Impact Of The Enlightenment

Both the Enlightenment and the Great awakening caused the colonists to alter their views about government, the role of government, as well as society at large which ultimately and collectively helped to motivate the colonists to revolt against England. The Enlightenment was vital in almost every part of the founding of America, which included everything from government, to politics itself, as well as religion. Many of the ideas from the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening shaped our country as a whole in its seminal years, inspiring everything from the American Revolution, to the Constitution, and even electricity and stoves. Without the central ideas and figures of both the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment era, the United States

No one could have imagined the impact that the Enlightenment would have and its long-lasting effect. The Enlightenment and its ideas became so widespread that they did not only affect France, but many other countries also. The French Revolution was directly inspired and influenced by the Enlightenment. Revolutionaries in France built their cause around the ideals of the Age of Reason.

During the 1700's two major events would take place, one based in Europe, and one in America, both of which would change ideas and values across these two lands. These two major events in history are known as the First Great Awakening and the Enlightenment. The ideas that were brought forth in this time were revolutionary, and in some ways seem contradictory. While the Great Awakening encouraged a new fervor and zeal to be found in God and only in God the Enlightenment took a step away from God proposing more of a Deist perspective of God or even the abandoning of God completely. The new Enlightenment ideas and influences came mainly from Europe by boat to the Americas, as trade often aided in the sharing of ideas, such as occurred along the Silk Road. While in Europe the Enlightenment would cause division between Christians and enlightenment thinkers, in America there was to be a blending of these ideas among individuals. As for short term affects, the teachings of the Great Awakening had a strong impact on colonists and were quickly and readily accepted in America, however, for the long term it was the Enlightenment thinking that would shape the American mindset so drastically.

The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political change in France that lasted from 1789 to 1799. Before the revolution there was a period of time called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement in which followers considered that human reason brought a move from theory to practice and criticism to reforming education, household administration, social reactions and politics. Voltaire, a French philosopher and contributor to the Age of Enlightenment, expressed these ideas utilizing his intelligence, wit and style to mark his name as one of France’s greatest writers. The Enlightenment influenced the French Revolution to a great extent by introducing new ideas that encouraged questioning of authority and religion, advancing people’s outlook on commodities, and forcing citizens to compare their need with the Republic’s needs. This further brought an uprising of people wanting more such as equality and civil rights. In the process to do so there were 250,000 casualties in the Reign of Terror followed the Thermidorian Reaction which implemented an oligarchy government called the Directory. Royalist riots prompted the Coup d’etat of Fructidor which brought Napoleon into Directory which he later overthrows and creates an Authoritarian Republic.

The ideas of the Enlightenment are currently shown directly in our modern day society. The Enlightenment was a european movement in the late 17th century emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It allowed people more freedom and more opportunities. It affected today's way of living through politics because it questioned the idea of people of a community governing their community. Religion was also affected because it sought reasonable faith that many could follow and had reason. The Enlightenment did not only have an impact on politics and religion but also on economics because it denounced slavery and slave trade as well as lessened the government's control over the market. The Enlightenment has continued to be influential throughout modern times in many ways but is most present through politics, religion and economics.

Many have come a long way and used the philosopher’s standards as national rights, such as Wollstonecraft’s social construct of the sexes having equal opportunity at an education, or Voltaire’s thoughts about having the freedom to balance multiple religions in one society at the same time. Even though all of these ideas have very broad differences, they all tie in to one subject, to one key point. This key point is indeed that of an individual’s rights and freedoms, which no one should be able to take from said individual. This is what set the Enlightenment Period, the Age of Reason, so unique and above all other revolutions in Europe, no matter how

The Enlightenment era was a new intellectual movement that stressed reason and thought and the power of individuals to solve problems. Even though different philosophers approached their goal differently, they achieved it none the less. They all approached their goal differently due to their different upbringings, their different backgrounds, and most importantly their different environments. A few among the many enlightened thinkers were Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baron Do Montesquieu, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. While some of their idea’s are not used in modern society, they were all instrumental to the modern society we live in today.

