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Scientific revolution
Scientific revolution
The impact of scientific revolution
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The Enlightenment was a European movement that emphasized reason and respect for humanity. Enlightenment thinkers thought reason could solve humanity’s problems and the literature created by these Europeans greatly influenced educated Americans, including founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Much of Enlightenment thought surrounded politics and how a proper political system should be structured. John Locke was an Englishman would argued that the state was obligated to grant natural, human rights to the people it governed. He wrote in his Two Treatises on Government that these rights included “life, liberty, and property.”
The Enlightenment thinkers changed the way common people viewed government. Before the 17th century, governments acted with impunity. While rebellions had happened prior to the 17th century, they usually consisted of fewer than 1,000 troops
The Enlightenment era showed light on whether or not monarchs, Kings or Queens, really acquired their absolute power from God. People started to think with their own minds, they started to think intellectually. The Enlightenment acknowledged three philosophers, John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who are now widely known for their famous political theories. Let's start with Thomas Hobbes, a famous English philosopher whose ideas are later contradicted by John Locke. Hobbes believed in something called “State of Nature” which is the condition of human beings without political association.
During the 18th Century, the Enlightenment was introduced in Europe. This new movement brought about modernization of thinking about government and individualism, and reevaluated previous beliefs. The Enlightenment had many new Philosophers who helped spread their views on government. Philosophers were similar in ideas about the rights of citizens and people’s choice of which government they want, however they differed on the reason government existed and governmental power. Overall, the ideas were a substantial departure from previous ideas about human equality, absolute rulers, and the court system.
During the Enlightenment many new ideas inspired the government and the people to come together to better society. People such as John Locke, Beccaria and many others had different ideas of how to reform the government during the Enlightenment period, which lasted from 1685-1815. The ideas created by the philosophers of this time included new beliefs and new laws. This ultimately leads to new relations forming between the government and the people. The propositions proposed by the Enlightenment altered the association between government and society by uniting the ideas of the government and the people, promoting the tolerance of all religions, and giving justice to the people.
The Enlightenment was a time in history where science and logic thrived. The general population utilized reason and rationalism to reshape the foundations of society and government. Life before the turning, Europe was driven by Absolute Monarchs, for example, King Louis XIV of France, Phillip II of Spain, and Czar Peter. They defended their faith by asserting Divine Right, the authority to administer from God. Roused by the fundamental transformation, numerous researchers started to exercise judgment and justification to scrutinize the guideline of absolute Monarchs.
Were enlightenment and absolutism ever suitable? Lonnie Johnson answered that question by stating “[they] may appear incompatible in theory, but they were compatible in practice”. Peter the Great, Maria Theresa and Joseph II were the living proof of Johnson’s affirmation. Enlightened despotism, also known as enlightenment from above, was implemented by these rulers with the main objective of obtaining more power by securing the economic and educational improvement of their subjects. In contrast with Joseph II, Maria Theresa and Peter the Great did not considered themselves enlightened rulers.
Different factors had a part to play in starting or even propelling ‘the Age of Enlightenment’, including the rule of the Church and State which experienced a power struggle among them, in addition to the Western discovery of latest societies with noticeably exclusive cultural traditions and norms. Many intellectuals felt unhappy with the fixed social styles amongst their very own collectives, and angry at their governments' refusal to provide non-public rights. The lasting political effect of the Enlightenment can't be overstated. At the least three fundamental political revolutions came about throughout this time period in Britain, America, and France.
The Enlightenment rearranged politics and government in earthshaking ways. This cultural movement embraced several types of philosophies to thinking and exploring the world. Generally, Enlightened thinkers thought objectively and without prejudice. One of these ideologies were that the people should run their government the way they see fit. One of the other primary philosophies is that the people were to incompetent and self-biased to run a government.
The Enlightenment began with the English philosopher John Locke. It was an era of spreading faith in reason, in reason, and in universal rights and laws (The Enlightenment in Europe). The ideas that were embodied by Enlightenment were life, liberty, and property. It also led to the idea of natural right. The Enlightenment influenced the way people finally realized that divine right wasn’t right and start to doubt it.
The Enlightenment was a period of time that stressed the importance of reason and individual ideas. Many philosophers published works criticizing a country’s monarch or divulging the flaws they saw in a system within the government, such as the justice system. The Enlightenment also stressed the importance of education, and as a result of this, literacy rates experienced a major upward trend. Now able to read the philosopher’s works, a larger sum of people now were educated on the corruptions within their government. This caused a questioning of traditional practices, and people began to believe they could revise their government.
The Enlightenment went against the political views, and morals of the Age of Absolutism. The Enlightenment challenged the views of the Age of Absolutism because it questioned the traditional authority established during this period by taking away the idea of single power, that had benefited the monarchs and the wealthy, and introducing the new idea of ruling for the good of the people instead. During the Age of Absolutism, rulers believed in the idea of single power, but during the Enlightenment, people started to challenge this idea and introduced a new form of government free of tyranny. Document 1, a primary source written by Machiavelli in the 15th century, states, “Men have less hesitation in offending a man who is loved than one who is feared . . .
Many ask what does it mean to be enlightened? Nikos Kazantzakis said, "The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness. " One may wonder how was I enlightened? I get enlightened everyday I wake up in the morning and go out into the world. My journey to enlightenment is a never ending process; The process of which I look forward to every second of my life.
The Enlightenment gave people power to make the changes they wanted for independence and politics using intellect and reason, their natural right. The norm of a society that is modelled today became reason over
The Enlightenment was a period during the 1600 and 1700s where authority, power, government and law was questioned by philosophers. The causes of the Enlightenment was the Thirty Years’ War, centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the church, greater exploration of the world, and European thinkers’ interest in the world (scientific study). A large part of the Enlightenment was natural law, which was the belief that people should live their lives and organize their society on the basis of rules and precepts laid down by nature or God; the principles of the Enlightenment in the 1600s through the 1700s influenced the development of the USA by advocating religious and social freedom, freeing the people from oppression, and providing