What were the ideas expressed during the Enlightenment? How did they spread?- A philosophical movement in eighteenth-century Europe that fostered the belief that one could reform society by discovering rational laws that governed social behavior and that were just as scientific as the laws of physics. 3. What were Benjamin Franklin’s achievements?- Some of Benjamin's greatest achievements are later in life when he became a premier statesman. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1750 where his principal duties were voyaging to London to represent the colony before the English parliament.
DBQ 6: Enlightenment Thinkers and Their Impact on European Rulers The Age of Enlightenment was a time where cultural and intellectual ideas from Western Europe brought reason, analysis, and individualism to the rest of Europe and replaced former traditional authority. The Age of Enlightenment was most frequently known as the Age of Reason because it reformed society from the authority of the church to a society of science and skepticism. The Enlightenment philosophy was promoted by local enlightenment thinkers that stressed liberty, freedom from the church’s authority, and worked to abolish serfdom. A number of the Enlightenment philosophers influenced society by publishing texts. New ideas and beliefs spread through Europe and worldwide and marked a change from only having religious texts to also providing intellectual texts.
Following the scientific revolution, a new way of thinking was born. This new approach, known as the Enlightenment, sought out new ideas about government, economics, religion, and education. The Enlightenment, also known as the age of reason, reached its peak in the mid 1700’s and brought great change to the world. The ideas of the Enlightenment were based on that of philosophers; men who analyzed the divine rights of monarchs, union of church and state, social equality, and the idea of a more democratic government. Men such as John Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Beccaria were the main people whose ideas influenced the Enlightenment and the birth and independence of the United States.
John Locke is one of the most influential Enlightenment philosophers of the seventeenth century. His philosophical writings of individual rights and role of government to secure these rights were a major influence on the founding fathers of the United States of America. The founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison used many of the tenets of John Locke's philosophy to construct the American political ideology of liberal democracy. John Locke's view of what a civil society and popular sovereignty inspired the founding fathers and the colonists to develop a political and social discourse which fueled the American Revolution. Locke's influence can be seen in documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
The Enlightenment The Great Awakening Two important movements that changed the 1700’s were the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. The Enlightenment began in Europe, which stressed reason and natural laws that explain the events. The Great Awakening awoke colonist about the religious fervor after it had started to die down. Both The Enlightenment and Great Awakening were different but had similar consequences for America. The Enlightenment was in the eighteenth century intellectual movement that used the scientific method and reasons that meant obtaining knowledge.
These machines that were invented helped to make work more efficient. In DBQ 12, document 6, says that there were many machines that increased the speed and quantity or the work that was being done such as the Flying Shuttle, and Spinning Jenny. Scientist, who sought out a need of faster and better work, invented these machines. The creation of the machines was the basis of the Industrial Revolution. In DBQ 12, document 5, it states, “The stream of English scientific thought was one of the main tributaries [causes] of the industrial revolution”.
Asses the view that the Enlightenment was the most important cause of the French Revolution? The Enlightenment was an 18th century philosophical movement in Europe that stressed the importance of reason in analysing and investigating. This led to a critical review of existing ideas and social institutions and how they could be changed and improved, through the use of reason. In this period of time a lot of people were becoming more aware of social, economic and political interactions. The idea of monarchy was becoming a disappointing plan.
What is Enlightenment? The term “enlightenment” is defined by “a movement in the 18th century that advocated the use of reason in the reappraisal of accepted ideas and social institutions”. Before the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the state and the church were the primary institutions that influenced how people perceived society as well as how they were governed. Dogma, blind faith, and superstition plagued the prominent notions of society and therefore logic and reasoning were obsolete. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, a counter revolution began which was established on the principles of reason, logic, criticism and freedom of thought.
1This theory postulated a new political and social principle, which held that relations among individuals in a society, and between individuals and government, are governed by a social contract. Some if its chief proponents –John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau – have been widely published and discussed in the learned journals and the ideas of these philosophers. Certainly the ideas of Locke and his contemporaries strongly influenced the political and moral philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison. And other architects of American government. The antecedents of the theory of social contract can be traced back to Aristotle, who distinguished between monarch and tyrant and upheld the right
These classical thinkers derove their reasonning from personnal observations. These reasonings for enlightenment thinkers refer to the rationalle of people such as Thomans Hobbs, John Locke Voltaire, Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton among others. This rationalism is based on deductive logic. Deductive logic involves reasoning from the general to particular and applying theory to a particular case. The scientists create a a theory and then make some observations that either refute or support the theory.