РефератыИностранный языкWhWhat Is Enlightenment Essay Research Paper What

What Is Enlightenment Essay Research Paper What

What Is Enlightenment Essay, Research Paper


What is Enlightenment?


In the eighteenth century in France Britain and Germany a general


intellectual move towards greater reliance on the human sciences and their


relevance to the boundaries of existing knowledge began.


This movement was referred to as “The Enlightenment”. As the name


suggests the movement set out to shed a greater on humanity, human nature


and the nature of existence. A great desire was shared to determine the


extent of our knowledge of the world and for ways to gain a greater


understanding of it.


This movement relied on a mass rejection of tradition and already called for


the removal of all established conceptions and prejudices commonly held.


The Catholic Church, and indeed all religions came under heavy scrutiny


and rejection due to their all pervasive grip on all matters educational,


scientific and philosophical. Religious morals and guidelines also came to be


disregarded in philosophical terms.


Science, logic and rationalism became the principal tools of philosophy in


this era as was evidenced by the new methods employed in argument,


debate, analysis and critique.


Tradition in all its forms, be it religious or scientific was eschewed in favour


of a clean slate from which to begin re-assessing what we can know.


Although Descartes was the first Philosopher to employ reason as a tool and


Francis Bacon greatly influenced Enlightenment thought it is John Locke,


an English Protestant philosopher based in Amsterdam who is perceived to


be the father figure of this movement. In France a legion of intellectuals


known as the philosophes became a phenomena, and globally thinkers such


as Hume and Kant helped define the enlightenment movement.


In order to understand what the Enlightenment is one must consider the


historical period it influenced and took its influence from.


SOCIAL CLIMATE AND CULTURE.


The enlightenment took place against a historical background of momentous


cultural change. The reformation of the fifteenth century and the great split


of the Catholic Church into Roman Catholicism and the various forms of


Protestantism led to much intellectual chagrin with the prevalent Churches.


The main effect of the reformation was its undermining of clerical authority


in all things intellectual, artistic and philosophical. This factored greatly in


paving the way for the rejuvenating Renaissance period experienced in


Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.


During the Renaissance scholars began to study in their own right, free of


the shackles of religous sponsorship and its entailing limitations. This form


of study and self-improvement is exactly what the enlightenment was


intended to allow the common man. One of the implications of the


movement is that any man can better himself through education. As such


modern science and philosophy prospered and flourished and began to


advance at a more rapid pace than had ever been seen before. A scientific


revolution took place. This revolution further tore down reliance on


tradition.


Man began to re-assess his position in nature through scientific method.


This reliance on scientific method became all pervasive in the philosophy of


the time.


Furthermore the enlightenment heralded in a more rational time in political


thought and came at a time of great revolution. In England inspired by this


new Enlightenment thought, the Monarchy abdicated its sovereignty to the


English Parliament in sixteen-eighty-eight, indicative of a re-appraisal of the


belief that the monarch was God’s voice on earth and ruled by divine right.


This led to a time of great growth and change in England. England


established the first “Bill of rights” protecting its subjects and itself. London


became a cosmopolitan capital and a centre of great learning and innovation.


The country experienced an Agricultural revolution as a result of the rapidly


advancing scientific progress brought about through the Enlightenment.


In France a similar growth period was being experienced. Paris became the


focal point of all enlightenment thought. Philosophical texts the world over


were being universally written in French, which was seen as indicative of


the


new intellectual sophistication growing around the world in this time


period. Paris had become the epitome of cultural sophistication and was


seen as the pinnacle of what society can be. It set the tone in literature, art,


fashion and science. Within this newly intellectual society an elite group of


prevalent thinkers, known as the “Philosophes” became key to the spread of


the enlightenment and its ideals.


THE PHILOSOPHES AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT’S OBSESSION WITH KNOWLEDGE.


The Philosophes were Parisian noblemen who shared a common interest in


all things philosophical and scientific. Their search and thirst for knowledge


exemplifies the intellectual climate of the enlightenment era. They could be


described as the “militant wing” of the enlightenment movement as they


were dedicated to the spread of these new ideals. These men were not


professional philosophers nor even academics in the classical sense, but


rat

her a community of intellectuals with common interests.


