I skipped through the video and read the slides as I went - so I might have missed something.
But one thought I had was that if commercial societies preceded the use of fossil fuels, I gather that coal (and later oil?) usage was ramping up just as the Enlightenment thinkers were publishing their ideas. Possibly we can say the fossil fuel usage advanced our material progress while the Enlightenment advanced our social/ governance progress?
You probably have the real coal and oil usage data readily to hand so I will defer to your response on that.
Plus I really "need to read me some Hume!" :-) I am resisting his ideas about emotion controlling logic, but also realize my reaction is at least partly emotional, as well as "rational"! :-)
Coal usage was very limited before 1800, which is about when the Enlightenment ended. It was widely used for home heating in London, but it did not have many other applications. Even factories were typically powered by water during this time period.
It was the invention of the railroad which really pushed coal burning.
I should have mentioned it in the video and podcast, but the vast majority of what the Enlightenment proposed was already at least partly implemented in one or more of the Commercial societies (particularly England and the Netherlands).
I guess that you could say that the Enlightenment provided the intellectual rational for what Commercial societies created.
I skipped through the video and read the slides as I went - so I might have missed something.
But one thought I had was that if commercial societies preceded the use of fossil fuels, I gather that coal (and later oil?) usage was ramping up just as the Enlightenment thinkers were publishing their ideas. Possibly we can say the fossil fuel usage advanced our material progress while the Enlightenment advanced our social/ governance progress?
You probably have the real coal and oil usage data readily to hand so I will defer to your response on that.
Plus I really "need to read me some Hume!" :-) I am resisting his ideas about emotion controlling logic, but also realize my reaction is at least partly emotional, as well as "rational"! :-)
Thanks for the comment.
Coal usage was very limited before 1800, which is about when the Enlightenment ended. It was widely used for home heating in London, but it did not have many other applications. Even factories were typically powered by water during this time period.
It was the invention of the railroad which really pushed coal burning.
I should have mentioned it in the video and podcast, but the vast majority of what the Enlightenment proposed was already at least partly implemented in one or more of the Commercial societies (particularly England and the Netherlands).
I guess that you could say that the Enlightenment provided the intellectual rational for what Commercial societies created.