1755 Lisbon earthquake
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| ==Effect on society and philosophy== | ==Effect on society and philosophy== | ||
| - | The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important Catholic holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout [[Catholic]] city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians and philosophers would focus and speculate on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of the [[anger of God]]. Some people thought the earthquake was a punishment for the massacre of thousands of unarmed natives and missionaries killed in South America (especially Paraguay). This massacre was ordered by the king of Portugal and made by Portuguese armies in 1754-1755. | + | The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important [[Catholic holiday]] and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout [[Catholic]] city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians and philosophers would focus and speculate on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of the [[anger of God]]. Some people thought the earthquake was a punishment for the massacre of thousands of unarmed natives and missionaries killed in South America (especially Paraguay). This massacre was ordered by the king of Portugal and made by Portuguese armies in 1754-1755. |
| The earthquake and its fallout strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the [[Europe]]an [[The Age of Enlightenment|Age of Enlightenment]]. The noted writer-philosopher [[Voltaire]] used the earthquake in ''[[Candide]]'' and in his ''[[Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne]]'' ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's ''Candide'' attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "[[the best of all possible worlds]]", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a salutary counterexample. As [[Theodor Adorno]] wrote, "[t]he earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the [[theodicy]] of [[Gottfried Leibniz|Leibniz]]" (''Negative Dialectics'' 361). In the later twentieth century, following [[Adorno]], the 1755 earthquake has sometimes been compared to the [[Holocaust]] as a catastrophe that transformed European culture and philosophy. [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life. | The earthquake and its fallout strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the [[Europe]]an [[The Age of Enlightenment|Age of Enlightenment]]. The noted writer-philosopher [[Voltaire]] used the earthquake in ''[[Candide]]'' and in his ''[[Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne]]'' ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's ''Candide'' attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "[[the best of all possible worlds]]", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a salutary counterexample. As [[Theodor Adorno]] wrote, "[t]he earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the [[theodicy]] of [[Gottfried Leibniz|Leibniz]]" (''Negative Dialectics'' 361). In the later twentieth century, following [[Adorno]], the 1755 earthquake has sometimes been compared to the [[Holocaust]] as a catastrophe that transformed European culture and philosophy. [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life. | ||
Revision as of 18:25, 19 August 2011
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The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon Earthquake, took place on November 1, 1755, at 9:40 in the morning. It was one of the most destructive and deadly earthquakes in history, killing between 60,000 and 100,000 people (though the exact number is uncertain). The earthquake was followed by a tsunami and fire, resulting in the near-total destruction of Lisbon. The earthquake accentuated political tensions in Portugal and profoundly disrupted the country's eighteenth-century colonial ambitions.
The event was widely discussed by European Enlightenment philosophers, and inspired major developments in theodicy and in the philosophy of the sublime.
Effect on society and philosophy
The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important Catholic holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout Catholic city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians and philosophers would focus and speculate on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of the anger of God. Some people thought the earthquake was a punishment for the massacre of thousands of unarmed natives and missionaries killed in South America (especially Paraguay). This massacre was ordered by the king of Portugal and made by Portuguese armies in 1754-1755.
The earthquake and its fallout strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the European Age of Enlightenment. The noted writer-philosopher Voltaire used the earthquake in Candide and in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's Candide attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "the best of all possible worlds", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a salutary counterexample. As Theodor Adorno wrote, "[t]he earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the theodicy of Leibniz" (Negative Dialectics 361). In the later twentieth century, following Adorno, the 1755 earthquake has sometimes been compared to the Holocaust as a catastrophe that transformed European culture and philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life.
The concept of the sublime, though it existed before 1755, was developed in philosophy and elevated to greater importance by Immanuel Kant, in part as a result of his attempts to comprehend the enormity of the Lisbon quake and tsunami. Kant published three separate texts on the Lisbon earthquake. The young Kant, fascinated with the earthquake, collected all the information available to him in news pamphlets, and used it to formulate a theory of the causes of earthquakes. Kant's theory, which involved the shifting of huge subterranean caverns filled with hot gases, was (though ultimately shown to be false) one of the first systematic modern attempts to explain earthquakes by positing natural, rather than supernatural, causes. According to Walter Benjamin, Kant's slim early book on the earthquake "probably represents the beginnings of scientific geography in Germany. And certainly the beginnings of seismology."
Werner Hamacher has claimed that the earthquake's consequences extended into the vocabulary of philosophy, making the common metaphor of firm "grounding" for philosophers' arguments shaky and uncertain: "Under the impression exerted by the Lisbon earthquake, which touched the European mind in one [of] its more sensitive epochs, the metaphor of ground and tremor completely lost their apparent innocence; they were no longer merely figures of speech" (263). Hamacher claims that the foundational certainty of Descartes' philosophy began to shake following the Lisbon earthquake.
The earthquake had a major impact on Portuguese politics. The prime minister was the favorite of the king, but the aristocracy despised him as an upstart son of a country squire (although the Prime Minister Sebastião de Melo is known today as Marquis of Pombal, the title was only granted in 1770, fifteen years after the earthquake). The prime minister in turn disliked the old nobles, whom he considered corrupt and incapable of practical action. Before November 1, 1755 there was a constant struggle for power and royal favor, but the competent response of the Marquis of Pombal effectively severed the power of the old aristocratic factions. However, silent opposition and resentment of King Joseph I began to rise, which would culminate with the attempted assassination of the king, and the subsequent elimination of the powerful Duke of Aveiro and the Távora family.
