The Enlightenment Period

Without using reason in our everyday lives, society will collapse and turn into nothing but chaos. During the Enlightenment, a time when reason was beginning to be applied to the people’s thoughts, there were many great thinkers, but there were three in particular that attempted to change society’s unreasonable thinking. Voltaire, John Locke, and Mary Wollstonecraft all believed in freedom of choice; however, they believed in different branches of freedom of choice such as religion, government, and women’s education.

The enlightenment was a period during late 17th and 18th century in Europe. People with a high level of education would meet in french salons and English drawing rooms to discuss political, religious, economic, and social questions. These people were known as philosophes, or philosophers. Those discussions helped shape the capitalistic, democratic world where we live today.

The enlightenment era swept west Europe during the 18th century paving the way for new ideas and creating challenges among beliefs. The scientific revolution gave people new knowledge that allowed them to articulate their own views and not just what the church believed. During the scientific revolution scientists challenged the church and gave way to the enlightenment period. the enlightenment period people used reason to support theories and ideas. It created movements for evolutions in human beings rights and evolved the level of equality among races, classes, and genders.

The enlightenment was a European movement during the 17th and 18th centuries. The enlightenment wasn’t a physical movement; however, it was an intellectual movement. Most of the ideas centered around authority and legitimacy. Later these ideas may have transformed into liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. The enlightenment was valued greatly, considering that it showed people how to think scientifically, and it also let the world understand different scientific processes. John Locke influenced Thomas Jefferson with these enlightenment writings by helping him write the Declaration of Independence because of Locke showing Jefferson that people were born with natural rights.

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 Age of the Enlightenment during the beginning of the 18th century was a revolution that vanquished the suffocating darkness of superstition that shrouded the Middle Ages. Revolutionary thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Denis Diderot, René Descartes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, led western civilization out of the darkness of ignorance with a small flame generated by the power of scientific and intellectual reason. For a while, it seemed as though the reason and rationality of Enlightenment thinking would be the harbinger of peace. However, this idea of peace was merely a conjectured fantasy that disregarded the rising discontentment of a newly oppressed people. This is displayed through the perversion of the French Revolution into an irrational and passion driven bloodbath. Towards the end of the 18th century, people felt that the rigidity of scientific reason instilled by the Enlightenment was bleeding the spirit, morality, and especially the passion out of existence. The small flame of the Enlightenment was ignited into a raging fire of oppressed passion generated through the power individualistic thinking. Rather than focusing on a unified peace, revolutionaries, such as Thomas Paine, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann von Goethe and Jane Austen, of the late 18th and 19th century emphasized the passion of self-expression within the individual.

The Enlightenment era, occasionally referred to as the Age of Reason, was a union of thoughts and behavior that occurred all through the eighteenth century in Western Europe, England and American colonies. Scientific rationalism was the trademark of everything that is related to the Enlightenment era. Enlightenment thinkers alleged that the advancement of industries and science promised a new age of equality and advancement for human race. People raveled more and more goods were produced for less money. The greatest hindrance of human understanding proceeds from incompetency, dullness, and deceptions of the senses; meaning, things that appeals to the senses overshadow things which do not appeal to the senses, although they be very important.

The ideas of the enlightenment during the eighteenth century was to promote reason, logic and freedom of thought over dogma, faith or religion, and especially the way government back then was running in Europe. It was revolutionary era because all the philosophers, and other smart thinkers at the time gathered their new opinion or ideas together to shift the way people, politicians or government, and religious figures thought about the rules of life in the universe.

The literary period often known as the Enlightenment period was filled with innovative change in philosophical thought regarding the way in which one perceived the world. Although these new thoughts expanded into many aspects of human nature, the concepts of life and death were one of the subjects commonly discussed. One new way that the common concept of life was presented during this period was through a newfound emphasis on science, one that was stressed by the Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin. The appeal of science revolved around its “potential for endless technological advancements” that “promised a bright future.” It was commonly thought at the time that, through science, “perhaps all human problems could be solved: sickness could be eradicated, natural disasters averted” (14).

Out of this week’s reading, the one thing that I came to admire was the enlightenment period. The Enlightenment period began because of small groups. Men would meet in coffeehouses and the women would meet in salons. People could slow down, talk and dream. This caused a movement of people taking their dreams and ideas to a reality. This movement sparked the future of the world. This began the Scientific Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. With havening a movement of this scale, it could not be contained to one place. It expanded to France and eventually the Americas. The advancement in technology cased the western world to expand and lead to the form of the Americas. People began to travel based on their enlightenment and need for freedom.

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,

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.

I’m sure there is a time in everyone’s life where little you asked what was a seemingly simple question to an older and wiser parent, guardian or grandparent and in return got the most prophetic answers ever. I say this because my father, a man with a huge heart but little patience for stupidity engraved the two most basic philosophies in me “Common sense isn't so common” and “Treat people how you want to be treated.” In today's modern age if you utter phrases so cliche and cavalier you’r beckoning an eye role; however I will be using such a simplistic approach to the thoughts ahead for however simplistic they may be, such simplistic mindset could have altered the 17th and 18th century entirely. I will be focusing on the three events that I

Ludwig Van Beethoven was a musical masterpiece. He never let problems interfere with his work. He was born in the baroque period, lives a life of fifty-four years, and contributed so much romance in his life although never being married or having kids. Beethoven is well known for his work and will forever be known as a Romantic influencer. Beethoven dedicated his whole life to his music. He never let bad situations fully tear him apart from writing and playing music.

Each time period in history has had their own characteristics, key figures, and impact impact on the world. While each period is equally important to how we progressed from the past, the enlightenment period, from the 1700s to the 1800s, has contributed immensely to how everyday people go about their days. Without even realizing it, people have been molded by the enlightenment period, allowing themselves to face new ideas with an open mind . The grand designs of this period were empiricism, rationalism, and natural law, each still essential to the 21st century. Empiricism, the theory that all knowledge is gained through experience and that we are all born with a clean slate (tabula rasa in latin), has a large following. An example of