As was encouraged by the scientists, philosophers and novelists of the time


this group discussed, argued, dissected collaborated and created the key


ideas prevalent at the time. They shared a common desire for knowledge


and went out of their ways to ensure the spread of this knowledge to all.


Regular


open houses were held in the “Salons” of Paris which could be attended by


anyone with an interest could come and share in the debate of knowledge.


It was one of these men, Denis Diderot, who made possibly the most


relevant contribution of the enlightenment to society. It is a contribution


characteristic and significant of the enlightenment and its relevance is


Unarguable – The Encyclopaedia. This encyclopaedia aimed to be the


comprehensive resource of all the knowledge in the world. It took twenty


years to complete the project which consisted of approximately 75,000


entrys and 2,500 illustrations and engravings. It held enough information to


make up twenty-eight separate volumes.


The Encyclopaedia was of immense fascination to the public at large. With


the encyclopaedia, the Philosophes campaigned to spread the new science


and philosophy to the public readership. This was made possible due to the


further advances the enlightenment encouraged in the field of printing and


the printed word.


THE RELEVANCE OF RELIGION TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT.


Although the tradition and theology of the Christian religions were widely


debated and criticised it would be wrong to believe that the enlightenment


heralded an age of decline for the church.


In time, and after much debate many of the enlightenment thinkers began to


extole God as still being of scientific and philosophical relevance. God


became identified with nature in certain dissertations. It was held that the


newly discovered regularities of the natural world testified to the existence


of a higher power. The example of the watch found in the desert is used to


verify this; If one was to find a perfectly working watch in the desert, one


would assume that it was left there by a watchmaker. God is compared to


this watchmaker and the world the watch. The many intricately working


processes of the world are so perfect that they can only have been instigated


by some first source.


Rather than the fear of a public backlash, the churches problems lay


elsewhere. The theological reliance on miracles and scripture was seen as


ignorant or blind to the new scientific “certainties” discovered by the


Enlightenment. The Scottish philosopher David Hume was the principal


critic of this reliance on the unprovable non-scientific world.


The real relevance to religion of the enlightenment was its relegation from


being the figurehead of all scientific and philosophical thought that it had


come to be. Humanity became viewed in a more non-denominational light,


rather as separate groups of different Religions or creeds. Atheism and faith


were viewed equally, and as such equally irrelevant to enlightenment


thought. It no longer mattered what you believed in or if you believed in


anything at all. Religous effects on philosophy and science was now


negated.


Reaction to the Enlightenment


It is undeniable that the enlightenment has deeply affected the world today.


The American and French revolutions were innately inspired by the


Enlightenment. Humanity’s renewed faith in the possibility of change and


positive progress was key to the seeds of these revolutions being sown.


However, a greater reliance on Science has lead to a similar blind faith in


Sciences all-encompassing relevance. Many would contend that scientific


thought is no more relevant to the world than religous thoughts and can


just as easily be called into question.


Criticism of the enlightenment.


The end of the Enlightenment period came with the beginning of the


Romantic period of the early nineteenth century. It was in fact one of the


most noted Enlightenment thinkers Jean-Jacque Rousseau who was at the


forefront of the Romanticism period.


Rousseau criticised the enlightenment for being to concerned with the


external world, and that the only way one could really learn anything about


oneself or the world a greater emphasis should be placed on internal study.


Rather than study knowledge’s relevance to the world, Rousseau wanted to


study knowledge’s relevance to himself. Rousseau sought to bring about an


“Inner Enlightenment”.


The Romanticism era became a time where blind optimism, pessimism and


thought were used rather than employing reason, rationale or science. A new


era of thought was heralded in.


In modern times such thinkers as Hans-Georg Gadamer try to criticise the


still pervasive influence of the enlightenment. Gadamer criticicizes the


enlightenment s distrust of tradition and established boundaries. To ignore


these factors like the enlightenment does denies the impossibility of making


them irrelevant. He contends that the clean slate analysis of the world as


used in the enlightenment can never allow us a realistic view of the world as


in our daily lives there is no way we can ignore them.

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