History

Introduction

The  Enlightenment  (also known as the   Age of Enlightenment  or the  Age of

Reason) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the

world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, ‘‘ The Century of Philosophy’’ In

general terms, the Enlightenment was an intellectual movement, developed mainly

in France, Britain and Germany, which advocated freedom, democracy and reason

as the primary values of society.

Key Unit Competence

Assess the impact of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this unit, I should be able to:

• Explain the reasons for the rise of the Age of Enlightenment.

• Analyse the characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment.

• Describe the ideas of different philosophers (John Locke, Baron de

Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François Marie Arouet Voltaire and

Denis Diderot) during the Age of Enlightenment.

• Explain the impact of the ideas of philosophers on human society.

Introductory activity

What do you know about the Age of Enlightenment?

6.1 Introduction to the era of Enlightenment: concepts,origins and causes

Activity 6.1

Define the Age of Enlightenment and describe the ideas of different philosophers

(John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François Marie

Arouet Voltaire and Denis Diderot) during the Age of Enlightenment.

6.1.1 Concepts of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a sprawling intellectual, philosophical, cultural, and social

movement that spread throughout England, France, Germany, and other parts of

Europe during the 1700s. It was an intellectual and philosophical movement that

dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, and later in North

America. It is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural

life centred upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated for as the

primary source and legitimacy for authority.

The Age of Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, refers to the

time of the guiding intellectual movement, called The Enlightenment. The term

enlightenment has a very deep meaning. The common literary definition being:

‘wisdom and understanding and ability to think and reason rationally’. There are two

broad meanings of the term enlightenment, religious or spiritual enlightenment

and intellectual enlightenment. This era refers to the intellectual enlightenment in

European history. It covers about a century and a half in Europe, beginning with the

publication of Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620) and ending with Emmanuel

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

The Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason was a period in Europe during the

17^th and 18^th centuries when many individuals refused to acknowledge the authority

of the Scripture and instead exalted their own reason to a place of extreme authority.

It was a period in which people rejected traditional ideas and supported a belief

in human reason. Thus from 1650 to 1800, the European philosophers began

rethinking old ideas about government, religion and economics. This movement

was spearheaded by philosophers like Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Charles-Louis

Montesquieu and Denis Diderot.

A philosopher is a person who seeks wisdom or enlightenment; a scholar or a

thinker.

During this period, the use of reason in shaping people’s ideas about the society

and politics defined a period called the Enlightenment. People began to put great

importance to reason, or logical thought. They used reason to try and solve problems

such as poverty and war. It was believed that the use of reason could achieve three

great goals: knowledge, freedom and happiness.

The Age of Enlightenment occurred in the western part of Europe, centring in and

around France in the later half of the 16th century. This age is a benchmark in the

history because of the drastic changes it brought to the society and also in people’s

minds. These changes were so important that they are relevant even in the present

day.

The people during this period began to reason and question everything related to

their existence and began to break free from the dictations of the Church which

was the supreme power at that time. This brought in changes in the social, political

as well as the economical scene of the then period.

The Enlightenment had its roots in the scientific and intellectual advances of the

17^th century, and it reached its highest point in the 18th century. It was also an age

when many European thinkers looked at governments, religions, and the arts in

relation to natural law. This intellectual drive to understand and improve society is

called the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment can also be traced back to the growing dissatisfaction of the

people towards the dictatorship of the Church then. Before the Enlightenment,

nobody was allowed to question, judge or comment about any decision taken by

the Church. They were compelled to believe whatever the Church wanted them to

believe.

No invention or discovery was allowed to be made public without the approval of

the Church before the period in review. In fact, the Church discouraged any sort of

research and development by the people and wanted all to believe blindly in the

versions of the Bible.

No independent endeavours were allowed or encouraged. If somebody was caught

doing so, he was declared a sinner and was shunned by the Church from the society.

Thus people wanted to break free from this stagnancy and began to rebel, giving

rise to the Age of Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is a very important phase in

the world history without which the world that we know today would not have

been what it is. 

On the surface, the most apparent cause of the Enlightenment was the Thirty

Years’ War. This terrible and destructive war, which lasted from 1618 to 1648, forced

German writers to write harsh criticisms regarding the ideas of nationalism and

warfare. Authors such as Hugo Grotius and John Comenius were some of the first

Enlightenment minds to go against tradition and propose better solutions. John

Amos Comenius is considered as the father of the modern education.

