The Thinkers Of The Enlightenment : The Age Of Reasoning

The Age of Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, refers to the time of the guiding intellectual movement, called The Enlightenment. It covers about a century and a half in Europe. From the perspective of socio-political phenomena, the period is considered to have begun with the close of the Thirty Years' War (1648) and ended with the French Revolution (1789). The intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment was spreading ideas about the equality and basic rights of man and the importance of reason and scientific objectivity. François-Marie Arouet ( 1694 – 1778), known by Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy

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 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 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 purpose of all great thinkers is to push the boundaries of the past’s beliefs and encourage a new generation to be receptive to the anticipated ways of the future. The Philosophes were a group of great thinkers during the Enlightenment period. Their ideas permeated society in a way that was revolutionary; they created a reaction and transformed the world, in the best way possible. The term ‘philosophe’ comes from the French word for philosopher. Though, ascribing this sole vocation to The Philosophes deeply undermines their work and communal impact. These intellectuals inspired an era of progression in all aspects of society. Coming down from the height of The Scientific Revolution, The Enlightenment Thinkers advocated rational thought

To begin, Philosophes of The Enlightenment were truly remarkable. They are constantly thinking of ways to better the sake of the world. Voltaire, John Locke, Adam Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft all had one purpose, to unite everyone. The main idea that they were trying to imply is that everyone should interact with each other to make the world a better place. Religion should not be separated, government all be ruled by one branch, women be inferior to men and lastly the people who are living in a bad government should have right to abolish the government and prevent it from going bad.Concurrently, you might ask, why his was their main idea? It's quite simple, These 4 profound Philosophes were alive in an era that wasn't the best. There was chaos among the people and government, which led to society to begin to tear up. The Philosophes wanted to change that they wanted to live in a world where you can pass past a religion with a friendly hello not, "cut one another’s throats out".This idea was a key part of their thinking in three areas: change in Government, Unity of religion , and natural rights. All three of these main ideas had such a big impact on how time played a role in society.

The Enlightenment thinkers had many of the ideas in our government that is in use today. The Enlightenment thinkers had a huge impact on both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Both these documents impact America and me greatly.

The ideals of the Enlightenment are the basis of our democracies and universities in the 21st century: belief in reason, science, skepticism, secularism, and equality. In fact, no other era compares with the Age of Enlightenment. Classical Antiquity is inspiring, but a world away from our modern societies. The Middle Ages was more reasonable than its reputation, but still medieval. The Renaissance was glorious, but largely because of its result: the Enlightenment. The Romantic era was a reaction to the Age of Reason – but the ideals of today’s modern states are seldom expressed in terms of romanticism and emotion. Immanuel Kant’s argument in the essay ‘Perpetual Peace’ (1795) that ‘the human race’ should work for ‘a cosmopolitan constitution’ can be seen as a precursor for the United Nations.

The Enlightenment philosophers were some of the smartest thinkers who changed the way people think during the 16th and 17th century. The philosophers changed the way we live and think today. “These discussions helped shape the capitalistic, democratic world in which we live in today.” There were numerous great philosophers during this time period that taught us many different methods of teaching and understanding new observations.

During the course of this class, there were five major literary movements that was covered. Those movements were the Enlightenment, Romanticism,Realism, Modernism, and Postwar. Each movement has it own distinct characteristic and reformations. For my paper, I specifically want to go over the question ; how has reason moved from the Enlightenment era to Romanticism era to Realism era to Modernism era to the Postwar era? Over the various readings in this class, I am going to go over examples that displays how reason was viewed in each movement.

Many of the ideas in the Constitution emerged during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment’s purpose was to challenge traditional ideas based on faith alone and to advance society by using philosophical ideas and scientific knowledge. People who were greatly influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment are Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin, these ideas played a key role in writing the U.S. Constitution. Another Enlightenment thinker named Baron de Montesquieu had ideas found in the U.S. Constitution. His idea was that each branch of government we have was to be separated, to have independent powers. This Enlightenment idea turned out to be the Separation of Powers. Another important idea from the Enlightenment

Enabled by the Scientific revolution, the Enlightenment brought new ideas and different ways of thinking to the growing modern society. The enlightenment was an intellectual movement that spread throughout western civilization starting around 1650 CE. Who were the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment? Well, many different individuals had a great impact on this movement. They contributed their ideas and spoke for their personal beliefs. Three of the most influential thinkers of the enlightenment were Mary Wollstonecraft, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. Mary Wollstonecraft had a strong belief in equal rights for woman, John Locke shared his ideas about individual rights, and Thomas Jefferson spread his ideas about intellectual

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.

Rationalism champions, above all, reason; and advocates that “a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly” (Blanshard, 2015). During 17th century or the “Age of Enlightenment”, key figures like Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, sought through their own, distinct approaches, to examine “the relation between mind and body, the nature of substance, and the place of humanity in nature” (Cottingham, 1988). According to (Markie, 2013), rationalist philosophers’ work is in line with one or more of the following theses: the intuition/deduction thesis, the innate knowledge thesis, and the innate concept thesis. Pursuant to the intuition/deduction thesis, initial data or premises are linked with conclusions which are free of epistemic

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.