Empiricism In The Age Of Enlightenment

Popular deism – belief in a being, force, or intelligence. Cold deism God is simply abstract force bringing world into existence. Warm deism God is clearly personal and even friendly.

In their writings, Paine and Locke start with simple, yet powerful principles that target the individual’s way of life as well as their mind. Thomas Paine wrote The Age of Reason, a work in which he expressed his personal religious beliefs in addition to the idea that all are entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. He encouraged people not only to think for themselves and what

For years, Christian Theism was the most prominent worldview. Christian Theist believed that God was the creator of all, and that he had laid out a plan for humanity. In the Seventeenth Century, as theist started to question their worldviews, a new view began to rise. Deism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is, “Movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe.”(2017)

Throughout the Enlightenment, philosophes have made discoveries as well as have ideas that have revolutionized society as we know it today. The Enlightenment took place during the 17th and 18th century in Europe. During this period, philospohes, or philosophers, would discuss different questions and brought new, intellecutal ideas that brought out the Age of Reason. There is many different points of view of what the philosophes main idea was during the enlightenment. The main idea of the philosophes was greater individual freedom. This idea was a key part of their thinking in three areas: government, religion and women's rights.

The Enlightenment period was an extremely impactful revolution which caused changes in societies around the world. It began in 1651, people across the country took a stand against their unfair rights. In order to have a peaceful society, everyone must be treated with equality which can only occur if there is a fair government system in place. If people have to fight and kill to have their natural rights granted, something has to be done about it. The enlightenment period encouraged the people to share their ideas when before they felt they had no say. When the people come together to fight for something they believe in many good and bad outcomes can take place. This time period led to many changes that have drastic effects on history. As people joined multiple documents were created showing the impact of this time period. A couple of these influential documents was the English Bill of Rights, U.S constitution, and the Haitian Constitution.

Deism is defined as a belief in the existence of a supreme being, a belief that God exists, but does not intervene in the universe. A transition from theism, "Deism developed, some say, as an attempt to bring unity out of a chaos of theological and philosophical discussion" (Sire 2009 pg:47).

The Baroque Era and the Enlightenment Era, like the Renaissance, was a time of innovative thinking. This time period created one of the most revolutionary revolts in human history. But this thinking stemmed from several authors during its time. One of which is John Locke. According to the textbook, “John Locke believed people are perfectly capable of governing themselves.

As the story usually goes, the Enlightenment began with René Descartes’s Discourse on the Method (1637), continuing on through John Locke, Isaac Newton, David Hume, Voltaire and Kant for around one and a half centuries, and ending with the French Revolution of 1789, or perhaps with the Reign of Terror in 1793. By the time that Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason in 1794, that era had reached its twilight. Napoleon was on the rise.

empiricism is a theory of knowledge which emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to experience, especially as formed through deliberate experimental arrangements.

The Enlightenment happened during the 1700s when Europeans scientist and philosophers begin to question about everything and began to understand the world based on reason and at this time stood out several people like Galileo Galilei, Nicholas Copernicus, Issac Newton, Adam Smith and many others. They made great discoveries that changed the world and the form of government.

The study of philosophy has existed since the beginning of time because of human curiosity. It fueled the minds of countless philosophers, all in pursuit of understanding the world through the five branches Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, and Esthetics. Throughout the age’s different theories and beliefs of philosophers contributed to our current understanding of the world. During the different eras philosophical beliefs influenced events and documents of the time. The Enlightenment Era, often called the Age of Reason, brought about many astonishing works deliberating the nature of human beings. As times progressed to the age of Enlightenment the different ideas surfaced changing the way humans thought of themselves. Philosophers of the time believed in the essential goodness of human nature, this was based on the scientific and technological achievements. However, Rousseau claimed the development of civilization corrupted the natural goodness of humans. The beliefs during the age of Enlightenment were presented that we are creatures with the ability to reason and human nature is essentially good, contributing many ideas. Each Philosopher of the Enlightenment Period with very different works; Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire largely impacted and influenced the world from the Enlightenment period to today across many spectrums.

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.

Empiricism- knowledge is obtained through experience only. Theorist argue that we are born a blank slate and via our five senses we gain information and assessment and expanding our knowledge base.

Empiricism is based from sensory experience and observed facts. This view emphasizes that “scientific knowledge can be derived only from sensory experience” (Alligood, 2014, p. 15). Examples of sensory experience are seeing, feeling and hearing facts. This approach is labeled the research-then-theory strategy. An example that Alligood provides is that “formulating a differential diagnosis requires collecting the facts and then devising a list of possible theories to explain the facts” (2014, p. 16). Empiricists believe that reason alone does not give knowledge (Markie, 2017).

The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual and scientific movement which is characterized by its rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues. Enlightenment ideals challenged the way people were taught to think and let them express their criticism of the church, the monarchy or whatever system they saw as unjust. The impact of the enlightenment movement was first seen in 18th century Europe and soon spread to different parts of the world. People who believed in these ideals were called enlightenment thinkers. Enlightenment thinkers were a voice for the masses who felt they were being manipulated by people holding all the power. It also helped the masses realize that they did not need the church or monarchy, and enlightenment thinkers were able to assemble a following to stop people of power taking advantage of those who were not quite as powerful. Enlightenment thinkers gave an outlet to the common citizen who were seeing injustices in their government system.