The Enlightenment thinkers brought innovation and new ideas to the world, reforming the ways that people thought about issues of the time. Government, religion, and women’s rights were some of the most important issues during the Age of Enlightenment. All three subjects were placed under consideration and then under reformation, becoming some of the most recognizable results of the Enlightenment. Each of these issues connected to a central theme of oppression in a variety of different ways.

Before the Enlightenment, every law and every decision was made and accepted, only by the King. There was a traditional social structure consisting of the monarchy on the top, followed by the nobles and clergy, and then all of the lower class on the bottom, which included peasants, merchants, and craftsman. When the people of the Western a Society began to receive ideas from Enlightenment scholars and thinkers, the began to realize how wrong the ways of the King were. They began to revolt against and disagree with these ways of the King. These people, motivated by the ideas of the Enlightenment, challenged the traditional social and political structures of the Western society to eventually lead to human rights for everyone.

Developing A New Generation Of Children The Enlightenment influenced the attitudes towards children by establishing education and better treatment towards them. These changes did impact all the social classes of children including the treatment of poor and illegitimate children. The Enlightenment influenced the attitudes towards children by establishing education.

Ben’s parents brought him up the Dissenting way, but he started having doubts of revelation. Then some books against Deism fell into the hands of Ben and Ben stated, “it happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended for them” (Franklin 43).  Ben respects all the religions in country, but to a certain degree. The churches do not help people get along and become better citizens, but they divide people (Franklin 62). He tells us, “ I have found them more or less mix’d with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serv’d principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another” (Franklin 62). Ben used Sundays as a day of study for him, he states “Sunday being my study day” (Franklin 62). This related to the Enlightenment because the Enlightenment was about making progress toward a more perfect society, therefore Ben would study trying to gain knowledge that could help unlock the secrets of nature. The prayer that Ben formed was about Ben doing good for others because that is what God wants him to do (Franklin 67). Ben’s views on “certain actions” were if people do good because they think it’s good, does it change when people tell them to do good. This goes for bad to, if people tell us things are bad, are they actually bad or are people trying to control us (Franklin 44). Ben believed that a “vicious man could not properly be called a man of sense” (Franklin 76). His view on a “vicious man” is

The ideas from the Enlightenment and its thinkers greatly influenced the world today, everything from our ideas of modern government to our view of everyday life. Important Enlightenment philosophes such as Locke, Montesquieu, Hobbes and Voltaire established controversial ideas and theories on human nature, natural rights, and how government should be run and which form of it was superior. These ideas were all never even thought of before, and shattered many of the previous notions of ideas, such as ideas of how to run government, that had already been established and taken as a standard for several hundreds of years.

The Enlightenment is also referred to as the Age of Reason. These names describe the period in America and Europe in the 1700s. During this period, man was emerging from the ignorance centuries into one that was characterized by respect for humanity, science, and reason. The people involved in Enlightenment had the belief that human reason was useful in discovering the universe’s natural laws, determining mankind’s natural rights, and thereby, unending knowledge progress, moral values, and technical achievement would be attained. John Locke and Isaac Newton are some of the people who played a great role during the Enlightenment period (Wuthnow 41). This paper aims at discussing the political, cultural, religious, intellectual, and economic impacts that were realized during the period.

The Enlightenment was a time of thinking, recalculating, and coming up with new ideas to replace the old and evolving from medieval ways. During the Enlightenment, people questioning everything including whether or not the church should have all the power and if their religion was correct. Martin Luther came up with several ideas about how the Catholic Church was wrong and eventually made up with his own religion called Protestantism. The ideas of the Enlightenment lead to many revolutions including the peasants’ revolts in the German States. The peasants’ revolts in German states, during the early 1500s, resulted in both positive and negative effects.

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century finalized the movement toward contemporaneousness that began with the writers and philosophers of the Renaissance age. The scholars and writers, or philosophes as they were called, of the Enlightenment Age seized these teachings and ideologies and used them to criticize and attack the medieval ruling establishment and to unseat the religious ruling class from their vaulted theological perch. This criticism of the theological sect loosened religions grip on science and allowed for the expansion of reason. Science would no longer be hindered by the authority of papal influence and power, but would operate independently on its own merit and by its own designs. Anyone would then be free to think,