Essay on The Enlightenment Enlightenment Essay example Essay about European Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment Essay

1. Essay on The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment Throughout Europe and the new American colonies in the 18th century there
was a great movement in thought. This trend that preceded the French Revolution is known as the
Enlightenment. Revolutionary writers and thinkers thought that the past held only darkness and
ignorance, they began to question everything. Enlightened thought entered, or intruded, into all
aspects of life in the 1700s. Governments were drastically reformed, art and literature changed in
scope, religion was threatened, the study of science spread, nature was seen in a new light, and
humanity evolved greatly. This new way of thinking was propelled by curiosity and observations of
society and nature. The Enlightenment was a desire for human...show more content...
Never the less, this time period sparked many important changes in thought. In countries such as
France, where the Enlightenment thrived, the Catholic Church felt very threatened by the
philosophes and their new age thinking. Through the teachings of the Bible, religion has attempted
to appease people's natural curiosities. In Genesis 1:1–31, the Story of Creation is told to satisfy
people's desire to know how they came to be. Throughout history, the Church has explained tragedies
such as the plague and miracles such as rain and harvests as divine intervention. When philosophes
of the Eighteenth Century began observing natural phenomena themselves and questioning long
accepted ideas, the Church began to worry. A country built around religion cannot survive if its
subjects lose their faith. Prior to this era, people questioned nothing that was explained by their
church. Farmers accepted bad seasons because their minister told them that they were being
punished. No one looked at nature as its own force. In fact, people feared nature because God
controlled it. People were inferior to God and the Church and had no confidence in free thought.
During the Enlightenment, people actually began looking to nature for answers; religion took a back
seat. Through this revolution of thought and the study of nature, people for the first time gained
confidence in themselves
Get more content on HelpWriting.net

2. Enlightenment Essay example
Enlightenment
Do we at present live in enlightened age?
What is enlightenment? Immanuel Kant attempts to clarify the meaning of enlightenment while
composing the essay, "What is Enlightenment?". The goal of Kant's essay was to discuss what the
nature of enlightenment was. It also taught one how enlightenment can be brought about in the
general public.
Kant explains that, "enlightenment is man's release from his self–incurred immaturity". Immaturity
is man's incompetence to have direction for oneself. In other words, enlightenment is the progress of
a society through the free activity of rational thought and scholarly critique. Kant feels that if we are
going to liberate ourselves from immaturity then we must be able to use our...show more content...
Kant uses many examples of the difference between the public and private use of reasoning. If
soldiers refused to follow commands then there would be no military. So, one solider may follow
commands in which he disagrees with, but will later critique what he believes. This means that he
will follow the commands as his private use of reasoning and then will speak out his complaints as
his public use of reasoning.
In his essay Kant clearly explains the difference between and enlightened age and an age of
enlightenment. In an enlightened age we would all be religious without clergymen because we
would know to which things we should be obedient or disobedient. In this age there would be
elimination of self–incurred immaturity. During the age of enlightenment we are making the
progress towards using both kinds of reasoning. Incompetence is not using pubic and private use of
reason in balance with one another. Competence is the balance of both public and private use of
reason. We must know how to determine when it is right to obey and right to argue. In terms of
government obedience it is often necessary, but any effort to hinder the public's free use of reason
should be forbidden. In Kant's essay "What is Enlightenment?," he shows the transition for the age
of enlightenment to the enlightened age. It enables the people to become more like the guardian and
managers of their own freedom.
Do we at present live in enlightened age? No, Man still doesn't know to which
Get more content on HelpWriting.net

3. Essay about European Enlightenment
Enlightenment
The enlightenment was the growth of thought of European thinkers in the 1600's. The spread of
enlightenment was a result of the Scientific Revolution during the 1500's and 1600's. It resulted as
a need to use reason to distribute human laws. It also came about from a need to solve social,
political and economic problems.
Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier built the framework for modern chemistry during the
enlightenment. Edward Jenner built a vaccine against smallpox, a deadly disease. These sort of
scientific successes prompted European thinkers to use reason to find laws to govern the physical
world, which they called natural laws. Natural laws are laws that govern human nature.
Two prominent "thinkers" during...show more content...
A social contract is an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society.
John Locke had more optimistic views that Thomas Hobbes. Locke said people were basically
reasonable and moral. They had certain rights, called natural rights, which belonged to a person at
birth. These rights were life, liberty and property. In his writings, Two treatises of government, he
argued that people form government to protect their own natural rights. He believed the best type of
government is that of which had limited authority. Thus, he rejected Absolute Monarchy. Locke then
said that if the government fails its' obligations or violates people's rights, people should be able to
overthrow the government.
Baron de Montesquieu studied governments of Europe. He published the spirit of the laws. He felt
that the separation of the powers of the government was the best way to protect liberty. He felt that
each branch of government should be able to serve as a checks and balances.
In france the enlightenment thinkers were called philosophes, meaning lovers of wisdom. The most
famous of the philosophes was Voltaire. He battled inequality and injustices, with his pen. He is
famous for saying "My trade is saying what I think."
Another philosophe was Denis Diderot. He produced a 28 volume encyclopedia. This encyclopedia
helped spread Enlightenment ideas throughout Europe and across the Atlantic to the Americas.
The most controversial philosophe was Jean–Jacques
Get more content on HelpWriting.net

4. The Age of Enlightenment Essay
The Enlightenment was a period in the eighteenth century where change in philosophy and cultural
life took place in Europe. The movement started in France, and spread to Great Britain, Italy, Spain,
Portugal, and Germany at more or less around the same time, the ideas starting with the most
renowned thinkers and philosophers of the time and eventually being shared with the common
people. The Enlightenment was a way of thinking that focused on the betterment of humanity by
using logic and reason rather than irrationality and superstition. It was a way of thinking that showed
skepticism in the face of religion, challenged the inequality between the kings and their people, and
tried to establish a sound system of ethics. The ideas behind the...show more content...
Stokstad posits that these ideas have roots in the previous scientific revolution of the century before
it, with philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes establishing what we now know as
the scientific method based on logical reasoning, educated guesses and controlled experiments to
prove them. The astronomer Galileo Galilei confirmed a previous theory by Nicolaus Copernicus
that the sun did not revolve around the Earth and that it was the other way around–– the planets
revolved around the sun. These theories and practices went against the Church's teachings, and
Galileo in particular was forced to take back what he said on his observations. Other scientists made
discoveries on smaller scales relating to the animal kingdom and plant life, and artists were used to
convey the new–found information by painting or drawing those findings. (p. 756) With the different
revolutions and events that took place before the eighteenth century, it could be said that the
Enlightenment was just a logical progression and the next step. Like the scientific revolution before
it, the new Enlightenment era's ideas were spread both through art and through writing, in texts such
as Denis Diderot's Encyclopedia which was printed and sold to the French middle class. The
Encyclopedia held the most current ideas concerning the arts, sciences, and the merits of human
freedom. The advances as a result of the
Get more content on HelpWriting.net