M.K.

M Summary

Units 16 and 17

Basic question to be asked of primary sources

1-what date is it? (how close is its date to the date of the event described )
2- What kind of source is it? (A privet letter, an official report)
3- How did the source come to existence in the first place and for what
purpose? (What person or group created the source?)
4- How far is the originator of the source really in a good position to
provide reliable information on the particular topic the historian is
interested in?
5- What did the source mean to contemporaries?
6- How the source relates to knowledge obtained from other sources, both
primary and secondary?

Witting Testimony and Unwitting Testimony

-Witting testimony: the deliberate message of a document or any other

source.
- Unwitting testimony: the unintentional evidence that a document or any
other source contains.

Understanding the past from the inside

Three aspects of mentalities of Western Europeans:

1-The continuing influence of the classical tradition
2-The centrality of Christian belief and practice
3-A belief in the supernatural

Facts in History

The French revolution is an historical fact, therefore it contain a vast

number of other historical facts such as that the Bastille was stormed on
14 July 1789. Historians are interested in many other things than events
such as state of mind, living conditions, evidence of links between one
circumstance and another.
* (One no longer wastes time in the science discussing the nature of
scientific facts; so, in history there is no point in discussing the nature
of historical facts)
 M.K.M Summary

- Nationalism: consciousness of, and pride in, belonging to a particular

nation – the desire to see all people in that nation united in one self-
governing country or nation.

Summary Points in the French Revolution 1789

- France was a feudalism country

- Nobles and Clergymen had special privileges (No Taxes).

- Common people (middle class).

(They paid heavy taxes and had no power on politics).

- The Estates General: Nobles and Clergymen first and second estate,
Common people the third estate.

- Louis 16 failed to improve the financial situation, therefore the

government bankrupt by 1789.

-Writings of Enlightenment (Rousseau, Voltaire) inspired the French

people against the king.

- National Assembly.

- The Bastille was stormed on 14 July 1789. Beginning of the revolution

 M.K.M Summary

Units 18 and 19

- Legitimacy: people should feel that the government has actually the
right to govern.

- Philosophy: the construction, criticism and analysis of reasons and

arguments.

- Deductive argument: an argument that uses logic to get a true

conclusion from true premises.

- Premise: a statement from which a conclusion is derived.

- Argument: reasons or evidence leading to a conclusion.

- Assertion: unsupported statement.

- Authority: person or institution, such as the state or government has

authority if they are able to command others to do things.

- Citizen: for Rousseau, a member of a state, a citizen has undergone the

remarkable change and participates in the general will. A citizen has the
privileges, but also the responsibilities of membership.

-Constitutional monarchy: a system in which the power of the monarch

are constrained by other constitutional bodies.

- Government: the group of people whose task is to formulate the laws

of a state.

- Monarchy: a system in which a single person is sovereign. That is, all

power is invested in the hands of one person who has the right to make all
the laws.

-Persistent minorities: individuals or groups of individuals whose views

are never adopted by the democratic state.

- Pluralism: doctrine the political system should take different views on a

single issue into account.

- Reductio and absurdum: literally a reduction absurdity. A technique

for showing a position to be false by supposing that the position is true
and then demonstrating that this leads to a contradiction.
 M.K.M Summary

Rights: privileges we have as members of society.

- Will: goal or desire.

-Particular will: the particular will of an individual is that individual's

own desire.

-Will of all: sum total of the particular wills of every person in the group.

-General will: that which is in the best interests of the group taken as a
whole rather than as a collection of individuals.

- Thought experiment: imaginary situation designed to bring out a

particular point.

- Totalitarianism: a political view that does not permit the consideration

of alternatives.

- Sovereign: source of authority in government. In monarchy the King or

Queen are sovereign. In a republic the people are sovereign.

- State: organization which exists when a number of people are subject to

a set of laws which govern their conduct.

-Simple democracy: a system in which the people themselves are

sovereign. Only they have the right to make laws.

-Representative democracy: a system in which the people themselves

are sovereign. They express their sovereign by electing a government,
and the government has the right to make laws.
 M.K.M Summary

The problem of legitimacy:

According to Rousseau: a person or institution such as the state or
government; has authority if they are able to command others to do
things. authority is legitimate if the person or institution processes the
right to command others. In the social contract, Rousseau is concerned to
establish whether or not the authority of the state is legitimate, to be
legitimate, the authority the state has over the people must come from the
people themselves, and not from a single person.

Conclusion:
The authority of the state must come from the people themselves, not
from a single person. To find the general will which represent the people,
we must consult to reason, therefore the best method to discover the
general will is through taking a vote(democracy). The voting will show
the general will, which will give legitimacy to the state's authority.
Rousseau's argument that might does not equal right:
Is it legitimate for the state to get its authority by exercising naked force?
- The strongest is never strong enough to be master all the time, unless he
transforms force into right and obedience into duty.
- Its not wrong to disobey someone simply because they are more
powerful than us.
- The spruce of the authority of the state is not simply its power.
Conclusion: the source of the authority of the state is not simply its
power

Rousseau argument as to why we should obey the general will:

• The particular will is the product of appetite

• The general will is the product or reason
• The act of appetite is slavish and bad
• To act on reason is noble and good
• We should be noble and good
• So, we should obey the general will
Being in chains:
According to Rousseau being in chains is living in society. He does not
want us to escape our chains by escaping living in society, but rather to
consider how it can be right for us to live in the chains of society when
our natural state is to be free.
 M.K.M Summary

The will of the state:

Rousseau: The will of the state is the general will. The general will is
what is in fact in the best interest of the state. If an individual is clear
headed and thinking according to reason, they will adopt the general will.
If not, they can be forced to do so by the state.
* Democracy is the will of the state, which is the actual view of the
majority of the people without forcing the minority.

