).

Freud also put a large emphasis on the subconscious, particularly in the area of dreams. He believed that our dreams meant something and put extensive efforts into dream interpretation. He believed that we could figure out truths about our lives through analyzing our dreams. Again, dreams are not content of the rational mind. Dreams cannot be controlled.

John Locke and Sigmund Freud would not have been able to agree about the essential rationality of human beings. John Locke believed education was key in humans gaining the skills to be rational. Freud would say that no matter how much education, we are so controlled by our unconscious and subconscious thoughts that we will never be rational beings.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. 1949. An outline of psychoanalysis. New York: Norton.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Retrieved December 1, 2008 at

http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/

Hooker Richard. The European Enlightenment. 2206. Retrieved December 1, 2008 at

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ENLIGHT/PREPHIL.HTM

Marburger, John. Symposium on "The Copenhagen Interpretation: Science and History

on Stage. March 2002. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2008 at

http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/nml/artsci/marburger.htm