THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Enlightenment Ideas

Reason

•the absence of intolerance, bigotry, or prejudice in one’s thinking

•Voltaire regarded reason as a divine force because through the power of reason society would make steady progress toward liberty and justice

Enlightenment Ideas

Nature

•What was natural was good and reasonable

•Philosophes believed that there were natural laws in all areas such as economics and politics just as there were natural laws of motion.

Newton

Enlightenment Ideas

Happiness

•A person who lived by nature’s laws would find happiness.

•Philosophes rejected the medieval notion that people should accept misery in this world to find joy in the hereafter. They wanted well-being on Earth.

ROUSSEAU

Enlightenment Ideas

Progress

•Now that people used the scientific approach to analyze human existence, philosophes believed that society and humankind could be perfected.

Condorcet

Enlightenment IdeasLiberty

•The philosophes admired the liberties that the English people had won in their Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights. Those rights were protected in England by a separation of governmental powers. France’s absolute monarchy established many restrictions on speech, trade, religion, and even personal travel.

•Through reason, the philosophes believed, society could be set free.

Montesquieu

18th CENTURY INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT

•Centered in France. •Applied the scientific principles and reliance on reason and empiricism of the scientific Revolution to the task of determining laws for the governing of society. •Proponents emphasized reason, nature, happiness progress, and liberty. •Leading ''lights'' of this movement met in the homes of rich and intellectual women, attending salons where they could discuss their ideas. •The leading hostess of such salons was Madame Geoffrin.

18th CENTURY INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT - PHILOSOPHES

French thinkers who were committed to secular views based on reason or human understanding only, which they hoped would provide a basis for beneficial changes affecting every area of life and thought

All of the philosophes saw themselves as continuing the work of the great 17th century pioneers-Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Isaac Newton, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke--who had developed methods of rational and empirical inquiry. Descartes

18th CENTURY INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT - PHILOSOPHES

The philosophes believed that science could reveal nature as it truly is and show how it could be controlled and manipulated. This belief provided an incentive to extend scientific methods into every field of inquiry, thus laying the groundwork for the development of the modern social sciences,

Locke

18th CENTURY INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT –

PHILOSOPHES AND RELIGION1. The extremists rejected religion and sought to replace it

with rationalism as a means of knowing nature and explaining the mysteries of life. These thinkers were either atheists or pantheist.

2. The less extreme espoused Deism or agnosticism.

3. Promoting self-expression and human fulfillment, the philosophes opposed censorship and repression. They rejected the intolerance of the established Christian churches and those governments that suppressed dissent.

18th CENTURY INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT - PHYSIOCRATS

Economic thinkers who promoted laissez-faire philosophies.