The Thirty Years’ War was a religious war fought primarily in Central Europe between

1618 and 1648 and it was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in

human history, resulted into eight million fatalities mainly from violence, famine

and plagues, but also from military engagements. Its effects included for instance

the decline of the Catholic Church in northern Europe and authorisation got by

protestant princes to go on with religious practices.

At the same time, European thinkers’ interest in the practical world developed into

scientific study, while greater exploration of the world exposed Europe to other

cultures and philosophies.

Centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the Church brought

average citizens in Europe to a breaking point (the point at which a situation

becomes critical), and the most intelligent and vocal finally decided to speak out

their minds. The occurrence of the Age of Enlightenment was due to political,

scholarly and religious causes.

Politically

• People believed and wanted economic improvement and political reforms

and believed both were possible.

• Rulers who believed in enlightened absolutism wanted to centralise their

authority to reform their countries.

• They put the well-being of their country above anything else; including religion.

• Need for administrative reform in France after the wars of Louis XIV.

• The wars of Louis XIV left a huge debt and lots of commotion.

• Philosophers started to write topics that related to the government, politics

and rights.

• People began thinking differently about these subjects and coming up with

their own opinions; which, according to Kant, happens when someone is

enlightened.

Scholarly

• Growth of the print culture that made ideas circulate faster through books,

journals, newspapers, and pamphlets.

• Isaac Newton and John Locke’s ideas were the basis for the Enlightenment.

• Newton’s tabula rasa (blank page) and other fundamental ideas were

brought to the public.

• Newton’s discoveries in science allowed people to question things more.

• People began to think the universe is understandable through science, not

religion.

• Inspiration came from the Scientific Revolution.

• The discovery that the earth was not at the centre of the universe and the

discovery that God had not created everything led to a new way of thought

where the Church’s validity was questioned.

Religiously

• Deism believed that rational and religion can be combined.

• Philosophers wanted to transform religion into an encouraging force to

improve living.

• People started to think for themselves and disregarded the idea of following

God’s laws by following their “own”laws and thinking for themselves.

The Enlightenment developed through a snowball effect: small advances triggered

larger ones, and before Europe and the world knew it, almost two centuries of

philosophizing and innovation had ensued. These studies generally began in the

fields of earth science and astronomy, as notables such as Johannes Kepler and

Galileo Galilei took the old, beloved ‘truths’ of Aristotle and disproved them.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 B.C – 322 B.C) was suspicious of democracy,

which he thought could lead to mob rule. Instead, Aristotle favoured rule by a

single strong and virtuous leader. 

Thinkers such as René Descartes and Francis Bacon revised the scientific method,

setting the stage for Isaac Newton and his landmark discoveries in physics. Isaac

Newton used the scientific method to make a range of discoveries. His achievements

using the scientific method helped to inspire Enlightenment thinkers.

Newton’s discoveries anchored the Scientific Revolution and set the stage for

everything that followed in mathematics and physics. He shared credit for the creation

of calculus, and his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica introduced the

world to gravity and fundamental laws of motion.

The infinitesimal calculus is the branch of mathematics that deals with the

findings and properties of derivatives and integrals of functions, by methods

originally based on the summation of infinitesimal differences. The two main types

are differential calculus and integral calculus.

From Sir Isaac Newton’s discoveries emerged a system for observing the world

and making testable hypotheses based on those observations. At the same time,

however, scientists faced ever-increasing scorn and scepticism from people in the

religious community, who felt threatened by science and its attempts to explain

matters of faith. Nevertheless, the progressive, rebellious spirit of these scientists

would inspire a century’s worth of thinkers.

The Scientific Revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early

modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology

(including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about

nature.

Application activity6.1

1. Explain the concept of Enlightenment.

2. Explain the causes of the Age of Enlightenment.

6.2 The nature and characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment

Western philosophy has gone through considerable change in recent centuries.

The Age of Enlightenment is an important time period in Europe and North America.

It is one of the most important eras in the history of mankind. This period is

referred to the time surrounding the 18th century, more precisely in between the

Thirty Years’ War and the French Revolution. This period is not a revolution, thought

or acceptance of one single philosophy, but is a process where the society evolved

a bit more. The significant change that was observed was the way in which people

thought. Reason and rationality of fact became the foundation of any thought.

