European Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was an 18th century European intellectual movement in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were combined into a world view that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Although there are many separate stages to this period, it has been termed "the Enlightenment" for simplicity. The Enlightenment was characterized by the use of reason and rational thought. The goals of rational man were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness. Three critically important factors to this movement were: a revulsion against monarchical power and clerical absolutism; a new freedom of publishing and rise of a new public and secular ...
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books, tighten communications over distance, and cure diseases more reliably. Mankind started trying to deduce the laws of the universe. England's neighbor, France, erupted into the disorder of the French Revolution, killing their own king and harshly swinging from an absolute dictatorship to a radical republic.
Representative of the Enlightenment are such thinkers as Voltaire, J.J. Rosseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Swift, Hume, Kant, G.E. Lessing, Beccaria, and, in America, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Enlightened oppressors such as Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Catherine II of Russia, and Frederick II of Prussia enforced the social and political ideals they presented. Diderot's
Encyclop�die and the U.S. Constitution are representative documents of the Age of Reason. The leaders of enlightenment began to secure new freedoms. They sought to impose an ordered freedom on political and social institutions. The promoters of science and ...
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European Enlightenment. (2006, February 24). Retrieved November 28, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/European-Enlightenment/41787
"European Enlightenment." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 24 Feb. 2006. Web. 28 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/European-Enlightenment/41787>
"European Enlightenment." Essayworld.com. February 24, 2006. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/European-Enlightenment/41787.
"European Enlightenment." Essayworld.com. February 24, 2006. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/European-Enlightenment/41787.
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