THE 18 TH CENTURY: AN AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

 The 18 th century = the Age of Enlightenment  Also known as the Age of Reason  The motto of the Enlightenment – “Dare to Know”  The Enlightenment was built on and followed the Scientific Revolution – 1. use reason to understand the nat. world 2. use reason to understand human society

 Key words/key ideas of the 18 th century: 1. Reason 2. Hope 3. Progress 4. Natural law

 Know and understand society using reason  Improve/reform society  Human progress  Social and human perfectability??? -> social engineering

1. The dead hand of tradition 2. Organized religion/the church

 Popularize = to make more widely known  Science was spread to a wider segment of educated society by popularizers  Bernard de Fontenelle 1. scientist-philosopher who linked science of 17 th century to the philosophes of the 18 th cent 2. Author of Plurality of Worlds 3. Translate the new science in a clear/entertaining way

 Pierre Bayle 1. Leading critic of traditional religion 2. Attacked -> superstition, religious intolerance, and dogmatism 3. Advocated religious toleration 4. Author – Historical and Critical Dictionary

1. Exposed Europeans to new cultures, ideas, and behaviors 2. Showed Europeans that their ways were not the only ways = cultural relativism -> other fields other grasshoppers 3. Europeans began to compare their civilization with others

 The term noble savage (French, bon sauvage), expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider (or "other").  The idea that in a state of nature humans are essentially good.state of nature

 Locke and Newton = the inspiration for and idols of 18 th century Enlightenment thinkers 1. Isaac Newton – greatest figure of the Sci. Rev. 2. John Locke – political thinker and philosopher

 EMPIRICISM = knowledge comes through experience and observation 1. Theory of knowledge – epistemology 2. Rejected innate ideas – not born with ideas 3. We are born as a tabula rasa = blank slate 4. Knowledge comes from exp./observation 5. We are products of our environment