Question of the Day:

• Why is reason important to the enlightenment?

• What does it do to the kings power?

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement inEurope during the 18th century that led to

a whole new world view.

Kant said……

According to the 18th century philosopherImmanuel Kant, the“motto” of theEnlightenment was“Sapere aude! Havecourage to use your ownintelligence!”

Before the Enlightenment…

• Until then, most people believed that God controlled the universe in a "metaphysical" manner

• Metaphysical means "beyond physical“– suggests that it is impossible for humans to

comprehend things that happen in our environment

Intellectual Movement

During the 18th century, certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed

that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them.

•These thinkers believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world.

Who was in the Enlightenment?

• Galileo = one of the first thinkers of the Enlightenment– discovered that many moons surrounded Jupiter– proved Copernicus' theory– church was opposed– imprisoned for heresy and printers were forbidden to print

his writings– His students continued to discuss his teachings and in

time, the ideas of using observations and measurement were to become the root of modern science.

What is the Enlightenment?

• A revolution in intellectual activity that changes Europeans’ view of government and society by using rational thought and reason.

• The Scientific Revolution spurred reassessment of many prevailing ideas. Europeans sought insights into society during the 1600-1700s.

• This leads to the Enlightenment—an intellectual movement stressing reason and thought.

• Educated people throughout Europe, beyond, inspired

• Held notion that world problems could be solved

• New ideas debated in coffeehouses, public spaces

• Writers published ideas in books, magazines, pamphlets

Ideas of Enlightenment

How did the change begin?

• Peasants moved from rural estates to towns for freedom and prosperity

• the ordinary town-dweller began to realize that things need not always go on as they had for centuries

• a new class of merchants came into prominence, partially displacing the old aristocracy whose power had been rooted in the ownership of land– had their own ideas about the sort of world they

wanted to inhabit, and they became major agents of change, in the arts, in government, and in the economy.

CHANGE HAD TO TAKE PLACE!• Europeans were changing, but Europe's institutions

were not keeping up

• The Church insisted that it was the only source of truth

• Writers and speakers grew restive at the omnipresent censorship and sought whatever means they could to evade or even denounce it.

Where do we go….

• The Philosophers:• Aristotle, Queen Elizabeth I, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, King Louis

XIV, Baron de Montesquieu, Plato, Rousseau, Mar Wollstonecraft