There are many ways that the Greek War embodied the ideas of the Enlightenment. The Greek War was between the Ottoman Empire and Greece from 1821 to 1832. During this time you also see countries such as Russia, Britain, and others coming in to help Greece. This war was caused by the Ottoman Empire ruling over Greece for over 400 years. This paper will argue that the Greek War of Independence embodied the spirit of the Enlightenment by Rousseau’s social contract, Locke’s Life/ freedom, and Voltaire’s social contract.
One inspiration for the Greek War was Rousseau’s social contract philosophy. One example of this is during the ruling of the Ottoman Empire, Greece thought it would be only fair that they could have a say in the laws and government. This was a fair point to bring up, especially because they were the ones who would have to follow these rules. This aligned with Rousseau’s idea of the social contract that originated in 1762. Another piece of evidence is that once freed from Ottoman Empire rule, they started the social contract. After Greece became its own country they made laws in thought of the public interest and what would work best.
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Even though these wars were several years apart, they still have many similarities. Some of these are the Enlightenment ideas from John Locke. This includes the idea of life, liberty, and property, and freedom during the late 1600s. During the time of the ruling Greece saw the rights other countries (such as America) were receiving from revolting against what was wrong. They saw and read about Locke’s ideas of rights and decided that it was time they got them. Other evidence connecting the two are where the ideas of the Enlightenment came from. A lot of the Enlightenment ideas were based on old philosophies, where the majority came from Greece itself. These philosophies were shown by philosophers such as Plato and