A philosophy of human values and change

 30 Years War: : German writers began to criticize nationalism and war  Hugo Grotius and John Comenius were two early Enlightenment thinkers  Studies began in science, particularly astronomy  Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei  Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon revised the scientific method and physics with Isaac Newton

 Based on observation of the world and testing its validity  This caused scientist to be criticized and scorned

 Studied the world by defining ideas their own way, based on science  Perceived the universe as a machine governed by fixed laws  Believed in progress, or the idea that the world and its people could be improved  Philosophical, scientific, artistic and political revolution were valued

 Spread new ideas, supporters of the political ideas of John Locke and scientific methods of Isaac Newton  Disapproved superstitions about new scientific endeavors  Believed in both freedom of speech and individual liberty  France was the center of these ideas in the s  Gathered in salons held in individual homes

 Questioned whether human society could be improved by reason and denied the ability of rational thought to reveal universal truths  Believed that the perceived world is relative to the beholder and no one can be certain about truth  Immanuel Kant argued that man could not know observed objects or metaphysical concepts  The experience of these things depends on the psyche of the observer

 Due to competing ideas such as Romanticism, Skepticism  French Revolution

 Thomas Hobbes main concern was social and political order  Believed that we should give our obedience to an unaccountable sovereign otherwise the “state of nature” would be war  Wanted to avoid insecurity  Leviathan, 1651  Felt that by nature, people were self-serving and preoccupied with gathering limited resources  Need a single absolute ruler to control these urges

 Man earns ownership and right to property when he labors for it  Government should be limited to securing the life and property of its citizens and is only needed in an ideal state  Believed in the right of conscience and religion, except when religion is intolerant  Two Treatises of Government, 1690—promoted representative type of government

 Spirit of Laws explains separation of powers and checks and balances  Every government has 3 sorts of power: legislative, executive and judicial  Executive enacts laws and makes peace or war  Judicial punishes criminals and settles disputes  Political liberty arises from tranquil living and feeling of safety  If the legislature and executive are the same person, then there is no liberty, but tyranny  If judiciary cannot be separate, then there cannot be any fairness is punishment

 “Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains”  Repressed physical freedom  Political authority comes from a social contract between the political power and the people under it  Sovereign (collective people) are one people and expresses public concerns for the good of all  Rousseau recommends a mediator between the government and people because they are always in conflict  Wrote The Social Contract, 1762 that favored a government based on small direct democracy, focused on the people

 Tolerance of religions and ethnicities  “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?”  Voltaire wanted to bring social and political change through the use of satire and criticism. He wrote Candide

 Salon: intellectual gatherings  Classicism: ideas that centered on Greek and Roman ideas  Philosophes: new ideas such as Locke’s political philosophy and Newton’s scientific method that believed in freedom to question, prove and supported freedom and individual rights.  Enlightened Despots: rulers who sought Enlightenment principles while still having royal powers  Metaphysics: branch of philosophy that is concerned with spiritual ideas

 Romanticism: a cultural movement that celebrated emotion and the individual ending the Age of Enlightenment  Natural Law: a universal moral law that is understood by using reason  Natural Rights: rights belonging to all people from the time they are born  Deism: the belief in God, but not recognizing organized religion, declaring that it exploits people. Religion is based on reason and natural law  Scientific Method: developed by Francis Bacon in which the scientist begins with an observation of facts and images, then finds a hypothesis to explain them. Through the use of experimentation, the scientist tests the hypothesis to see if it is true. If proven true, it becomes scientific law through reason.

 World History: The Human Experience, The Modern Era by Mounir A. Farah and Andrea B. Karls, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, New York, New York, 2001.