Enlightenment

(noun)

An intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and came to advance ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

Related Terms

Examples of Enlightenment in the following topics:

  • Enlightenment Ideals

    • The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Enlightenment, was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century.
    • The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries, often with a specific local emphasis.
    • The Scottish Enlightenment, with its mostly liberal Calvinist and Newtonian focus, played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment.
    • Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
    • Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.

  • Introduction to the Enlightenment

    • The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Enlightenment, was a philosophical movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century.
    • There were two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: the radical enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority.
    • While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
    • Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.
    • As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally.

  • Enlightened Despotism

    • Enlightened despots, inspired by the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, held that royal power emanated not from divine right but from a social contract whereby a despot was entrusted with the power to govern in lieu of any other governments.
    • Although major thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment are credited for the development of government theories that were critical to the creation and evolution of the modern civil-society-driven democratic state, among the first ideas resulting from the political ideals of the Enlightenment was enlightened despotism (or enlightened absolutism).
    • The difference between a despot and an enlightened despot is based on a broad analysis of the degree to which they embraced the Age of Enlightenment.
    • However, historians debate the actual implementation of enlightened despotism.
    • However, Maria Theresa  found it hard to fit into the intellectual sphere of the Enlightenment.

  • Scientific Exploration

    • Science, based on empiricism and rational thought and embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress, came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
    • While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
    • Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.
    • However, as with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally.
    • Enlightenment-era changes in law also continue to shape legal systems today.

  • Rationalism

    • Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy as seen in the works of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza.
    • For example, Descartes and John Locke, one of the most important Enlightenment thinkers, have similar views about the nature of human ideas.
    • Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are usually credited for laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment.
    • During the mature Enlightenment period, Immanuel Kant attempted to explain the relationship between reason and human experience and to move beyond the failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics.
    • Define rationalism and its role in the ideas of the Enlightenment.

  • Marquis de Condorcet

    • Although his ideas and writings are considered to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and rationalism, they were much more radical that those of most of his contemporaries, even those who were also seen as radicals.
    • This view went much further than the views of other major Enlightenment thinkers, including the champions of women's rights.
    • It also made the notion of progress a central concern of Enlightenment thought.
    • According to Condorcet, for republicanism to exist the nation needed enlightened citizens and education needed democracy to become truly public.
    • Compare and contrast the Marquis de Condorcet's thoughts on popular rule with the other Enlightenment thinkers.

  • Buddhism

    • After attaining Enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama became known as the Buddha, and taught a Middle Way that became a major world religion, known as Buddhism.
    • Buddhism arose between 500-300 BCE, when Siddhartha Gautama, a young man from an aristocratic family, left behind his worldly comforts to seek spiritual enlightenment.
    • Siddhartha, thereafter known as Buddha, or "awakened one," was recognized by his followers, called Buddhists, as an enlightened teacher.
    • Bodhisattvas, therefore, are those who have set themselves on the path toward enlightenment and hope to benefit others through their journey.
    • This statue in Chiang Mai, Thailand, depicts the Buddha practicing severe asceticism before his Enlightenment.

  • The Popularization of Science

    • During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities.
    • National scientific societies were founded throughout the Enlightenment era in the urban hotbeds of scientific development across Europe.
    • The works were part of an Enlightenment movement to systematize knowledge and provide education to a wider audience than the educated elite.
    • Increasing literacy rates in Europe during the course of the Enlightenment also enabled science to enter popular culture through print.
    • During the Enlightenment era, women were excluded from scientific societies, universities, and learned professions.

  • Catherine's Domestic Policies

    • Catherine the Great enthusiastically supported the ideals of the Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot, although her reforms benefited a small number of her subjects and did not change the oppressive system of Russian serfdom.
    • She enthusiastically supported the ideals of the Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot.
    • This philosophy of enlightened despotism implied that the sovereign knew the interests of his or her subjects better than they themselves did.
    • During Catherine's reign, Russians imported and studied the classical and European influences that inspired the Russian Enlightenment.
    • Evaluate Catherine the Great's domestic policies and to what extent she can be considered an enlightened despot

  • Joseph II and Domestic Reform

    • There was no parliament to deal with and Joseph, deeply interested in the ideals of the Enlightenment, was always positive that the rule of reason would produce the best possible results in the shortest time.
    • This made him one of the most committed enlightened despots.
    • As a man of the Enlightenment, he ridiculed the contemplative monastic orders, which he considered unproductive.
    • Opponents of the reforms blamed them for revealing Protestant tendencies, with the rise of Enlightenment rationalism and the emergence of a liberal class of bourgeois officials.
    • Joseph's  enlightened despotism included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782.