1. The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century movement in European and American philosophy. (1700s)
This was part of the longer period including the Age of Reason.
The term can more narrowly refer to the intellectual movement of The Enlightenment, which advocated reason as the primary basis of authority.

2. What was the Enlightenment?
The Enlightenment was about ideas, and making these ideas a reality.
The Enlightenment was a change in the way people saw themselves and the world around them: namely government.
People began to see the value of the individual in society.
The masses began to demand some protection and support from government.
Since actions lead to things,
what actions led to better government?

3. to Enlightenment ideas? Why or why not?
Enlightenment Ideals
The following are ideals that came from the Enlightenment:
Value of Democracy
Religious Tolerance
Women’s Rights
Public Education
Healthcare
Limited Torture
Limited Church and Monarchs’ Power
Protection of the middle and lower classes
Do you think Sadaam Hussein subscribed
to Enlightenment ideas? Why or why not?

4. Enlightenment Thinkers
Prominent Enlightenment philosophers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu questioned and attacked the existing institutions of both Church and State.
Within the period of the Enlightenment, the question of what was the proper relationship of the citizen to the state continued to be explored.
The idea that society is a contract between individual and some larger entity, whether society or state, was developed philosophically by a series of thinkers, including Rousseau, Montesquieu and Jefferson.
Thomas Paine
Jean Jacque
Rousseau
Voltaire
Thomas Jefferson
Baron de
Montesquieu

5. Social Contract
Social Contract - the idea that government gets the right to govern by the people being governed.
In this contract the people give up some rights and privileges in order to be protected by the government
Example: I cannot go around and kill people if I want to: I am protected from being killed by the laws of the land.
This was an idea put forward in America by John Locke

6. How the Enlightenment Spread
By the middle 1700 the industrial revolution had created a large middle class in many European Countries.
The Scientific Revolution led increases education and access to published information for the middle class.
With this newly educated middle class abusive rulers and their practices are questioned.
These ideas were spread in cafes and salons, where the educated people went to chat about smart people things.

7. The Enlightenment in Action
In 1776 the British colonies in America declare their independence from England.
The colonists cite the abuses of the King, George III, as their justification for wanting to be a sovereign nation.
Sovereign - Sovereign is the exclusive right to complete political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) authority over an area of governance, people, or oneself.
In 1789 France joined America as one of the first nations to create a constitutional government after a revolution.
Constitutional governments are those governments that are ruled by laws and restricted to govern within the rules of a constitution