Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment is a term used to hear the trends in thought and letters in Europe and the American colonies during the 18th century prior to the French Revolution. The phrase was much employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and a respect for humanity. The precursors of the Enlightenment can be traced to the 17th century and earlier. They include the philosophical rationalists René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, the political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and mixed skeptical thinkers in France such as Pierre Bayle. evenly important, however, were the self-confidence engendered by new walk outies in science and the heart of cultural relativism encouraged by the exploration of the non-European world. Of the basic assumptions and beliefs universal to philosophers and intellectuals of this period, perhaps the most important was an abiding faith in the power of human reason. The age was enormously impressed by Isaac Newtons discovery of universal gravitation. If humanity could so open the laws of the universe, Gods own laws, why could it not also discover the laws underlying all of nature and society?

People came to pretend that by means of a judicious use of reason, an unending emanation would be possible-progress in knowledge, in technical achievement, and even in moral values. Following the philosophy of Locke, the 18th-century writers believed that knowledge is not innate, however comes only from experience and observation guided by reason. through and through proper education, humanity itself could be altered, its nature changed for the better. A gigantic premium was placed on the discovery of truth through the observation of nature, rather than through the study of authoritative sources, such as Aristotle and the Bible. Although they saw the church-especially the Roman Catholic church-as the principal wedge that had enslaved the... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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