What Is the Enlightenment? How Was This Question Answered by 18th Century Thinkers? and How Have Their Ideas Influenced Our Understanding of Modernity?

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that took place in mainly Europe, and mainly in North America during the late 17th century and early 18th century. In my opinion, Benjamin Franklin, Baron de Montesquieu, and John Locke were the most important philosophers.

The enlightenment took place in Europe in the 18th century. It was a time of reason and science. During this period everything was redone from science to politics and also philosophy. There was also clashes between the church and society because of the change that was taking place. Great philosophers came out of this time period such as Rousseau. The ideas of the 18th century would influence how people thought and wrote.

During the Enlightenment, revolutionary thinkers called philosophes brought about new ideas as to how to better understand and improve their society. They were all modern thinkers and had the best interests of society in mind. Although each philosoph had his or her own ideas, they all centered around one main theme: equality and human freedom.

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.

Enlightenment: The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century movement in Western philosophy. It was an age of optimism; the movement was the idea that believed reason and knowledge could lead to progress and advancements in a society. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals as well as questioning government especially the monarch. The significance of the Enlightenment was that it became the idea and thought that we, the people have all right to question the government and have the right to overthrow the leader if the leader is corrupt. Many people of the Enlightenment were John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Thomas Paine all these men help construct the ideas the United States would construct onto their Constitution. The ideas

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 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 eighteenth century embraced the beginning of an opinionated movement for new thinking about once unquestioned truths and actions. This movement, known as the enlightenment was more than a period of advanced ideas, as this unfamiliar way of thinking also lead to a change in the way that people began to operate within society. The ambition was lead by the attempt to break free from the past, overturning old ideas and moving forward. Enlightenment thinkers helped in spreading the idea that individuals could find universal truths for themselves while improving society through reasoning and science. Enlightenment thinkers who emulate these spreading of

The birth of the Enlightenment happened during the 18th Century and it emerged from Europe as an intellectual movement of writers and thinkers questioning and challenging the ideas and views that at the time was widely accepted. Especially the Catholic Church was challenged for its traditional and determined values. Their analysis of society was based on reason and rational thoughts rather than superstition and traditional ways. The movement

The Enlightenment of the 18th century evolved due to the many changes brought about by the Scientific Revolution. With all of the new scientific discoveries, new thought processes were developed. The scientists of the Scientific Revolution brought about revolutionary change. These scientists inspired the philosophes of the Enlightenment to challenge the ways of the "Old Regime" and question the ideas of the church. Philosophers such as Francois Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke published their controversial ideas and these ideas along with some important political action, helped to mold a new type of society. The new society was one that tolerated different religious beliefs. "The minds of men, abandoning the old disciplines

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.

Enlightenment in Europe was a period in which ideas were legitimately from one country to another. It is also known as civilization time where traditional authority was put to the question while embracing the notion of humanity to improve human change. The French revolution was directly in motivation by Enlightenment ideals which marked a peak of its influence and a beginning of its fall. The Enlightenment 's imperative of the seventeenth-century forerunners incorporated the Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, the Frenchman Renee Descartes and the important characteristic logicians of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo, Kepler, and Leibniz. The civilization called for changes in different parts of Europe and America than

Enlightenment began as an intellectual movement in the 17th and 18th century among European philosophers. It emphasized individual reason over tradition. In other words, enlightenment is illustrated by a belief in the authority of and need for human reason, particularly in regards to politics, education, and religion. The ideas of enlightenment were explored predominately by philosophers like Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. Living towards the end of the age of Enlightenment, Emmanuel Kant wrote about his experiences and understandings in regards to enlightenment, the threads of these ideas can be seen through the writings of other philosophers like Hume, Schleiermacher, and Herbert of Cherbury.

John Locke (1632-1704) was the first of the classical British empiricists. (Empiricists believed that all knowledge derives from experience. These philosophers were hostile to rationalistic metaphysics, particularly to its unbridled use of speculation, its grandiose claims, and its epistemology grounded in innate ideas) If Locke could account of all human knowledge without making reference to innate ideas, then his theory would be simpler, hence better, than that of Descartes. He wrote, “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished? To his I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.” (Donald Palmer, p.165)

The Great Enlightenment caused a great influx of independent thinkers and progressive ideas in the Western world. Through new philosophies coined by Locke, Voltaire, Descartes, Montesquieu, and many others, a new age in society was jumpstarted. Through the Age of Enlightenment, many revolutions were sparked in several areas of life. Enlightenment was a loose revolution made of scattered “philosophes” that caused a change in life as it was known. The Age of Enlightenment could easily be defined as the most pivotal event in history due to its mass effects on education, individuality, and theoretical advancements.