18th Century European Enlightenment
The Enlightenment is a name given by historians to an intellectual movement that was predominant in the Western world during the 18th century. Strongly influenced by the rise of modern science and by the aftermath of the long religious conflict that followed the Reformation, the thinkers of the Enlightenment (called philosophes in France) were committed to secular views based on reason or human understanding only, which they hoped would provide a basis for beneficial changes affecting every area of life and thought. The more extreme and radical philosophes--Denis Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvetius, Baron d'Holbach, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Julien Offroy de La Mettrie (1709-51)--advocated a philosophical rationalism deriving its methods from science and natural philosophy that would replace religion as the means of knowing nature and destiny of humanity; these men were materialists, pantheists, or atheists. Other enlightened thinkers, such as Pierre Bayle, Voltaire, David Hume, Jean Le Rond D'alembert, and Immanuel Kant, opposed fanaticism, but were either agnostic or left room for some kind of religious
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
John Locke--who, Revolution Napoleonic, Enlightenment Enlightenment, Jeremy Bentham, Herder Enlightenment, South America, Russia Enlightened, La Mettrie, Richard Steele, Jesuit Candide, human nature, 19th century, 18th century, enlightened thinkers,
Approximate Word count = 1143
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
