Philosophical attitudes about Great Revolution

Along with the transformation of the economic foundation of society, ideologies were also changed. The intellectual sources of the revolution must be searched in philosophical views that the middle classes raised since the seventeenth century. Certain raised philosophical ideas accelerated the Great Revolution process and placed a theoretical and very rich support in their storage. Descartes had shown that by help of science we can dominate nature and philosophers of the eighteenth century who were the heir to his philosophy, cleverly drew and presented new order principles. Philosophical movements of the eighteenth century were based on opposing ideal perfection of the church and government in the seventeenth century had a profound impact on the French mentality. The movement first began to awaken the minds and then expanded critical thinking and provided new ideas. Enlightenment movement in all areas of human activity including cience to faith or morals to social and political organizations, replaced the principle of "wisdom" by the authority and tradition. After 1748, the greatest works of the century were quickly and successively released. Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu was published in 1748, Emile and the social contract in 1762, speeches about the origin of inequality of humans in 1755, from Rousseau the natural history of Buffon in 1749, a treatise on the Kendyak's senses in 1754, a law of nature of Morley in 1755, an article on Voltaire's customs and spirit of Nations in 1756, and the most important one was the publication of the first volume of "Encyclopedia" of Diderot in 1751.
Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and companions of Encyclopedia and economists have all joined together and despite differences of opinion that they had, they encouraged the development of philosophical thoughts. In the first half of the eighteenth century, two large flows of thought enjoyed the broad support; one trend was thought flow that was inspired by feudalism and a part of it was reflected in the Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu and provided necessary arguments for the regional parliaments and privileged ranks of the society which was against tyranny and the other trend was a philosophical one that supported the clergy and sometimes religious ideas, but it was politically conservative. In the second half of the eighteenth century, while the two aforementioned trends continued to exist, new comments raised that were mostly democratic and egalitarian ones. Philosophers abandoned politics and concentrated on social problems of the government. Although Physiocrats were conservative, they helped the new intellectual movement by bringing up economic issues. Although Voltaire, leader of philosophical movement after 1760, called for reforms in the framework of absolute monarchy and asked for the government to be in hands of the wealthy men in middle class, Rousseau reflected political and social perfect ideals of the petty bourgeoisie and the craftsmen. Rousseau criticized civilization of his time in his first speech entitled "The Role of Sciences and Arts in purification of rituals and ideas " and started defending non-privileged ones and says: if luxurious life in our cities helps a hundred of poor instead it kills a hundred thousand people in the villages (the same, 257) and in his second speech entitled "About fundamentals and the origins of inequality among men" he attacked the ownership issue, and he arises theory of popular sovereignty in the "social contract" while Montesquieu keeps power for the aristocracy and Voltaire keeps it for upper layer over middle class. At first, these ideologies were spread by almost complete freedom. Madam Dompadour that was one of soul mates of the King and a rich woman collided with a ceremony of courtiers that were around the queen and the prince and had support of the bishops' system and parliaments, and supported the philosophers against the courtier enemies. This philosophical movement's results appeared after 1770. However, at this time the greatest writers have remained silent, and went aside gradually but others writers step into the arena and helped promoting new comments and spread mentioned opinions among all sections of the middle class and around the French. Spread of the Encyclopedia, which is considered a prominent work in the history of thoughts, finished in 1772. It was about the moderate social and political views and had an emphasis on belief in progress of sciences and founded huge memorial of "wisdom". Although production of philosophy decreased in the Louis XVI period, gradually a set of doctrines and a combination of varied intellectual systems were made. Thus revolutionary doctrine was formed. Abe Rynal once again raised all the philosophical issues in the book " political and philosophical history of commercial establishments of Europeans in the Eastern and Western India" in which Diderot played an active role in the preparation of it; hatred of tyranny, opposing to the church and supporting to run it by a non-clergy government and praising economic and political liberalism (the same, p. 236) strengthened the impact of the written word in the spoken word, and the number of venues and bars increased and every day new forums were created for debate and dialogue and state Universities and study circles went under more and more attention. In 1770, Clerical Assembly claimed that they cannot find a city in France which is immune of "infectious disease of atheism". The claim of assembly shows the development of philosophical thoughts of scientists by emphasizing on the centrality of human intellect. The eighteenth century saw the victory of rationalism and rationalism later influenced on all areas of human activities. By belief in the centrality of reason, belief in progress emerged and reason gradually made its intellectual influence.
Thus the French Revolution had a great support of a large number of pure thoughts of philosophers and scientists and it was called "the Great Revolution" and it is the only Revolution that its ideals and commands were attracted by freethinkers not only in its time but in later times and it turned into a model that even till today they use its freedom movements in their policy agenda.