Age Of Enlightenment

To begin, the main objective of enlightenment was to development the society using reasons, and stimulating the rational though. Enlightenment, also, created a path for independent thought, on the areas of physics, mathematics, politics, economics, and medicine. John Locke made a huge impact on the America colonist by stating the natural rights of life, liberty and property. The most important federal papers were the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In 1776, the Continental congress declared the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is extremely important because Americans were stating that they were able to hold their own grown and did not need any of Great Britain’s laws.

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

Chapters VI and VIII: The Scientific View of the World and the Age of Enlightenment

1 Galileo - Used a telescope to confirm the findings of the Polish astronomer Copernicus.

The Enlightenment was a golden era of rebirth and growth for the people of Europe. During this time the printing press was in mass use, and for the first time in history, books were available for all classes. Education was a big idea of the age, and with a new source of information, ideas were distributed to the masses. Great philosophers were now able to be heard, and their concepts could now spread across the county. John Locke was one of the many great speakers of his time who talked about the ideas of equality and that people were molded by life so they should not be controlled by the government. He was the first person to speak out about the outrageous amount of control that leaders had over their people. This concept helped influence the American Revolution, and build their government, by creating the idea that everyone should be equal, and people should not be abused by their leaders. Another excellent leader during the Enlightenment era was a man by

Before the Enlightenment, men were not all treated fairly. People were given jobs based on rank, not skill. The more money and land a person had, the more others valued them. In the 1600s, an English thinker by the name of John Locke decided that this was not how people should be treated. He began to promote the idea of natural rights, or rights that all men are born with. These rights included the right to life, liberty and property.He believed that men were born equal, no matter their social class. He also believed that the government should be formed by the people and for the people. The government was supposed to protect man's natural rights and by failing to do so, the people could overthrow them. Locke’s ideas were a key in the writing of the U.S. Constitution and the French Revolution.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been called the age of Enlightenment. A man’s freedom of thought which was ruled by logical thinking, and his opinion, was replacing church doctrine and the people following this by blind-faith, and superstitious beliefs

Americans in the Enlightenment period strongly connected themselves with the classical age in terms of how they approached their art. The Enlightenment period lasted for about 150 years, from approximately 1700 -1850. Throughout this time period many artists took inspiration from the classical age which occurred in ancient Greece and Rome hundreds of years before. We can see examples of this in buildings like The White house and Monticello in America, and Kedleston Hall in England. These three buildings, though located in very different parts of the world, all have a number of aestheticly similar attributes.

Life prior to the 1700s was bleak. Before the eighteenth century, any progress made in the scientific field was frowned upon. The government was still theocratic, and any notion brought before it that contradicted with what the elitists of society thought was true was proclaimed blasphemous. There were many men and women who had proceeded to discover new and incredible things that could benefit the world and its inhabitants greatly. Sadly, many of them will never be recognized due to their government’s reluctance to change. Around the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, there were drastic changes that were made. The era of enlightenment had begun, and all of the inventors and scientists that were keeping their experiments, theories,

During the 18th century, a worldwide movement, more commonly recognized as the Age of Enlightenment, encouraged the spread of philosophical thinking, science, communications, and politics. This movement gradually branched out from Northern Europe and reached places such as the United States of America and France, encouraging the American and French Revolutions. The Enlightenment brought about a new age of philosophical and intellectual thinkers, such as John Locke, which helped shape and influence modern government and politics. John Locke is recognized as the father of classical liberalism, introducing the Two Treatises of Government, Social Contract, and private property, which formed the basis for the constitutions in westernized

“The sacred rights of mankind...are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself.”- Alexander Hamilton. Man should be able to govern themselves because no human is born with evil intent, it’s the government that corrupts them into malicious and evil intent though many philosophers of the time. Back then the people were either ruled by an unjust society, ruled by either a King or a group of men, which typically made up the societies government. “We must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, and they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature…”-John Locke. Locke truly believed that without government and to just have mankind run himself everyone would stay pure and never develop any kind of intent that wasn’t anything but pure. “To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.”-John Locke. Mankind loved each other until government would create conflict and war between its own species. Locke believed wholeheartedly that mankind was fully capable to govern

The Enlightenment period was a time of reason and observation that has helped shape our society as a whole. Observation and reasoning were detrimental to find out the truth behind a subject, because with this, one could discover patterns in nature. Thinkers at this time were “hopeful that they might discover new ways to understand and improve their society” (Background Essay). During the late 17th and 18th centuries numerous changes had brought about disagreements and questions on ways of living and knowing life. The enlightenment period was a time when philosophers and other people spoke out against society’s standards of living and decided to live for themselves rather than how society said the world should work.

The Enlightenment was a major changing point in history. Before the enlightenment, people were hard workers. Religious freedom and equality was just a dream, if you threatened the church in any way you were executed immediately. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, there was a group of famous scientists who studied society. They were known as philosophers, They practiced in a period of time where all problems were faced and dealt with using reason. Some of the items discussed by the philosophers were as followed: freedom of religion, politics, economics, and equality. This period of time was well known as The Enlightenment.

The Age of Enlightenment started in Europe and later developing in the American colonies. With the movement focusing on overturning many old theories. It lasted throughout much of the 17th and 18th centuries. Enlightenment philosophies influence modern political thought on rationality because during that time people sometimes called it the Age of Reason. Due to the fact authorities were being run by the church, Enlightenment writers did not like that. Enlightenment writers believed they could locate the truth themselves and bring a new perspective to society by looking to reasoning, science and dialogue.

The age of Enlightenment was a remarkable time of change, especially for the scholars and educated men of that time. It was an era of awareness for these new philosophers, and an era of the rejection against traditional belief. It was a movement that set a precedent for the way of thinking in today’s society and for scientists and philosophers. Adolf Menzel in his painting of the Enlightenment thinkers attempts to recreate the philosophers of that time. He shows the styles of that period, especially for the upper class, and through the poses of the men reveal a learning and positive environment. However, the painting does not cover the full nature of these men which were radical and extreme in their beliefs.