7th – Notes: Chapter 10.4
The Enlightenment:
• to give knowledge or understanding (to someone) : to explain something (to
someone)
(Merriam-Webster)
• “The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis
on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry,…and representative government
in place of monarchy. Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals
of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man”.
• “Many of the new, enlightened ideas were political in nature. Intellectuals began to
consider the possibility that freedom and democracy were the fundamental rights of
all people, not gifts bestowed upon them by beneficent monarchs or popes.”
Mrs. Goss, McIntosh High School, Fayette, Georgia
• Enlightenment- a time period when the use of reason began to guide people’s
thoughts about philosophy, society, and politics. This period is also known as the Age
of Reason.
I. Reason and Politics
• Before the Scientific Revolution people relied on faith or tradition to help them solve
problems.
• However, new ideas and knowledge from earlier periods, such as Greek and Roman
civilizations, the Renaissance, and the Reformation, influenced scholars and they
began to challenge old beliefs about religion, science, and government.
o By the 1700s, many educated Europeans relied on reason, instead of religious
teachings, to explain how the world worked. They began to view reasoning as the
path to truth and understanding.
Like the natural world, they believed logical thinking could help them
understand the natural laws that governed human behavior, like the need
for food and the desire for freedom.
Once they were understood, people could use these laws to improve
society.
• During the Enlightenment, political thinkers tried to use reason to improve
government. They claimed there was a natural law that applied to everyone and was
the key to making government work properly.
• They believed governments should reflect those natural laws and encourage
education and debate.
• Famous French Enlightenment thinkers included Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Charles-Louis
Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
• Famous British Enlightenment thinkers included Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Hobbes,
and John Locke.
• Two English thinkers used their understanding of natural law to develop very different
ideas about government. These two men were Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
