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Enlightenment Overview: ABC Clio
The Enlightenment was a cultural and philosophical movement that grew out of new methods of inquiry. The basic
premise of the Enlightenment was the superiority of reason. In their scientific reasoning, Enlightenment intellectuals
challenged traditional Christianity by opposing the teachings and dogma of the Catholic Church. Enlightenment thinkers
also contested the divine right of kings, and their writings inspired both the American Revolution and the French
Revolution. In sum, many scholars consider the Enlightenment to be a liberation of the human mind.
The Enlightenment had its origins in England in the 17th century and moved to the European Continent during the 18th
century. Although the Enlightenment was eventually centered in Paris, it was truly an international movement.
Enlightenment thinkers believed that humans were good yet perfectible. They also advocated religious tolerance and
equality before the law. In addition, they believed in social and scientific progress. Above all, they embraced people's
power to reason. Questioning superstitious ignorance by using the new scientific methods implemented during the
scientific revolution became the norm. This new world view soon gained followers through the literary output of
Enlightenment authors, and those writers and followers helped to instigate radical developments in philosophy, art, and
politics.
Enlightenment thought was rooted in classical antiquity: ancient Greek and Roman philosophers believed in rational
order and natural laws. After Christianity began to spread throughout Europe, however, those ancient ideals faded into
obscurity. The writings of Greek philosophers like Aristotle remained unknown to European scholars until the 12th
century, when they began to be translated into Latin after European contact with the city of Constantinople. Church
authorities, fearful of losing their power, tried to suppress the teachings of Greek philosophy through censorship, but
they ultimately failed.
Indeed, the growth of the Enlightenment can be attributed in great part to earlier movements that challenged the
power of the Catholic Church in Europe. A movement known as humanism, fueled in the 14th century by recently
translated Greek and Roman philosophical texts, questioned the Church's authority by lauding human dignity, personal
autonomy, and free intelligence. Humanism was an integral part of the Renaissance, a period that celebrated human
thought and rejected the constraints of religious orthodoxy. By attempting to explain how nature worked through the
exercise of reason, participants in the scientific revolution of the 15th through 17th centuries also challenged the
influence of the Church.
Such increasing importance of human reason culminated in the religious skepticism of the Enlightenment. Religious
oppression and sectarian violence further provoked the Enlightenment thinkers to protest against the Church. As the
Church insisted that it was the lone source of truth, it persuaded people that if they rejected the faith, they would be
damned. The Enlightenment thinkers, however, used logic to defy the Church's teachings. While many Enlightenment
thinkers were atheists, others were Deists, who believed in God as a creator but not as a redeemer.
Perhaps the most celebrated thinkers of the Enlightenment, the philosophes (French for "philosophers") were a group of
writers who commented and theorized about society in general. They wrote about politics, social systems, religion,
penal system reform, and female emancipation. Their work made a great impact, as it reached a broad audience,
including the educated middle class.
One of the foremost philosophes, François-Marie Arouet—better known as Voltaire—epitomized the Enlightenment. He
wrote on wide range of subjects and particularly mocked the injustices and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. He was a
fervent crusader for religious toleration, although modern scholars have noted his own anti-Semitism. Voltaire's disciple,
the Marquis de Condorcet, wished for a complete overhaul of society. He believed that a parliament should be elected
by everyone, including women. He called for the abolition of slavery and the separation of church and state.
MLA
"Enlightenment." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 25 Mar.
2011.
Another philosophe, Denis Diderot was a professional writer and the editor of a massive undertaking, the Encyclopédie
(Encyclopedia). The first of its kind, the work was a series of about 30 reference books published from 1751 to 1772. In
it, Diderot summarized human knowledge to date with an emphasis on scientific reasoning. Many of the Enlightenment
thinkers wrote articles for the Encyclopédie. The pope threatened anyone reading it with excommunication, but the
reference work nevertheless became very influential and guided public opinion.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while a contemporary of the philosophes, did not feel at ease with them and described himself
as a misfit. He criticized the social order in The Social Contract (1762), which advocated the legitimacy of a government
only if the people consented to its authority. Rousseau, emotional rather than exclusively rational, abhorred any type of
restrictions on individuals. He believed that the general will should be represented. However, he also advocated
suppressing the individual freedom of those who were against the community. In his other major work, Emile, he railed
against the repressive education system. He believed everyone had innate capabilities. Rousseau propounded the
theory that people were good but that society was corruptive. He wanted a return to a simple, unspoiled nature in
which to nourish humanity.
The Baron de Montesquieu was yet another philosophe who played an important role in the Enlightenment. He favored
preserving civil liberties, appreciated the rule of law, and supported internationalism and peace. He detested slavery,
fanaticism, and extremism. More important, Montesquieu strongly believed in a system of checks and balances instead
of Rousseau's social contract. He thought there was no one perfect type of government for everyone. He advocated a
judiciary, an executive, and a legislature. Each component would function on its own but be checked by the other two if
it became too aggressive. Montesquieu's famous work, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), profoundly influenced the U.S.
Constitution (1787).
England produced some of the earliest thinkers who contributed to the Enlightenment. One of the first modern
philosophers, John Locke advocated the theory that people are born with equal rights to life, liberty, and property. A
proponent of the social contract, he refuted the divine right theory and argued instead that people had a right to be
governed by either a constitutional monarchy or elected representatives in some type of assembly. Those revolutionary
ideas inflamed Europe for centuries thereafter. Physics pioneer Isaac Newton formulated the three laws of motion and
the theory of gravity, ultimately demonstrating that mathematics can explain both matter and motion. Mary
Wollstonecraft, an English feminist, wrote Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1786), which included an
assessment of the few occupations available to women. She then wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792.
Desiring equality and recognition for women, Wollstonecraft wished to eradicate the tyranny of men. Her ideas of
female emancipation were revolutionary at the time.
Enlightenment thinkers from other areas of Europe included Cesare Beccaria, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume. Beccaria
was an Italian lawyer who wrote the very influential On Crimes and Punishments (1764). He argued that punishment
should act as a deterrent to crime and as a measure of reform. During a time when executions were commonplace,
Beccaria also condemned capital punishment and torture. German philosopher Kant synthesized the studies of earlier
scholars like Locke and René Descartes to argue that awareness stems from both experience and pure thought. That
awareness, he asserted, is necessarily a judgment, subjective and contingent on circumstances. In Scotland, Hume broke
from most Enlightenment thinkers by seeking to illustrate the limits of reason. Hume made personal experience and
common sense the guiding elements of his philosophy.
The "Scottish Enlightenment" also radiated into economics. Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), was
the father of the science of political economy. He pointed out that the labor of farmers, artisans, and craftsmen
constituted the real wealth of a nation, rather than its gold or silver. Smith also advocated that the state should leave
economic matters alone—the policy of laissez-faire.
Despite their differences, Enlightenment thinkers envisioned an ideal society and celebrated the human mind. Their
emphasis on secular and scientific inquiry helped to reduce the hegemony of the Church, and the promulgation of their
literature aided in ending the ancien régime and fostering democracy. Yet even the Enlightenment had its backlash; at
the turn of the 19th century, the focus on reason gave way to Romanticism, a new intellectual movement that embraced
emotion and subjectivity. | Client IP: 173.165.79.138 | Session ID: 5agbheau55kmuwxg3m | Token: