The Enlightenment Dr, Joel B. Peckham, Jr 1/17/2019

Seven Principles The universe is rational Truth can be arrived at through empirical observation, the use of reason, and systematic doubt; Human experience is the foundation of human understanding of truth All human life, both social and individual, can be understood in the same way the natural world can be understood; once understood, human life, both social and individual, can be manipulated or engineered in the same way the natural world can be manipulated or engineered; Human history is largely a history of progress; 1/17/2019

Principles Continued Human beings can be improved through education and the development of their rational facilities; Religious doctrines have no place in the understanding of the physical and human worlds; 1/17/2019

The universe is rational 1/17/2019

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) 1/17/2019

Newton’s Principia Mathematica The universe could be explained completely through the use of mathematics. The universe was mechanistic-- operated in a completely rational and predictable way Science, not religion, explains the physical universe. All the planets and other objects in the universe moved according to a physical attraction between them, which is called gravity; this mutual attraction explained the orderly and mechanistic motions of the universe 1/17/2019

Truth can be arrived at through empirical observation The basic idea behind empiricism is that knowledge can be derived through careful observation and cataloging of phenomena and extrapolating laws or principles from these observations. 1/17/2019

René Descartes 1596-150 1/17/2019

Discourse on Method instead of the great number of precepts of which Logic is composed, I believed that the four following would prove perfectly sufficient for me . . . . The FIRST was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such;   The SECOND, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution. The THIRD, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; At the LAST, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted. 1/17/2019

Human experience is the foundation of human understanding of truth Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. --Alexander Pope 1 1/17/2019

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All human life, both social and individual, can be understood in the same way the natural world can be understood; once understood, human life, both social and individual, can be manipulated or engineered in the same way the natural world can be manipulated or engineered; 1/17/2019

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The Great Chain of Being Being is a conception Of the universe in which All life is ranked from Highest to lowest forms. 1/17/2019

We hold these truths to be self evident ...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 1/17/2019

Progress Human history is largely a history of the improvement of humanity in three respects: a) developing a knowledge of the natural world and the ability to manipulate the world through technology; b) overcoming ignorance bred of superstitions and religions; c) overcoming human cruelty and violence through social improvements and government structures. 1/17/2019

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet 143-1749 1/17/2019

Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind The aim of the work that I have undertaken, and its results will be to show by appeal to reason and fact that nature has set no term to the perfection of human faculties; that the perfectibility of man is truly indefinite; and that the progress of this perfectibility, from now on works independent of any power that might wish to halt it, has no other limits than the duration of the globe upon which nature has cast us. This progress will doubtless vary in speed, but it will never be reversed as long as the earth occupies its present place in the system of the universe, and as long as the general laws of the system produce neither a general cataclysm nor such changes as will deprive the human race of its present faculties and its present resources. 1/17/2019

Human beings can be improved through education and the development of their rational facilities; 1/17/2019

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 - 1778 "MAN IS BORN FREE, YET EVERYWHERE HE IS IN CHAINS." 1/17/2019

Rousseau’s Emile We are born weak, we need strength; helpless we need aid; foolish we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education. This education comes from nature, from men or from things. The inner growth of our organs and faculties is the education of nature, the use we learn to make of our growth is the education of men, what we gain by our experience of our surroundings is the education of things 1/17/2019

Religious doctrines have no place in the understanding of the physical and human worlds; 1/17/2019

Deism Deism is a term coined in the philosophe movement and applies to two related ideas: a) religion should be reasonable and should result in the highest moral behavior of its adherents; b) the knowledge of the natural world and the human world has nothing to do whatsoever with religion and should be approached completely free from religious ideas or convictions. 1/17/2019

The Clock Deists imagine the universe as a great clock built by God. 1/17/2019

Thomas Paine 1737 - 1809 1/17/2019

Paine’s Of the Religion of Deism It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures, it teaches us our duty toward each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to Him. It is by forgetting God in His works, and running after the books of pretended revelation, that man has wandered from the straight path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the victim of doubt and the dupe of delusion. 1/17/2019

Voltaire 1694 - 1778 1/17/2019

Voltaire’s Treatise on Toleration It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God? 1/17/2019