The Enlightenment

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The Enlightenment
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Key Ideas

• Enlightenment philosophers admire scientists use
  of reason to understand the natural world.
• Enlightened thinkers wanted to use reason to fix
  problems.
• Promote reason to understand government,
  religion, education, and economics.
• Want to change the government improve society

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Thomas Hobbes

• Believed people always acted in their own self
  interest
• Government needed to keep order
• Life w/o govt solitary, poor, short.

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John Locke

• Thought people were reasonable had natural
  ability to govern themselves
• Purpose of government protect natural rights of
  life, liberty, and property
• Wrote Two Treatises on Govt.

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Voltaire

• Tolerance, reason,
• Freedom of thought, expression, and religious
  belief
• Enlightened Despotism- Rational monarchs protect
  peoples rights (freedom of speech, religion,
  etc.)
• I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend
  to the death your right to say it.

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Montesquieu

• Idea of Separation of Powers (3 branches of
  government)
• Checks Balances- keep any individual or group
  from gaining complete control of the government
• Wrote The Spirit of the Laws.

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Rousseau

• Viewed government as a Social Contract among free
  individuals to create a society guided by the
  general will
• Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.

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Mary Wollstonecraft

• Argued for womens education and political
  participation
• Believed women, like men, need education to
  become upright and useful

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How did Enlightenment writers and thinkers set
the stage for revolutionary movements?

• Encouraged people
• to judge for themselves what was right or wrong
  in society
• Rely on human reason to solve social problems

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Whose ideas are most like your own? Why?

• Locke
• People are reasonable and able to make decisions.
• People should be able to rule themselves.

• Hobbes
• People are selfish, self-serving, and brutal.
• Without control, society would be chaotic

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The End