The use of voting

Rousseau: voting is the way of finding out what the general will is, in the
same way that doing a sum is the way of finding out what the answer to a
math's problem is.
* Voting is the way of discovering what the view of the majority.

Unit 20

-Enlightenment: intellectual movement of the eighteenth century

dedicated to the emancipation of knowledge from fear and suppression
and to the use of independent reasoning and science.

-Form (in painting): the choice and arrangement of line, colour, shape,
paint and the treatment of pictorial space.

-Neoclassical: an artistic movement prevalent in art and architecture in

the second half of the eighteenth century and in subsequent revivals.

Characteristics of the Neoclassical art of Jacques-Louis David:

1. Clarity of line
2. Logical and balanced composition
3. Restrained facial expression
4. Bold effects of light
5. Minimum distracting detail
 M.K.M Summary

Units 22 and 23

-The Chartist movement: it was about the extension of the right to vote
for the working-class.

Two theories about the social position of the working class:

A- Paternal Theory: a natural dependence of working people on those

who employ them, similar to that of children on their parents.

B- Independence Theory: self-dependence, which allows workers to be

the judges of their own interests and to relate to their employers on the
basis of equality.

- How to improve the position of the working-class:

Mill: developing the qualities of the working class through political and
industrial reformation. The working class should be treated as citizens not
as subjects.

Smiles: self-help, improving society depends on the individuals who

composed it, by improving themselves. Smiles had a strong commitment
to working class education and improvement.

Mill view:
-governments are made by man.
Define the purposes which governments are required to promote.
-Inquire what form of government is best fitted to fulfill those purposes.
-Finally find the best form of government to persuade others that it is the
best.

Two conceptions pf government:

A- A machine, a sort of spontaneous product, and the science of

government as the branch of natural history (Mill)

B- A sort of organic growth from the nature and life of the people, a
product of their habits, instincts, and unconscious wants and desires,
scarcely at all of their deliberate purposes (Smiles Self-help)
 M.K.M Summary

Two political parties:

- Liberals: the party of industry and free trade, with their strength in the
fast growing manufacturing towns (Mill)
Liberals think of government in mechanistic terms.

- Conservatives: the party of old social order, with their strength in the
country (Smiles)
Conservatives think of government in Organic terms.

Women and Reform

Ruskin: woman's essential difference from man requires that she have a
separate role.

Mill: despite their sexual differences, men and women are equal as
individual human beings; therefore women deserve to enjoy all rights
granted to men.
 M.K.M Summary

Units 24 and 25

* The liberal and conservative parties emerged from the struggle over
the 1983 reform act and the emancipation of Catholics

The debate over reform between liberals and conservatives

* There was no clear divide between the parties on support for or

opposition to reform, for both conservatives and liberals exhibited an
array of internal differences.

Liberal attitudes

Mill: a natural political order could develop once aristocratic privileges

was swept away, in which educated working-class voters would not use
their power for shortsighted selfish purposes or be liable to electoral
corruption but would accept the leadership of the most highly educated.

How does mill seek to bolster the influence of intellect and education?
- Illiterate or innumerate individuals, any one who does not pay direct
taxes or who is in receipt of parish relief or is bankrupt should not be
allowed to vote.
- By giving individuals more than one vote based, not on property, but on
education or professional qualification

Gladstone: supported the working-class, but he and other liberals such as

Bright had grave doubts about the wisdom of giving the vote to a wider
section of the working-class.

Conservative attitudes

Carnborne: argued that, although there were undoubtedly many

anomalies in the existing system, the only real choice was between
drastic change and no change at all, and the existing system worked well
enough.

Disraeli: the aristocracy and the working-class were natural allies and a
troy democracy would be the result of a much wider electorate. The
 M.K.M Summary

conservative party represented the feelings of the majority of the nation

and a bold reform act would enable it to exercise its natural leadership.
Unit 26

-Climax: in a story-line, the high point before a major change.

-Convention: traditional practice. The generalized sense of social

behavior; which people have agreed to follow.

-Denouement: (French, literally 'unknotting') the unraveling of a mystery

or the resolution of tension in the narrative.

-Development: in a story-line, the introduction of complications to the

opening situation.

-Dialogue: speech allocated to the various parts (or characters) in a play

for exchange between themselves.

-Monologue: when one character addresses the audience or voices

thought aloud.

-Exposition: the setting out (or exposure) at the beginning of a narrative

of the initial facts needed to make sense of the story-line about to unfold.

-Imitation: lifelike representation of something by means of another

medium.

-Interpretation: a particular reading or understanding of a text or score.

-Performance: the interpretation and presentation of a dramatic text on a

stage by actors, or the playing of a musical score.

-Realism: theory of the real or representation of what the artist and

audience broadly agree is true to life.

-Theme: originally a recurrent melody; by extension, a recurrent topic

that is developed during the course of a literary work.

-Tradition: time-honored practice followed, adapted or reacted to by

successive writers and artists.
 M.K.M Summary

-Turning point: crucial moment or episode in a story-line, which upsets

previous expectations.