In this process, authority of monarchs was challenged and religious customs that

sounded irrational were questioned.

The Enlightenment of the 18th century Europe was an intellectual movement

among the upper and middle class elites. It involved a new world view which

explained the world and looked foranswers in terms of reason rather than faith, and

in terms of anoptimistic, natural, humanistic approach rather than a fatalistic (the

belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable),super natural

one.

Stunning successes in understanding the physical world through the processes of

logic and observation encouraged the belief that similar progress might be made

in the area of political, economy and socialrelations.

People began to question old ideas about the world around them through reason

and rational thinking. This led to the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason

or Enlightenment. People used the human mind to comprehend the universe as

never before.

Human sympathy, rather than supernatural grace was viewed as a basis for the moral

life. This reliance on human sympathy as a catalyst for moral choice encouraged the

belief that each individual had the power to control his or her spiritual destiny.

The rationalists believed that human beings can arrive at the truth by using reason,

rather than by relying on the authority of the past, on religious faith, or on intuition.

Enlightenment challenged the authority of the Puritans.

Rationalism is any view appealing to intellectual and deductive reason

(as opposed to sensory experience or any religious teachings) as the source of

knowledge or justification. Rationalists hold it that the best way to arrive at

certain knowledge is by using the mind’s rational abilities.It was a philosophical

movement which gathered momentum during the Age of Reason of the 17th

century. 

Characteristics

• The Enlightenment or The Age of Reason was marked by the glorification of

man’s ability to reason.

• Science and development served as the backbone for the popularity of law

and reason. 

• Stability and peace were regarded as the symbols of this period.

• This period was called The Augustan Age named after the Roman Emperor

Augustus who stabilized and expanded the Roman Empire.

• Greater cultural development took place but with the social desire of

everyone remaining within the hierarchical order for stability to be

established.

• At the same time, it should be borne in mind that due to the agrarian society

evolving into an industrial economy, there was a great flux in the value

system and the cultural background of England.

• Its participants thought that they were illuminating human intellect and

culture after the ‘dark’ Middle Ages.

• Characteristics of the Enlightenment include the rise of concepts such as

reason, liberty and the scientific method. Enlightenment philosophy was

sceptical of religion, especially the powerful Catholic Church.

• Independent thought was embraced, scepticism ran freely through work,

and new values, including an emphasis on science, became quite common

among the educated classes. Not surprisingly, this Enlightenment found its

way to the literary world as well.

• This era was dominated by the Declaration of Independence and the thoughts

of thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who laid the founding stones of the modern free world that we enjoy

today.

Application Activity6.2

1. Describe the nature and characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment.

6.3 Ideas of different philosophers

Activity 6.3

By searching on internet or in your school library, write a short text of not more than 150 words explaining the different ideas of different philosophers (John Locke, Montesquieu, JeanJacques Rousseau and François Marie Arouet Voltaire and Denis Diderot).

Tabula rasa refers to the mind before it receives the impressions gained from experience. It is the epistemological (theory of knowledge) idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. In other words, it is ‘the mind in its primary state’, from Latin tabula rasa, literally ‘scraped tablet or clean slate’, ‘from which writing has been erased, thus ready to be written on again.

Philosophers were composed of academics and intellectuals who spread the ideas of Enlightenment. Notable philosophers included John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, François Marie Arouet Voltaire, the Baron de Montesquieu and Denis Diderot. The philosophers wrote stories and articles pointing out the problems of the French society and government. They looked forward to a time when people would be free to think for themselves and to make their own decisions.

John Locke was born in England in 1632. He was a philosopher and a physician whose writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, a lot of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.

He is considered as the first of the British empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology (theory of knowledge) and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory.

John Locke attended Oxford University and was influenced by a dean who introduced him to the idea of religious freedom. Throughout his writings, he argued that people had the gift of reason, or the ability to think. He thought also that people were basically reasonable and moral.

Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and ‘the self’, figuring prominently in the later works of the philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant.

Theory of mind is the ability to recognize and attribute mental states – thoughts, perceptions, desires, intentions, feelings –to oneself and to others and to understand how these mental states might affect behaviour. It is also an understanding that others have beliefs, thoughts processes and emotions.

John Locke’s contributions to the Enlightenment had a great deal to do with the

inspiration of America today. He was a philosopher who developed the philosophy

that there were no legitimate governments under the rights of the kings’ theory.

