preview

The Age Of Enlightenment

Decent Essays

The Age of Enlightenment was a movement in Early Modern Europe lasting from about 1650 to 1780. The Enlightenment is characterized in which new ideas were brought about by intellectual forces to emphasize reason and individualism. ‘Enlightenment thinkers throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be amended through a rational change’ . It was a time period in which thinkers believed that humanity, through the use of reason, was beginning to gain control over the world. This new age of thinking and reason made people not only start to doubt their everyday lives, but their reality as a whole. It tested the power of organizations that were profoundly established in society, for example, the …show more content…

His works established and promoted inductive techniques for scientific request, called the Baconian system, or basically the scientific method. His findings hold the framework for science, much of which still encompasses conceptions of proper methods today. ‘Francis Bacon’s philosophies are displayed in writings that are divided into three branches: his scientific works, his religious and literary works and his juridical works’ . In his scientific works his thoughts for a general change of information into scientific approach and the use of the Scientific method are introduced. In his religious and literary works he exhibits his ethical theory and philosophical meditations. And in his juridical works in which his changes in English Law are proposed. ‘Although much of his lawful change recommendations were not settled in his lifetime, his legitimate legacy was considered by the magazine New Scientist, in a production of 1961, as having affected the drafting of the Napoleonic Code’ …show more content…

‘Descartes is frequently viewed as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to create the natural sciences’ .For him the logic was a reasoning framework that typified all learning. ‘Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum (English: "I think, therefore I am"). Therefore, Descartes concluded, if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the very fact that he doubted proved his existence’ . Descartes has been named as the father of advanced Western philosophy, the logic that with his cynic approach has significantly changed the course of Western theory and set the premise for advancement. John Locke was an English scholar and doctor viewed as an influence amongst the most powerful of Enlightenment thinkers and known as the Father of Classical Liberalism. Locke was the first to characterize the self through a coherence of awareness. He hypothesized that, during childbirth, the mind was a blank slate. ‘He maintained that we are conceived without characteristic thoughts, and that learning is rather decided just by experience we get from sense observation’

Get Access