Modernity and Enlightenment in The Persian Letters by Charles Montesquieu

The Age of Enlightenment saw many great changes in Western Europe. It was an age of reason and philosophes. During this age, changes the likes of which had not been seen since ancient times took place. Such change affected evert pore of Western European society. Many might argue that the Enlightenment really did not bring any real change, however, there exists and overwhelming amount of facts which prove, without question, that the spirit of the Enlightenment was one of change-specifically change which went against the previous teachings of the Catholic Church. Such change is apparent in the ideas, questions, and philosophies of the time, in the study of science, and throughout the monarchial system.

“The Age of Enlightenment” was a period during the 18th Century that was committed to the rise of human intellect and rationality in evaluating society (Waters and Crook, 1993). Enlightenment emerged out of the scientific revolution, it challenged traditions, more specifically Christianity and started building a new framework that separated religion from politics.

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

The Enlightenment was a philosophical time period that was placed in the eighteenth century. It was also known as the “Age of Reason”. Most thinkers argued that the things of nature could be understood by using human reason. This time period is when people began to question certain authorities. People began to notice that the sake of humanity could be fixed or saved by using reason to think and improve society. Although they sometimes differed in favoring inductive or deductive reasoning, Enlightenment thinkers often worked towards the same general goal which was changing society for the better by using science, logic, and education.

The ideas of the Enlightenment were influenced by several thinkers and French philosophers like Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Locke. Each philosopher had new ideas of freedom that inspired the ones not in power, the lower classes, to defy the monarchy. These unaccustomed concepts related to the rights of the French peasants and created envy for the monarchy. The enlightenment was not only a movement of new ideas, but a spark among French peasants that helped to spread the ideas of individual freedom which, in turn, led to the French Revolution.

The Enlightenment was a period characterized by the idea that people’s use of reason could unlock the mysteries of the world around them. Thinkers of the Enlightenment saw all aspects of the world—religion, wealth, and the earth itself—as being understandable through natural laws. The reliance on and application of reason on the different aspects of the world used by Enlightenment thinkers was directly informed by the Scientific Revolution. In essence the presentation of and descriptive power of Enlightenment theories and ideas would not have been possible without the strengthened exploratory and explanatory rigor established in the Scientific Revolution.

During the 18th century, many things were happening and the Europeans also were known as “Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers” thought by creating a movement called Age of Enlightenment, it would inflict rational change upon humanity. The Age of Enlightenment is described to be “set out by means of reason and direct observation to discover the fundamental laws governing nature, humanity, and society. The philosophes believed that such discoveries would free the world from tyranny, violence, and instability ” (Davis et al. 17). With this in mind, the goals of the enlightenment were to bring peace to the world and act upon reason. One text, in particular, goes against that and demonstrates the hypocrisy and failure of those goals and is

The era of France Enlightenment and religion have a misconception that leads one to believe that they were enemies. The Enlightenment was not against religion but it was against the superstitions and the supernaturalism of religion. Philosophes during the era of France’s Enlightenment did not look to abolish religion or the Catholic Church of France. They simply wanted a separation of religion and state because it was believed that the state was based on reason and religion was based on morality. Religion and the Enlightenment were compatible and Dr. Sorkin argues: “the Enlightenment was not only compatible with religious belief,” it actually generated new formulations of that belief. One goal that was a reflection of the

Theme: The Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century did not only change the human’s perception of the natural world, but also changed people’s way of thought. As a result of the scientific revolution, people began to use logic to establish social institutions and governments. The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that took place in the eighteenth century, in which reason, social reforms, and government advanced. Both, the Scientific Revolution and The Age of Enlightenment led to more secularism and individual freedom in Europe.

The Enlightenment Era was a period during the eighteenth century. Its philosophers, often called “the philosophs” attempted to refute the previously held religion-based system by creating arguments based solely on reason, and thus create a completely rational system of thought. But, the question of whether they were as reason-based in their thinking as they attempted to be, given the 11 documents, is unanswerable. While some of the documents are useful to judge this, they are by no means a complete and comprehensive overview of the period’s style of thinking, and some of the documents are entirely unhelpful.

The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. The French Revolution gave rise to Enlightenment ideas as for it gave people a language to articulate injustices. During the time of the French Revolution, there were many social conflicts that cause individuals to question the ideas of the Enlightenment and present their views and thoughts of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was initially seen as positive effect; however, the social conflicts and the amount of violence and events that occurred within the French Revolution resulted in people challenging the Enlightenment views of society, politics, and human nature. Documents two, three, four, five, six, ten, and eleven are representations of how the social conflicts caused people to seek freedom and better privileges, and uses their view of Enlightenment to achieve their goal.

The Enlightenment, which reached its peak in the mid 17-1800’s was influenced by the scientific revolutions of previous centuries and emphasized reason and logic, stressing the understanding of the universe based on scientific laws as well as the power of the individual and their ability to question traditional ideas and

How and to what extent did Enlightenment ideas about religion and society shape the policies of the French Revolution in the period 1789 to 1799?

Further, Usbek notes a few paragraph later, “When Osman, the Turkish emperor, was deposed, none of the men who performed the deed had any intention of carrying it out; they were simply petitioners asking for some cause of complaint to be put right” (Persian Letters 159). Here, Montesquieu shows not only subject’s suffering at the despots cruel hand, but also stresses the intrinsic instability of a despotic government.

The history of Western civilization cannot be neatly divided into precise linear sections. Instead, it must be viewed as a series of developing threads that combine, interact, and, at various intervals, take pervasive shifts. The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century was one of these paradigm historical shifts, challenging the traditional notions of authority by investing reason with the power to change the human condition for the better. This ecumenical emphasis on reason and independent thought led to an explosion of change and development across science, philosophy, religion, and politics. Later ideologies that would shape the socioeconomic landscape of the next two centuries were themselves shaped by the threads of Enlightenment