The king’s theory is that God chooses the rulers and when the ruler is being

challenged, you are challenging God. Locke did not think this was right so he

wrote his own theory to challenge it. One idea in his theory was the power to be

a governor has to be granted by the people, maybe through voting. Another idea

was that all people had natural rights. These rights were life, liberty, and property.

For Locke people automatically gained these rights when they were born. The

government is supposed to protect these rights of the citizens.

John Locke’s ideas became the foundation of many political systems and gave

millions of people freedom.    He advocated for natural rights. He thought that

people were basically reasonable and moral. Further, they had certain natural rights,

or rights that belonged to all humans from birth. These included the right to life,

liberty, and property.

In his famous Two Treatises of Government (1690), Locke argued that

people formed governments to protect their natural rights. The best kind of

government, he said, had limited power and was accepted by all citizens. Thus,

unlike Hobbes, Locke rejected absolute monarchy. A government, he said, has

an obligation to the people it governs. If a government fails its obligations or

violates people’s natural rights, the people have the right to overthrow that

government.

Locke believes man’s mind comes into this world as tabula rasa. For him,

knowledge is neither innate, revealed nor based on authority but subject to

uncertainty tempered by reason, tolerance and moderation. According to Locke, an

absolute ruler as proposed by Hobbes is unnecessary, for natural law is based on

reason and seeking peace and survival for man.

John Locke was a Philosopher who favoured limited government. Only

governments with limited power, which are accepted by all citizens, protected

the natural rights of the people. The main ideas of John Locke were:

People have NATURAL rights to life, liberty and property. Since these rights were

natural, no one could take them away, including the government and the king.

• Government is created to PROTECT the natural rights of the people and has

only the limited and specific powers the PEOPLE consent (approve) to give

it.

• Citizens should rebel against unjust governments.

• Governments should have limited power-no absolutism.

Regarding his socio-political ideas, he was one of the most influential thinkers

during the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe who preached the equality of all

men. Rousseau also had a profound dislike for authority (or even structure) of any

sort and sought to restore a proper respect for the creativity and worth of individual

human beings.

Rousseau also explored the political implications of these ideas. His notion of

individual liberty and his convictions about political unity helped to fuel the romantic

spirit of the French Revolution.

In Rousseau’s most important work, The Social Contract (1772), he argues that in

order to be free, people should do what is best for their community. Rousseau had

many supporters who were inspired by his passionate writings. European monarchs,

on the other hand, were angry that Rousseau was questioning authority.

What do you understand by social contract?The social contract is a theory or model

that originated from the Age of Enlightenment. Usually, the social contract concerns

the origin of society and the legality of the authority of the government over the

individual. Social contract opinions typically suggest that people have agreed,

either explicitly or implicitly, to renounce some of their freedoms and submit to the

authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange

for protection of their remaining rights. It is the contract or agreement between

the rulers and the ruled defining the rights and duties of each. The question of the

relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social

contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract a 1762 book by

Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this idea.

As a result, Rousseau worried about persecution for much of his life. He wrote Man

is born free, but is everywhere in chains. This justification he can find only if the

ideas and desires of the people are really carried out by the government. Only in this

way is liberty retained, and equality realised. Rousseau wanted a democracy, where

all men actually decide issues, not a representative democracy, like that of Britain,

where other people are elected to decide for them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas

influenced American and French Revolutions.

Rousseau suggested dividing a large state into a number of small direct democracies,

and the binding of these into a federation. But it was the spirit of democracy, rather

than the details, which affected the revolutionary leaders. He therefore helped to

create the emotional spirit which made people ready to rebel.

Concerning his ideas, Voltaire became at once the most admired and the most

feared man of Europe, while the very classes he criticised, nobility and royalty,

competed for the honour of entertaining him. Only his great enemy, the Church,

could never forgive him for his criticism-and his deism (belief in the existence of a

supreme being).

Voltaire was a deist, and in one of his attacks on conventional religion he wondered

why the God of the Old Testament had created humans with a capacity for pleasure

and then damned them for using it.

Voltaire wondered why Jehovah (God) had created humans and then drowned

them in His flood. He attacked the idea of original sin, wondering why children

should be punished for the sins of their first father, Adam.

Voltaire thought of himself as ‘enlightened’ and admired the English form of

government and the ideas of reason and natural rights propounded by John

Locke. He doubted the Christian religion and wrote much against prejudice,

superstition and intolerance.

