Group 19 - Group 20 - Age of Enlightenment

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AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

The emergence of ‘reason’


The Enlightenment’s emphasis on rea-
son shaped philosophical, political and
scientific discourse from the late 17th to
the early 19th century. This was a period
of huge change in thought and reason,
which was ‘decisive in the making of
modernity’. The roots of the Enlighten-
ment can be found in the turmoil of the
English Civil Wars. With the re-establish-
ment of a largely unchanged autocratic
monarchy, leading political thinkers be-
gan to reappraise how society and poli-
tics could be better structured. The an-
cient civilizations of Greece and Rome
were revered by enlightened thinkers,
who viewed these communities as po-
tential models for how modern society
could be organized. Concurrent move-
ments for political change also emerged
in France during the early years of the
18th century. The writings of Denis Did-
erot, for example, linked reason with
the maintenance of virtue and its ability
to check potentially destructive human
Denis Diderot
passions.
Scientific Revolution
This growth of ‘science’ first espoused
by Francis Bacon in the early 1600s,
this approach built on the earlier work
of Copernicus and Galileo dating from
the medieval period. Scientific experi-
mentation was used to shed new light
on nature and to challenge supersti-
tious interpretations of the living world,
much of which had been deduced from
uncritical readings of historical texts.
At the forefront of the scientific revolu-
tion stood Sir Isaac Newton. Newton’s
weighty catalogue of investigations
were his treatises on optics, gravita-
tional forces and mechanics, all ground-
ed in empirical experimentation as a
way to demystify the physical world.
The pursuit of rational scientific knowl-
edge was never the preserve of an edu-
cated elite. As increase in it, it created a
buoyant industry in scientific instruments,
many of which were relatively inexpensive
to buy. Manufacturers of scientific instru-
ments prospered during the 18th century,
the names of famous scientific experi-
menters became household names: Ben-
jamin Franklin, Joseph Priestley, William Early electric welder of Elihu Thomson
Herschel and Sir Joseph Banks.
Political freedoms, contracts
and rights
Public debates about what qualified as
the best forms of government were heav-
ily influenced by enlightened ideals, most
notably Rousseau’s and Diderot’s notions
of egalitarian freedom and the ‘social con-
tract’. By the end of the 18th century most
European nations harbored movements
calling for political reform, inspired by
radical enlightened ideals which advocat-
ed clean breaks from tyranny, monarchy
and absolutism. Though grounded in a
sense of outrage at social and economic
injustice, the political revolutions of both
America (1765 to 1783) and France (1789
to 1799) can thus be fairly judged to have
been driven by enlightened political dog-
ma, which criticized despotic monarchies
as acutely incompatible with the ideals
of democracy, equality under the rule of
law and the rights to property ownership.
British MP Edmund Burke, for example,
wrote critically of the ‘fury, outrage and
insult’ he saw embedded in events across
the Channel, and urged restraint among
Britain’s own enlightened political radi-
Edmund Burke cals.
Secularisation and the impact
on religion
Religion and personal faith were also
subject to the tides of reason evident
during the 18th century. Personal judg-
ments on matters of belief were ac-
tively debated during the period, lead-
ing to skepticism, if not bold atheism,
among an enlightened elite. These new
views on religion led to increasing fears
among the clergy that the Enlighten-
ment was ungodly and thus harmful to
the moral well-being of an increasingly
secular society. Later, political emanci-
pation for Roman Catholics – who were
allowed new property rights – also re-
flected an enlightened impulse among
the political elite: such measures some-
times created violent responses from
working people.

References
https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-cen-
tury-literature/articles/the-enlighten-
ment
Mansi Chapla (19BAR016) , Aryan Prajapati (19BAR029) Early European church
Shanay Patel (19BAR025) , Dia Soni (19BAR042)

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