Transcript The Enlightenment - ESM School District

The Enlightenment
“The Age of Reason”
- Thomas Paine
Causes
• Renaissance = rebirth of learning (1300s)
• Gutenberg’s printing press (1456)
• Protestant Reformation (1517)
Christianity
Roman Catholic
Eastern Orthodox
Protestant =
Baptists, Anglicans, Episcopalians,
Puritans, Lutherans, Methodists
• Scientific Revolution ~ 17th century
– Change in how people viewed the world
– Used reason to explain how the world worked vs.
faith
• Leaders
– Francis Bacon and Descartes’ scientific method
– Rene Descartes “I think therefore I am.”
– Rejected the past and proved a new philosophy
– Copernicus’ sun centered universe
Scientific Rev. continued
• Galileo
– Proved Copernicus’
Heliocentric Theory
– Law of Acceleration
– thermometer
– telescope
• Isaac Newton
– Natural Laws govern universe
– Gravity
– Influenced all areas of life as general laws
were applied to all areas (economics, law,
politics)
– “The universe is clock work and God is the
clock maker.”-French bishop 1300s
The Enlightenment Philosophes
• Sought to create a world in which reason
prevailed and all people enjoyed equal civil
rights and religious freedom.
• Used their minds vs. finding answers in the
Bible, or Ancient Greece/Rome (Aristotle
Plato)
• Applied reason to government
Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan)
• “Humans are, by nature, brutal,
selfish, nasty…” No civilization
can exist unless law and order is
imposed by a strong ruler….”
• Favored absolute monarchy
• Social Contract: between ruler
and ruled for law, order and
stability.
John Locke
(Two Treatises of Government)
• 1st treatise discussed absolute monarchy
• 2nd treatise theory of government:
– All people have unalienable or
__________ rights
– Life, liberty, property
– These rights belong to everyone
– Government must protect these natural rights
– People have the right to overthrow unjust gov.
– Contract according to consent of the governed
• Montesquieu (Spirit of the Law)
– Separation of Powers
– Constitutional Monarchy
• Voltaire (Emile)
– Freedom of speech,
religion, press
• Rousseau (Social Contract)
• The Social Contract was political and
social
– a contract with each other (duties
and rights)
– "Man is born free but everywhere he
is in chains."[
– Cooperation vs. competition and
dependency
– State’s task was to discover the
“general will” of the people
Enlightened Despot
• Autocrats who use ration
vs. faith
• Russian rulers justified their
power as providing a
service.
• Catherine the Great
• Great because of military
expansion
• Warm water port
Enlightenment Spreads
• Diderot’s Encyclopedia
• Art
– Baroque
– elaborate, grand architecture
• Music
– Opera, classical themes,
symphonies, Bach