Voltaire contributed greatly to freedom of speech and press. He was opposed to

militarism and slavery. He defended freedom of thought and used biting wit as

a weapon to expose the abuses of his day. He targeted corrupt officials and idle

aristocrats.

Voltaire advocated for the separation of the Church and the State. He was known

for denouncing the injustices of the Ancien Régime like the imbalance of power

and taxes. He was the most influential Enlightenment figure whose ideas led to the

French and American Revolutions, and brought down the Ancien Régime.

Civil Rights is the advancement of equality for all people regardless of race,

sex, age, disability, national origin, religion, or certain characteristics. In other

words, civil rights are a class of rights that protect individuals’ freedom from

infringement by governments, social organisations, and private individuals.

They ensure one’s ability to participate in the civil and political life of the society

and state without discrimination or repression.

Ancien Régime (old regime) was the political and social system of the Kingdom of

France from the Late Middle Ages until 1789, when hereditary monarchy and the

feudal system of French nobility were abolished by the French Revolution.

Voltaire’s most important project that he worked on was the defending of

empirical science. His numerous plays and essays frequently advocated for

freedom from the ploys of religion, while Candide (1759), the most notable of his

works, conveyed his criticisms of optimism and superstition into a neat package.

Voltaire’s most important writings include Candide (1759); Elements of Philosophy

of Newton (1738); and Letters on the English Parliament (1733).

Regarding his political ideas, in his principal work published in 1748, The Spirit

of Laws (L’Esprit des lois), he advanced the idea of the separation of powers – a

foundation for modern democracy. This was a major contribution to political

theory. 

What is political theory? It is the study of topics such as politics, liberty, justice,

property, rights, law, and the enforcement of laws by authority; what they are, why

(or even if) they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate,

what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and

why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if

any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.

The Spirit of Laws outlined his ideas on how government would best work and

expanded John Locke’s political study and incorporated the ideas of a division of

state and separation of powers. 

In 1748, Montesquieu published The Spirit of the Laws, in which he discussed

governments throughout history. He felt that the best way to protect liberty

was to divide the various functions and powers of government among three

branches: the legislative, executive, and judiciary. He also felt that each branch of

government should be able to serve as a check on the other two, an idea that we

call checks and balances. Montesquieu’s beliefs would soon profoundly affect the

Framers of the United States Constitution.

Montesquieu’s work also ventured into sociology: he spent a considerable amount

of time researching various cultures and their climates, ultimately deducing that

climate is a major factor in determining the type of government a given country

should have. He spent a lot of time thinking about how governments should be

created and maintained. His ideas guided the Founding Fathers when they wrote the

United States Constitution. Even today, his thinking influences the way people

think about government around the world.

What were Baron Charles Montesquieu’s main ideas?

• He courageously fought for civil rights in France like the freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and free trial.

• He advocated for the separation of the Church and the State.

• Voltaire defended freedom of thought through his writings.

Montesquieu was opposed to republicanism and disliked democracy, which

he saw as mob rule. He saw government as benefiting from the knowledge

of society’s elite, and he saw common people as unfit to discuss public affairs.

The masses, he believed, were moved too much by emotion and too little by

reason. He wrote: ‘I would rather be ruled by one lion than a hundred rats’.

6.3.5 Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

Denis Diderot was born in 1713 and was a French philosopher, art critic, and

writer. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best known for

serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopaedia (the first

systematic, collective enterprise designed to organise all our knowledge of the

sciences, arts and technology in a format accessible to the everyman educated)

along with Jean le Rond d’Alembert.

Through his works, specially the Encyclopaedia, Diderot revealed extensive

information and recent scientific discoveries like the size of the universe. His

humanitarian and radical ideals helped to transform the society’s view of the

human being. He strongly opposed slavery. Diderot edited and published the

Encyclopaedia to ‘change the general way of thinking’.

Diderot’s Encyclopaedia included articles by leading thinkers of the day, including

Montesquieu and Voltaire. In these articles, the philosophers denounced slavery,

praised freedom of expression, and urged education for all. They attacked the

divine-right theory and traditional religions. Critics raised an outcry. The French

government argued that the Encyclopaedia was an attack on public morals, and

the pope threatened to excommunicate the Roman Catholics who bought or

read the volumes.

The divine right of kings, or divine-right theory of kingship, is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God.

