The Era Of Enlightenment

Nearly three centuries ago, Immanuel Kant wrote an article entitled “What is the Enlightenment” (Was ist Aufklarung). For this German philosopher, the Enlightenment represented a period when human consciousness became liberated from error and arrogance, thereby culminating in a full comprehension of humanity and nature. As one of the major turning points in the fight for human rights, The Enlightenment transformed philosophy into a vehicle that sought political and social reform. It was a global phenomenon founded on the liberalism and scientific revolution of the 17th century, with ideological and political dynamics. Although the Enlightenment acted as a period of knowledge, incorporation and liberation from arrogance, this era elicited mixed

From a socio-political viewpoint, this era started with the Thirty Years' War (1649) and ended after the French Revolution of 1789. The principles and values advocated by the Enlightenment elicited criticisms from later philosophers that viewed the founders as misinformed and misguided. The Enlightenment viewed reason as a pathway to instituting an influential system of ethics, aesthetics, government, and religion. This influential system further ensured that human beings could obtain an objective truth about the reality of life. Enlightenment philosophers were strengthened by physics and science revolution initiated by the idea of Newtonian kinematics (Hadjiyiannis, 2013). Therefore, they maintained that “reason” was an important element that could free humanity from the religious authoritarianism that was responsible for the death and suffering of many people in religious battles. Enlightenment also served as a period of knowledge, incorporation and education as new information was made available through the invention of encyclopedias. However, Enlightenment elicited mixed reactions from Conservatism, Liberalism, Nationalism, Socialism and

Socialism is dubbed the most radical “ism”, especially due to Karl Marx’s ideal socialist society. Although socialists claimed to promote the same peace and human rights that the Enlightenment invented and supported, they were against peace in society. They believed that bloodshed within a society was an inevitable pathway towards revolution. Socialism emerged in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the resulting industrial society. Socialism varied from liberalism in one significant way (Hadjiyiannis, 2013). Liberalists were strongly opposed to Europe’s pre-revolutionary social structure but accepted the new bourgeois or Middle-Class society that emerged due to industrialization. Socialists were against bourgeois society and supported proletariat and working class as an industrial revolution product. Some socialists advocated for peaceable and industrial societal changes (Hadjiyiannis, 2013). However, Marxian Socialism preached vicious revolutionary