THE 18TH CENTURY: AN AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

The 18th century = the Age of Enlightenment

Also known as the Age of Reason

The motto of the Enlightenment – “Dare to Know”

The Enlightenment was built on and followed the Scientific Revolution –1. use reason to understand the nat. world2. use reason to understand human society

Key words/key ideas of the 18th century:1. Reason2. Hope3. Progress4. Natural law

Know and understand society using reason

Improve/reform society

Human progress

Social and human perfectability??? -> social engineering

1.The dead hand of tradition

2.Organized religion/the church

Popularize = to make more widely known Science was spread to a wider segment

of educated society by popularizers Bernard de Fontenelle1. scientist-philosopher who linked

science of 17th century to the philosophes of the 18th cent

2. Author of Plurality of Worlds3. Translate the new science in a

clear/entertaining way

Pierre Bayle1. Leading critic of

traditional religion2. Attacked ->

superstition, religious intolerance, and dogmatism

3. Advocated religious toleration

4. Author – Historical and Critical Dictionary

1. Exposed Europeans to new cultures, ideas, and behaviors

2. Showed Europeans that their ways were not the only ways = cultural relativism -> other fields other grasshoppers

3. Europeans began to compare their civilization with others

The term noble savage (French, bon sauvage), expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider (or "other").

The idea that in a state of nature humans are essentially good.

Locke and Newton = the inspiration for and idols of 18th century Enlightenment thinkers

1. Isaac Newton – greatest figure of the Sci. Rev.

2. John Locke – political thinker and philosopher

EMPIRICISM = knowledge comes through experience and observation

1. Theory of knowledge – epistemology2. Rejected innate ideas – not born with

ideas3. We are born as a tabula rasa = blank

slate4. Knowledge comes from exp./observation5. We are products of our environment