European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the \u201clong 18th century\u201d (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. 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 19th-century Romanticism.<\/p>\n
In his essay “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784), the German philosopher Immanuel Kant summed up the era’s motto in the following terms: “Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!”<\/p>\n Locke argued that human nature was mutable and that knowledge was gained through accumulated experience rather than by accessing some sort of outside truth. Newton\u2019s calculus and optical theories provided the powerful Enlightenment metaphors for precisely measured change and illumination.<\/p>\n There was no single, unified Enlightenment. Instead, it is possible to speak of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment and the English, German, Swiss or American Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers often had very different approaches. Locke differed from Hume, Rousseau from Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson from Frederick the Great. Their differences and disagreements, though, emerged out of the common Enlightenment themes of rational questioning and belief in progress through dialogue.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE HIGH ENLIGHTENMENT: 1730-1780<\/strong> It was an age of enlightened despots like Frederick the Great, who unified, rationalized and modernized Prussia in between brutal multi-year wars with Austria, and of enlightened would-be revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, whose \u201cDeclaration of Independence\u201d (1776) framed the American Revolution in terms taken from of Locke\u2019s essays.<\/p>\n It was also a time of religious (and anti-religious) innovation, as Christians sought to reposition their faith along rational lines and deists and materialists argued that the universe seemed to determine its own course without God\u2019s intervention. Secret societies\u2014the Freemasons, the Bavarian Illuminati, the Rosicrucians\u2014flourished, offering European men (and a few women) new modes of fellowship, esoteric ritual and mutual assistance. Coffeehouses, newspapers and literary salons emerged as new venues for ideas to circulate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE LATE ENLIGHTENMENT AND BEYOND: 1780-1815<\/strong> Enlightened rationality gave way to the wildness of Romanticism, but 19th-century Liberalism and Classicism\u2014not to mention 20th-century Modernism\u2014all owe a heavy debt to the thinkers of the Enlightenment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: http:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/enlightenment<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the \u201clong 18th century\u201d (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1","rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg",900,609,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg",900,609,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=300%2C203&ssl=1",300,203,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"portfolio-square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=570%2C570&ssl=1",570,570,true],"portfolio-portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=600%2C609&ssl=1",600,609,true],"portfolio-landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1",800,600,true],"menu-featured-post":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=345%2C198&ssl=1",345,198,true],"qode-carousel_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=400%2C260&ssl=1",400,260,true],"portfolio_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=500%2C380&ssl=1",500,380,true],"portfolio_masonry_regular":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1",500,500,true],"portfolio_masonry_wide":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=900%2C500&ssl=1",900,500,true],"portfolio_masonry_tall":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=500%2C609&ssl=1",500,609,true],"portfolio_masonry_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"portfolio_masonry_with_space":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=700%2C474&ssl=1",700,474,true],"latest_post_boxes":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=539%2C303&ssl=1",539,303,true],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?fit=600%2C406&ssl=1",600,406,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/post-diafotismos.jpg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Science<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the \u201clong 18th century\u201d (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. 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\nTHE EARLY ENLIGHTENMENT: 1685-1730<\/strong>
\nThe Enlightenment\u2019s important 17th-century precursors included the Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, the Frenchman Renee Descartes and the key natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo, Kepler and Leibniz. Its roots are usually traced to 1680s England, where in the span of three years Isaac Newton published his \u201cPrincipia Mathematica\u201d (1686) and John Locke his \u201cEssay Concerning Human Understanding\u201d (1689)\u2014two works that provided the scientific, mathematical and philosophical toolkit for the Enlightenment\u2019s major advances.<\/p>\n
\nCentered on the dialogues and publications of the French \u201cphilosophes\u201d (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Buffon and Diderot), the High Enlightenment might best be summed up by one historian\u2019s summary of Voltaire\u2019s \u201cPhilosophical Dictionary\u201d: \u201ca chaos of clear ideas.\u201d Foremost among these was the notion that everything in the universe could be rationally demystified and cataloged. The signature publication of the period was Diderot\u2019s \u201cEncyclop\u00e9die\u201d (1751-77), which brought together leading authors to produce an ambitious compilation of human knowledge.<\/p>\n
\nThe French Revolution of 1789 was the culmination of the High Enlightenment vision of throwing out the old authorities to remake society along rational lines, but it devolved into bloody terror that showed the limits of its own ideas and led, a decade later, to the rise of Napoleon. Still, its goal of egalitarianism attracted the admiration of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and inspired both the Haitian war of independence and the radical racial inclusivism of Paraguay\u2019s first post-independence government.<\/p>\n