Despite these and other efforts to ban the Encyclopaedia, more than 4,000 copies

were printed between 1751 and 1789. When translated into other languages, the

Encyclopaedia helped to spread Enlightenment ideas throughout Europe and

across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

Diderot wrote: ‘No man has received from nature the right to give orders to

others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has

the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason’. Diderot should

always be remembered as one of the great philosophers of the Age of Reason. 

By expressing his modern and liberal ideas (free thinking) Diderot incited the

people to think and join him in the struggle for social and political change. Diderot

collected and presented scattered knowledge of the divine rights, reasoning,

and toleration. He always expressed support for social and political reforms. He

was not afraid to show his disagreement with the Church. His magnificent work

was extremely influential. It inspired the French Revolution and the American

Revolution.

Denis Diderot died of emphysema (a condition in which the air sacs of the lungs

are damaged and enlarged, causing breathlessness) at the age of 71, in Paris,

France on July 31, 1784.

Application Activity 6.3

1. How did the ideas of different philosophers contribute to the Age of

Enlightenment?

2. “The English people are free only during the election of its MPs. As

soon as they are elected, it is a slave, it is nothing”. What do you think

about this Rousseau’s statement?

3. “Voltaire is remembered as a philosopher who courageously fought

for civil rights in France”. Explain clearly this statement by giving

clear examples.

4. Read the text in box. What do you think about those different

statements? Write your opinion on not more than one page.

6.3.6 Impact of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment

The effects of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment were felt in the following social,

economic and political domains:

• It led to the belief in educating people.

• It led to the discovery of gravity through Isaac Newton’s research.

• People became more literate due to the printing press being able to

produce more books at a quicker pace. These went to schools and universities

where people read more and more.

• It led to the Industrial Revolution.

• It influenced the American and French revolutions.

• Capitalism became the new economy theory.

• People began to question their religion.

• Usually ended the privileges of the nobility.

• Slavery was seen as barbarism.

• People toppled their governments when they wanted change.

Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned

the traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be

improved through rational change.

The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment

ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its

decline. The Enlightenment ultimately gave way to the 19th-century Romanticism.

Romanticism was the attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many

works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in

Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid 19th century.

The first effect of the Age of Enlightenment was a general rebel against the

teachings of the Church. Earlier, the Church used to profess that God was the

absolute power and the reason behind every occurrence. People used to believe in

miracles. But with the age in discussion, all those were being questioned. 

People deduced that there was scientific logic and reasons behind every happening

around the World and not simply God’s wish. Thus everybody began to stop

believing the Church blindly and put their own reasoning behind everything. For

this, that period is also called the Age of Reason.

The most apparent effect that followed the Age of Enlightenment was the

development of new ideas in every field. Everybody also began to be intolerant

to all the dictations made by their earlier faith. Economically, the Industrial

Revolution happened, changing the very face of the then society in Europe as it

gave rise to a new group of independent, wealthy and educated class of men.

A whole new political scene emerged with the formation of nations and state,

led by independent kings and parliaments. Earlier the Church was the supreme

power, but after the enlightenment, it began to lose its position. All these paved

way to the social and political scene that we know today.

The Enlightenment developed through a snowball effect, i.e small advances

triggered larger ones, and before Europe and the world knew it, almost two

centuries of philosophizing and innovation had ensued.

During this period, people like John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), the father of

modern education, fostered the belief that education should “follow the natural

order of things”. Children’s development follows a timetable of its own and their

education should reflect that fact. They should be allowed to learn at their own

pace and learn by doing.

John Amos Comenius was an innovator who first introduced pictorial textbooks

written in native language instead of Latin. He applied effective teaching based on

the natural gradual growth from simple to more comprehensive concepts. He

supported lifelong learning and development of logical thinking by moving from

dull memorization. Three most important contributions that he made are: books

with illustrations, education with the senses, social reform-educate the poor as

well as the rich.

During the Age of Enlightenment, there were many discoveries in the fields of earth

science and astronomy, as notables such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei took

the old, beloved ‘‘truths” of Aristotle and disproved them. Thinkers such as René

Descartes and Francis Bacon revised the scientific method, setting the stage for

Isaac Newton and his landmark discoveries in physics.

From these discoveries there emerged a system for observing the world and making

testable hypotheses based on those observations. At the same time, however,

scientists faced ever-increasing contempt and scepticism (doubt as to the truth

of something) from people in the religious community, who felt threatened by

science and its attempts to explain matters of faith.

