The Age of Reason

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The Enlightenment - was an intellectual and
cultural movement that tied together certain key
ideas and was the link between the scientific
revolution and a new-world view these ideas were
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1. Natural reason and science can explain all
   aspects of life. Humans should rely on reason,
   not religion, to improve society.
2. The scientific method can explain the laws of
   society. Natural laws can be discovered by human
   reason.
3. Progress the creation of better societies and
   better people is possible.

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4. Happiness was an inalienable right in the
world. People should not accept misery in the
world to find salvation. 5. Liberty- remove
restrictions on speech, government, and trade.
Intellectual freedom was a natural right. Without
freedom of expression there could be no progress,
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6. Toleration religious beliefs that promote
superstition, intolerance, and bigotry should be
questioned. They advocated full religious
tolerance.
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The Characteristics of the Enlightenment

1. Rationalism ? reason is the judge of all things.
2. Cosmology ? a new concept of man, his existence
   on earth, the place of the earth in the
   universe.
3. Secularism ? application of the methods of
   science to religion philosophy.

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The Characteristics of the Enlightenment

• Scientific Method
• Mathematical analysis
• Experimentation
• Inductive reasoning.
• Utilitarianism ? the greatest good for the
  greatest number.
• Tolerance ? No opinion is worth burning your
  neighbor for.

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The Characteristics of the Enlightenment

• Optimism Self-Confidence
• The belief that man is intrinsically good.
• The belief in social progress.
• Freedom
• Of thought and expression.
• Bring liberty to all men (modern battle against
  absolutism).
• Education of the Masses

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The Characteristics of the Enlightenment

• Legal Reforms
• Justice, kindness, and charity ? no torture or
  indiscriminant incarceration.
• Due process of law.
• Constitutionalism
• Written constitutions ? listing citizens, rights.
• Cosmopolitanism ? the idea that all of humanity
  belongs to a single moral community.

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The Legacy of the Enlightenment
The democratic revolutions began in America in
1776 and continued to France in the late 1780s.
Governments in western Europe were on the
defensive to the new ideas.
Reform, democracy, and republicanism entered
politics in western Europe.
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The Legacy of the Enlightenment
New forms of civil society arose -- clubs,
salons, fraternals, private academies, lending
libraries, and professional/scientific
organizations.
Theoretically given full civil and legal rights,
the individual had come into existence as a
political and social force to be reckoned with.
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The Legacy of the Enlightenment
It established a materialistic tradition based on
an ethical system derived solely from a
naturalistic account of the human condition.
It influenced independence movements in Latin
America and western Europe in the 19th centuries.