Public Traces in Pre-Revolutionary France: Trivets of the Public Sphere

Abstract

Examination of the mechanism of the changes in history demands to propagate into the formations in the background. Considering the political, social and structural transformations, the atmosphere in Pre-revolutionary France provides a good example for the people’s development under these formations which exert influence on the public sphere through freemasonry, salons, and academia. These formations can be discerned as heuristic tools through which people produce new ideas and exchange these thoughts in an intellectual environment. In light of these, the purpose of this study is to present three tenets of the public sphere in 18th century France: freemasonry, salons, and academia. As these three components correspond to the formation of a public opinion and public sphere; freemasonry, salons, and academia can be regarded as the nucleus of extensive freedom of thought and sharing. Thus, this article will display the dynamics of these three trivets and reveal how they contribute to the intellectual mindset of society.

Keywords

• 18th Century France
• Academia
• Public Sphere
• The French Revolution
• Heuristic Tools

Fransız Devrimi Öncesinde Toplumun İzleri: Kamusal Alanın Sac Ayakları

Abstract

Tarihteki değişim mekanizmalarını incelemek, arka plandaki oluşumları da irdelemeyi gerektirmektedir. Fransız Devrimi öncesinde Fransız’daki gelişimleri anlamak adına masonluk, salon ve akademi gibi insanların zihni gelişimlerine katkıda bulunduğu düşünülen kamusal alanların oluşumuna dair iyi bir örnek olmuştur. Bu yapılar keşifsel araçlar olarak görülebilir ki insanlar entelektüel bir ortam içinde yeni düşünce oluşumlarına katkıda bulunmuş ve bu düşünceleri birbirleriyle paylaşma olanağı elde etmiştir. Bunların ışığında, bu çalışma, 18. yüzyıl Fransasında kamusal alanı etkileyen üç önemli ayağa, masonluk, salon ve akademiye insanların nasıl düşüneceklerini keşfetmelerine katkıda bulunan bir keşifsel alan olarak bakmayı ve incelemeyi amaçlamıştır. Bu alanların dinamikleri de incelenerek, belirli bir kesimin toplumsal düşünceyi nasıl şekillendirdiği ve Fransız Devrimi öncesindeki zihni atmosferi nasıl biçimlendirdiği ve önayak olduğu ortaya konacaktır. Hem kamusal düşünce hem de kamusal alanın oluşumunda etkili olan bu oluşumların düşünce özgürlüğü ve düşüncenin dolaşımına da etkide bulunduğu düşüncesiyle, bu oluşumların toplumsal zihniyete ve entelektüel hazineye nasıl katkıda bulunduğu ortaya çıkarılacaktır.

Keywords

• 18. Yüzyıl Fransa
• Akademi
• Kamusal Alan
• Fransız Devrimi
• Keşifsel Araçlar

References

1. Baker, K. M. (1990). Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625527.
2. Beaurepaire, P. Y. (2006). The universal republic of the freemasons and the culture of mobility in the enlightenment. French Historical Studies, 29(3), 407-431. https://doi.org/10.1215/00161071-2006-005.
3. Blom, P. (2010). A wicked company: The forgotten radicalism of the European enlightenment. Basic Books.
4. Burke, J. M. & Jacob, M. C. (1996). French freemasonry, women, and feminist scholarship. The Journal of Modern History, 68(3), 513- 549. https://doi.org/10.1086/245341.
5. Calhoun, B. (2012). Shaping the public sphere: English coffeehouses and French salons and the age of the enlightenment. Colgate Academic Review, 3(1).
6. Caradonna, J. L. (2006). Review of Antoine Lilti’s Le monde des salons: Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au au XVIIIe siècle, by Antoine Lilti. Jeremy Caradonna. https://www.jeremycaradonna.com/Review%20of%20Antoine%20Lilti.pdf
7. Chartier, R. (1991). The cultural origins of the French revolution. (L. G. Cochrane, Trans.). Duke University Press. de Tocqueville, A. (2008). The ancien régime and the French Revolution. (G. Bevan, Trans.). Penguin Books.
8. Furet, F. (1989). Interpreting the French Revolution. (E. Forster, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

9. Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. (T. Burger & F. Lawrence, Trans.). MIT Press.
10. Jacob, M.C. (1991). Living the enlightenment: Freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century Europe. Oxford University Press.
11. Jacob, M. C. (2019). The secular enlightenment. Princeton University Press.
12. Jones, C. (2002). The great nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715–99. Columbia University Press.
13. Jones, C. (2014). The smile revolution in 18th century Paris. Oxford University Press.
14. Kale, S. D. (2002). Women, the public sphere, and the persistence of salons. French Historical Studies, 25(1), 115-148. https://doi.org/10.1215/00161071-25-1-115.
15. Kale, S. D. (2004). French salons: High society and political sociability from the old regime to the revolution of 1848. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
16. Knight, I. F. (1979). [Review of the book Le siecle des Lumieres en Province: Academies et Academiciens Provinciaux, 1680-1789 by D. Roche]. The American Historical Review, 84(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1855483.
17. Lilti, A. (2009). The kingdom of politesse: Salons and the republic of letters in eighteenth-century Paris. Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts, 1(1), 1-11.
18. Loiselle, K. (2004). Brotherly love: Freemasonry and male friendship in enlightenment France. Cornell University Press.
19. Maza, S. (1993). Private lives and public affairs: The causes célèbres of prerevolutionary France. University of California Press.
20. McClellan, J. E. (1985). Science reorganized: Scientific societies in the eighteenth century. Columbia University Press.
21. Melton, J. H. (2001). The rise of the public in enlightenment Europe (New approaches to European history). Cambridge University Press.
22. Nathans, B. (1990). Habermas's 'public sphere' in the era of the French revolution. French Historical Studies, 16(3), 620-644. https://doi.org/10.2307/286491.
23. Outram, D. (2013). The enlightenment. Cambridge University Press.
24. Oxford University Press. (1996). Heuristic. In The concise Oxford dictionary of English etymology (1st ed., p. 215).
25. Polya, G. (2004). How to solve it: A new aspect of mathematical method. Princeton University Press.
26. Wright, V. (1991). “Les Frères en Lutte”? provincial freemasonry on the eve of the third republic. French Politics and Society, 9(2), 39-52.