Scepticismis generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more

items of putative knowledge or belief. It is often directed at domains, such as the

supernatural, morality, religion, or knowledge.

6.3.7 The end of the Age of Enlightenment

Ultimately, the Enlightenment became a victim to competing ideas from several

sources. Romanticism was more appealing to less-educated common folk and

pulled them away from the empirical,scientific ideas of earlier Enlightenment

philosophers.

Similarly, the theories of scepticism came into direct conflict with the reasonbased assertions of the Enlightenment and gained a following of their own.

What ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment, however, was the French

Revolution.

Begun with the best intentions by French citizens inspired by Enlightenment

thought, the revolution attempted to implement orderly representative assemblies

but quickly degraded into chaos and violence.

Many people cited the Enlightenment-induced breakdown of norms as the root

cause of the instability and saw the violence as proof that the masses could not

be trusted to govern themselves. Nonetheless, the discoveries and theories of the

Enlightenment philosophers continued to influence Western society for centuries.

Similarly, the theories of scepticism came into direct conflict with the reason-based

assertions of the Enlightenment and gained a following of their own.

What ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment, however, was the French

Revolution. It began with the best intentions by the French citizens inspired by

the Enlightenment thought, the revolution attempted to implement orderly

representative assemblies but quickly degraded into chaos and violence.

The 17^th and 18^th centuries philosophy was still rooted in religion, with notions of

equality, individuality and liberty that were largely metaphysical. The 19th century,

however, marked the beginning of the end for Enlightenment-era metaphysics.

Colonialism and exposure to other cultures, industrialization and its abuses, the

rise of science and scientific materialism, the appearance of full-blown capitalism:

all of these things began tearing apart in the 18th century ideals of how the World

worked, because the 18th century ideals were all constructed around a concept of

an individual which was uniformly genteel (polite), property-owning, European

descended, and male.

Scientific materialism is the belief that physical reality, as made available to the

natural sciences, is all that truly exists.

The World suddenly became a bigger, harsher, more diverse place, and it became impossible to maintain the fiction that ‘all men are created equal’ in the naïve sense that the 18th century philosophy used the phrase.

Pure reason was no longer sufficient.

Application Activity 6.4

1. Explain the three phases of the Age of Enlightenment.

2. Briefly explain the terms “Romanticism” and “Scepticism”.

3. Account for the decline of the Age of Enlightenment.

End of unit Assessment

1. Trace the origins of the Age of Enlightenment.

2. Describe the nature and characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment.

3. What effects did the Enlightenment philosophers have on the

government and society?

4. Briefly explain the different ideas of different philosophers (John

Locke, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François-Marie Arouet

Voltaire and Denis Diderot).

5. Account for the decline of the Age of Enlightenment.

6. Examine how the Age of Enlightenment shaped the Modern Society.

Glossary

Ancien Régime: Old Regime

Civil Rights: the advancement of equality for all people regardless of race, sex, age,

disability, national origin, religion, or certain other characteristics.

Deism:  is a philosophical belief that posits that God exists and is ultimately

responsible for the creation of the universe but does not interfere directly with the

created world.

Divine right of kings: a political and religious doctrine of royal and political

legitimacy.

Enlightenment: wisdom and understanding and ability to think and reason

rationally.

Enlightened despotism: a form of government in the 18th century in which

absolute monarchs pursued legal, social, and educational reforms inspired by the

Enlightenment.

Freethinking: a person who forms opinions on the basis of reason, independent

of authority or tradition, especially a person whose religious opinions differ from

established belief.

Nobility: a social class in aristocracy

Philosopher: Philosopher is a person who seeks wisdom or enlightenment; a scholar

or a thinker.

Philosophy: the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and

existence.

Political theory: the study of topics such as politics, liberty, justice, property,

rights, law, and the enforcement of laws by authority.

Puritans: were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that

arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century.

Rationalism: is any view appealing to intellectual and deductive reason as the

source of knowledge or justification.

Romanticism: the attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many

works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in

Western civilization over a period from the late 18^th to the mid-19^th century.

Scepticism: doubt as to the truth of something.

Scientific materialism: the belief that physical reality, as made available to the

natural sciences, is all that truly exists.

Slavery: any system in which principles of property law are applied to people,

allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals.