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Jennifer Gunardi Period 4

To what extent did the Enlightenment express optimistic ideas in the 18 th century Europe?. Jennifer Gunardi Period 4. What is the Enlightenment?. Age of Reason period between the publication of Newton’s ideas in 1687 and the death of Louis XIV in 1715.

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Jennifer Gunardi Period 4

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  1. To what extent did the Enlightenment express optimistic ideas in the 18th century Europe? Jennifer Gunardi Period 4

  2. What is the Enlightenment? • Age of Reason • period between the publication of Newton’s ideas in 1687 and the death of Louis XIV in 1715. • Important factor: Scientific revolution • Profoundly secular • Impact the thought & culture of urban middle classes & aristocracy. (did not have appeal to urban poor and peasants)

  3. Concepts of Enlightenment • Importantidea: methodsofnaturalsciencecould&shouldbeusedtoexamine&understandallaspectsoflife. • Reason- nothing was accepted by faith • Rationalism • A rationalist is a philosopher who believes people can gain knowledge but reason alone, w/o reference to the external world.

  4. ThePhilosophe • History’s most influential group of intellectuals. • The Enlightenment reached its highest development in France. • French was the international language of the educated class and education of the rich and powerful across Europe often lay in the hands of French tutors who embraced Enlightenment ideas. • French Absolutism and religious orthodoxy remained strong, but not too strong. • Questioned about meaning of life, God, human nature, good and evil, and cause and effect.

  5. Baron de Montesquieu, 1689-1775 • French Aristocrat • Focused to promote liberty and prevent tyranny • The Spirit of Laws, 1748 • Separation of powers • impacted France’s wealthy, well-educated elite • influenced United States Constitution

  6. Voltaire, 1694-1778 • Reformerinsocialandpoliticalmatters • 1717, imprisonedfor11months, beaten&arrestedin1726 • Struggledagainstlegalinjustice&unequaltreatmentbeforelaw. • Hated religious intolerance , urged religious freedom, & thought that religion crushed the human spirit. • Believed in God, but his God was a distant deistic God • A clockmaker who built an orderly universe and stepped aside and let it run

  7. The Encyclopedia, 1751 • Denis Diderot, 1713-1784 • Wanted to “change the general way of thinking” • First volume banned from publication • Showed that human beings could use the process of reasoning to expand human knowledge. • Widely read, esp. in less expansive reprint editions of Switzerland, influential in France and throughout western Europe. • Summed up the new world view of the Enlightenment

  8. The Later Enlightenment • After 1770, harmonious unity of the philosophes and their thought began to break down. • Latter-day philosophes often built rigid, dogmatic systems. • Baron Paul d’Holbach (1723-1789) • System of Nature, 1770 • David Hume (1711-1776)

  9. Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778 • Influenced by Diderot and Voltaire • Committed to individual freedom • The Social Contract , 1762 • “All men are born free but everywhere else they are in chains”. • 2 fundamental concepts: general will and popular sovereignty

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