The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was based in an appeal to reason, with Enlightenment era thinkers believing it could be used to advance real social and political progress. Their ideas were critical in shaping...

Locke and Montesquieu were both Enlightenment thinkers who questioned government and its role in society. Both Locke and Montesquieu held views that differed from traditional views regarding the...

Enlightenment thinkers, who believed that reason would lead to universal and objective truths, criticized the institutions of absolute monarchy and the established church [the Catholic Church],...

The Enlightenment (1685–1815) led to a more secular society for several reasons. The Enlightenment is also known as the Age of Reason; reason replaced faith for many people during this period....

The Scientific Revolution began around the end of the Renaissance (17th century) and continued to the late 18th century. The Enlightenment (Age of Reason) is generally considered to have spanned...

The theory of the social contract was disputed a lot during the Age of Enlightenment. The more prominent European philosophers—for example, Hobbes and Locke—credited the contract to a variety of...

The Scientific Revolution paved the way for the Enlightenment. The Scientific Revolution began between the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century. Some historians use Nicolas Copernicus's...

I think that the Scientific Revolution impacted the Enlightenment because it embodied so much of what was believed. The emphasis on scientific modes of inquiry, human deduction and reason, as well...

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement of the 18th century that had profound consequences for both Europe and America. It emphasized science over superstition and religion. It ushered in...

The Enlightenment was a major international 18th century movement in culture, philosophy, and social and political thought. Although many countries participated in it, the key figures of the...

Although Hobbes and Locke were arguing for very different ideas, they had a major thing in common -- both were using the idea of rationality and experience as opposed to arguing from authority....

Historically, the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason is not confined to a specific period of time. Arguably, the era extends from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century....

The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a philosophical and cultural movement of the 18th century that emphasized the use of reason to solve social, political, and intellectual problems.One...

First, there was a great deal of diversity in Enlightenment thought, especially between France and England. Generally, though, the Enlightenment is seen as the birthplace of what is sometimes...

The Enlightenment period, or the Age of Reason, was primarily an eighteenth-century movement in which philosophical thinkers attempted to take Europeans out of the Dark Ages. Prior to the movement,...

Locke is a prototype of the Enlightenment thinker. His entire premise is an Enlightenment one as he viewed the concept of government as an experiment where results could be properly predicted and...

Secularism had a major impact on society during the Enlightenment. Whereas Europeans unified behind their faiths before, secularism led to the rise of the state and nationalism. People began to...

While humanity made massive gains in all of these categories, in my opinion the Enlightenment benefited science most. The Enlightenment was a period in history where people looked to reason to...

This depends on the context since the meaning of conservatism varies with the context as well. For example, Enlightenment thinkers would not have thought well of a conservative like Edmund Burke....

The French Revolution was a very complex event that covered a large span of time and included a number of different ideological variants. The Enlightenment was also very complex and multifaceted....

One of the major ideals of the Enlightenment was reliance on reason rather than on things like religion. Enlightenment thinkers did not believe that people should believe in things for which there...

There can be many approaches in answering this question. I would say that one of the reasons that the Enlightenment was so important was because that it was so rooted in science and scientific...

Contemporary Western political thought owes a great deal to the Age of Reason, also known as the Enlightenment, which is considered to have begun in the late 17th Century and continued on into the...

Enlightenment followed the Renaissance period and preceded the Romantic period. This period is also referred to as The Age of Reason. Writers of this period questioned authority and believed in...

Historian Peter Gay once wrote that the Enlightenment represented a "recovery of nerve," a period in which people for the first time in centuries embraced real, actual change: Fear of change, up...

The Enlightenment was an international and interdisciplinary movement in the eighteenth century that spanned most of Europe, Britain, and North America, and affected such diverse areas of thought...

One key way in which the Enlightenment, and the scientific revolution which predated it, influenced early American literature was in its willingness to question religion, particularly Puritan...

The Enlightenment ushered in a rational approach to religion, that was reflected in the literary works of the Augustan poets. Dryden and Pope, for example, in their ethical and religious verse,...

Isaac Newton's theories fundamentally changed how man views (or may view) the world. No longer was mysticism or faith an acceptable way of dealing with questions that seemed beyond man's reach:...

The ideologies of Romanticism and the ideologies of the Enlightenment are basically one of the most important ideologies in history, literature, art, science, and pretty much all of the other...

I think that one of the strongest elements in this change is the different perception of God. The power of the divine that was essential to Puritan Literature. The depiction of God and how the...

http://www.enotes.com/history/q-and-a/what-was-enlightenment-287384