Enlightenment 2
Enlightenment 2Why is the Enlightenment a Significant Event?
It was an intellectual movement in thinking, which moved society's thinking away from religious thinking, dominated by the Church, to rational thought dominated by science
The Enlightenment (or 'Age of Reason') is a term used to describe the philosophical, scientific, and rational attitudes, the freedom from superstition, and the belief in religious tolerance of much of 18th-century Europe. People believe the start of the Enlightenment period was between 16th and 19th century. However, cultural historians date the beginning of the enlightenment to the work of Newton, Pascal, Descartes and Locke. These thinkers however are drawing on predecessors that date well back to the 13th century. We can't, then really date the enlightenment. Do we still not live in an enlightenment world? While philosophers and cultural historians have dubbed the late 20th century as, �post Enlightenment�, we still walk around with a worldview largely based on, Enlightenment thought. So in the spirit of not dating the Enlightenment, simply refer to the changes, in European thought in the seventeenth century as "Seventeenth Century Enlightenment Thought." Although there were many philosopher and scientists engaged in the enlightenment period bringing new ways of thinking there are only a few that kick open the doors of this way of thinking. Decartes 1597-1650. He changed the way of thinking though the enlightenment period he replaced all other forms of knowledge with a single echoing �Which may be the� truth: Cogito, ergo sum, "I think there for I am". From that point onwards in European culture, subjective truth would hold a higher and more important epistemological place then objective truth; skepticism would be built into every inquiry. The main figures of the enlightenment are well known: Descartes, Pascal, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. Zinzendorf, Wesley, Vico, and Hume.
During the first half of the 18th century, the leaders of the Enlightenment waged an uphill struggle against considerable odds. Several were imprisoned for their writings, and government censorship and attacks by the Church hampered most. In many respects, however, the later decades of the century marked a triumph of the movement in Europe and America. French enlightenment philosophers visited England, which was more liberal then, their home country. They were intrigued and inspired by British philosophers such as Newton, Locke, Bacon, Hume and Smith. By the 1770s, second-generation philosophers were receiving government pensions and taking control of established intellectual academies. The enormous increase in the publication of newspapers and books ensured a wide diffusion of their ideas. Scientific experiments and philosophical writing became fashionable among wide groups in society, including members of the nobility and the clergy. A number of European monarchs also adopted certain of the ideas or at least the vocabulary of the Enlightenment. James the 1st 1603, William of orange 1688
Rationalism (Latin ratio, �reason�), in philosophy, a system of thought that emphasizes the role of reason in obtaining knowledge, in contrast to empiricism, which emphasizes the role...
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