Preview

Who Is The Enlightenment?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
787 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Who Is The Enlightenment?
The enlightenment was during the time period between the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Intellectuals were finally dared to know using their intelligence. This period can be characterized as a time when individuals exercised powers of human reason, reconstruction of government free from absolute control, different religions were tolerated, and an interest in science from the Scientific Revolution era. People were finally able to make their own decisions through key terms of reason, natural laws, hope, and progress. Many people were influential, as well as others being troubling during this time period. A couple of the Enlightenment figures that I admire the most are Voltaire and Montesquieu. There were also two Enlightenment thinkers that I considered troubling. They were Diderot and Rousseau. The Baron de Montesquieu or Charles de Secondat was known for his most famous work, …show more content…
He is was known as one of the most influential writers of the Enlightenment writing Edipe, Henriade, Philosophic Letters on the English, and Treatise on Toleration. In his writings he wrote about religious intolerance and freedom of thought. I admire Voltaire because he left a lasting legacy in society. He tired to change the world by having them think outside of the traditional values that were followed century after century. Voltaire believed that humans should be able to choose their own religion and be able to live in harmony with everyone in society. He stated “if there was just one religion in England despotism would threaten; if there were two religions, they would cut each other’s throats; but there are thirty religions, and they live together peacefully and happily.” I like how he stood up for people to choose their own religions because we all know too well that if you force a religion on someone then it will only end badly like with wars and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Enlightenment: a cultural movement of intellectuals beginning in the late 17th and 18th century Europe emphasizing reason andindividualism rather than tradition.[1]…

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Enlightenment refers to the seventeenth and eighteenth century in which a historical intellectual movement advocating reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of ethics, government, and logic swept through Europe and the Americas. The intellectual leaders regarded themselves as a courageous elite who would lead the world into progress from a long period of doubtful tradition, irrationality, superstition, and tyranny. The movement helped create the intellectual framework for the American and French Revolutions and led to the rise of classical liberalism and modern capitalism.…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Enlightenment was the traditional thought of the time. Thomas Paine was able to exert vast international influence in this subject. His contemporaries in America were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The Enlightenment was the scientific and intellectual developments of the 17th century such as Isaac Newton's discoveries, Rene Descartes'…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Age of Enlightenment was a period of questioning and appliance of reasoning to explore many subjects, such as civil rights, often left untouched. People were leaving behind their Puritan pasts and advocating the use of scientific method instead of superstitious beliefs of religion. The Enlightenment takes its name from…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Enlightenment was a reaction against the current political and social frameworks in Europe. The enlightenment attempted to suggest the standards of sound judgment and motivation to the workings of ordinary life and in government while questioning humankind in society. It dismissed the celestial privileges of rulers even though it was not as much as an arrangement of thoughts as it was an arrangement of states of mind. At its center was feedback, a scrutinizing of conventional foundations, traditions, and ethics. Enlightenment philosophers, including Voltaire, David Hume, and John Locke each contributed, liberty, opposition against established religion and tabula rasa to western society.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Textual evidence that supports the thesis is in document B it explains “ if one, religion only were allowed the government would very and become unrestrained, if there were 2 people would cut one another's throats, but as there are such a multitude they all live happy and in peace.” This buttresses Voltaire's main idea because it shows that multitudes of religions make people all live happy and in peace.…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    The Enlightenment, or the age of reason, started out as a cultural movement of intellectuals in Europe during the eighteenth century. The main purpose of this movement was to achieve knowledge and understanding of life through the use of science rather than the use of tradition and religion. The ideas of the Enlightenment opposed greatly superstition, intolerance, and abuse by the church and state subsequently placed a heavy emphasis on science, logic, and reason in order to understand the natural and human world and how to make government and society more fair, free, equitable, and humane. The Enlightenment came after the Dark Ages, so it literally means to bring light to the thinking and analysis of most intellectuals. At the time, intellectuals and philosophers did not see the magnate and the relevance the ideas of the Enlightenment would bring to the North American Colonies which resided a sea away.…

    • 2909 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Voltaire was a prominent figure during such time due to his opposing ideas of the church and government (Dynes).” Voltaire did not agree that we all lived in the best of possible worlds and he did not believe that God only punished the deserving. He used his poem on the Lisbon earthquake to attack the philosophical idea of optimism in which the world is good.…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Enlightenment was a period of time which took place during the seventeenth and eighteenth century that saw a tremendous transformation in the thought process of western civilization and the advancement of several scholarly fields such as philosophy, medicine, and physics. Although commonly related to England, the Enlightenment played a huge role in the development of other societies, especially the colonies of North America. Some of the most important values of the Enlightenment included the emphasis on the physical world instead of the supernatural, the pursuit of knowledge, and the protection of basic human rights. Perhaps the biggest effect that the Enlightenment had on the American colonies was that it truly stoked the fire that would…

    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Age of Enlightenment was where people of Britain questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. The outcome of this was new inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions.…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After 1720, two great European cultural movements, the Enlightenment, which emphasized the power of human reason to understand and shape the world; and pietism, and evangelical christian movement that stressed the individual’s personal relationship with God reached America.…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Age of Enlightenment spanned from the Middle 18th century and on to the French Revolution. It is defined as the time when thinkers emerged believing in shedding the light of science and reason on the world in order to question traditional ideas and ways of society’s norms and established hierarchies. Many philosophers presented many theories and beliefs to form questions in the minds of people. These questions entertained elites and aristocrats to pass by the time. Eventually these thinking games evolved into more serious ideas emerged and began challenging those in power. Enlightenment thinkers created many concepts to question the status of the royals and gaining the fear of the upper class, afraid that it would lead to social chaos, and ultimately result…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over time, Enlightenment ideals have had an immense impact on contemporary and modern society. The Age of Enlightenment was a time during the 17th and 18th century in which scholars and philosophers began to question traditional ideas about society. Centuries of corruption and exploitation from numerous monarchies and the church, initiated intelligent people to speak out, and thus, the Enlightenment began. This Enlightenment changed the world by promoting new ideas concerning political, economic, and social values. These changes include equality for women, elimination of cruel and unusual punishment, and enforcement of religious toleration.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Age Of Enlightenment

    • 1750 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Age of Enlightenment is the period in the history of Western thought and culture that spanned from the mid-seventeenth century to the eighteenth century. It is commonly characterized by the dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics that swept away the medieval world-view and ushered in our modern western world. The driving force behind the Enlightenment was a comparatively small group of writers and thinkers from Europe and North America who became known as the ‘philosophes.’ In its early phase, commonly known as the Scientific Revolution, new scientists believed that rational, empirical observation…

    • 1750 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Coming Out Argument

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages

    He was one of the few philosophers that criticized against religion, yet, still reasoned that humans had a right to believe and was tolerant (Lecture PowerPoint, September 22). In that argument laid the truth for the opposite matter: people with religious beliefs and values should also be tolerant and allowed to express their secular views. If Voltaire were still alive, he would agree with Arbuthnot’s regret that the world was becoming intolerant and have great expectations for people to have the same religious views rather than being free from one (Lecture PowerPoint, September 22). Additionally, we mentioned Frederick the Great in lecture in having similar arguments to Voltaire during the Age of Enlightenment. Especially at a time where he led reforms that stressed education and growth of a powerful army in Prussia, he revealed no favoritism for atheists or religious citizens for state positions (i.e., Frederick the Great was also was tolerant of all religions) (Lecture PowerPoint, September 22). This exemplified that one should not judge a person in a state position by the means of their religious or non-religious beliefs. Furthermore, Frederick the Great would also be against the intolerance of a country to peoples’…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics