Enlightenment for the Common People? Frederick II and the Philosophes on Popular Prejudice, Deception, and Education

Could the common people, including illiterate laborers, be enlightened? How should cultural elites and political leaders embark on the task? Frederick II, king of Prussia, discussed these issues in an extensive correspondence with Voltaire and d’Alembert in the 1760s and 1770s, exchanges that led to an infamous prize contest on the potentially useful deception of the people (Berlin, 1780). Analyzing this discussion in detail for the first time, the article situates it within contemporary and longer-term contexts. The result is a reassessment of the views of mainstream Enlightenment authors on the intellectual capacities of the populace, the function of religion in ethics and politics, and the positive role of prejudice (as distinct from superstition) in eighteenth-century discourse. This should nuance Hans-Georg Gadamer’s famous claim that the Enlightenment harboured a “prejudice against all prejudices.”