Enlightenment?” Between the 18th and 19th centuries, two considerable revolutions reflected the ideals of the Enlightenment.Though these ideals played a substantial role in both revolutions, they were more significantly shown in the American Revolution. The French Revolution began with intentions following the Enlightenment ideals but ended up with strong feelings of fear driving the people rather than princples. Enlightenment ideals heavily emphasized the importance and rights of each individual, white man; these were called natural rights. These ideals encompassed popular sovereignty where the opinions of the majority were emphasized. The Enlightenment continued the ideas of the Scientific Revolution in which there was a great emphasis on human reasoning and how it could answer questions about nature; in the Enlightenment, people believed that human reasoning could be used to solve any issues in society or politics.
The Enlightenment was critical in many aspects of the colonial America way of life, which commonly affected the politics, government and religion. Without these principles of understanding and the new way of thinking, the United States would have drastically been different since those ideas shaped the country in its infant years. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was overwhelmingly influenced by The Enlightenment both during and after the American Revolution. Many different concepts came from this new governmental structure such as, freedom of oppression and natural rights. These concepts were influenced by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke and Isaac Newton where they helped set a clear path for colonial and present America to follow.
The Enlightenment affected the people is that they should be governed by reason and not tradition. John Locke saw no explanation reason why kings should rule rather than having people rule themselves. Great Awakening created splits among member of religious denominations. Some people’s belief changed while others stayed the same. Jonathon Edwards led one of the first religious revivals in MA.
The voting should be done individually by the delegates. Third Estate felt so good about the enlightenment ideas that they even created and called themselves the National Assembly. The National assembly was able to win and abolish the feudal privileges of the nobility and the clergy. Enlightenment has helped create a new era for the French of liberty, equality, and fraternity (The French Revolution
Also, Montesquieu’s idea of the separation of powers helped shape the government. It was put into place to keep one branch from becoming overpowered. Without these key concepts, our government would supposedly become or stay as an absolute monarch. In conclusion, The Enlightenment greatly impacted the American Government and Revolution because the ideas and concepts that were gained from the time period supported the new beginning of our nation’s prodigious
This means that the enlightenment age served as a basis for the development of other movements that would come later. Life today Today, enlightenment is seen in new understanding and practices that have taken a hold of the social sector and have resulted in the production of better and measurable results when it comes to the different social problems. There are many social problems faced in the society today that leave many questions such as :if its is possible to increase empathy and
Influence of Enlightenment Philosophy There comes a time where man must not mindlessly follow their current government and way of thinking. The time arises were men must create change and birth innovative ideas on how their society and government should function, the Enlightenment was one of such times. The Enlightenment was a period of time where man began to question his government, and to try to reform it. The Enlightenment gave rise to great philosophers who can be considered as trailblazers, going ahead of the Framers and laying out the basis for a new kind of government. The Framers drew heavily on the ideals of the enlightenment when drafting the U.S Constitution.
According to Emmanuel Kant, enlightenment refers to being free to use an individual’s intelligence (Kristic, 312). The Enlightenment broke through an existing sacred circle that had influenced the thinking of people. The sacred circle, in this case, refers to the existing independent relationship between church leaders and texts found in the Bible. The enlightenment is also a source of important ideas like the centrality of freedom, reasons for main values of the society and democracy as opposed to the rights held by traditions and kings as the authority that rules. According to these views, establishing the contractual basis of rights would result in capitalism and market mechanism, religious tolerance, scientific methods and the organization of different states into their self-governing republics by democratic means.
Question #2: In what ways did Enlightenment ideas contribute to the outbreak and course of the French Revolution? The Enlightenment was a period of rationalization and understanding, and in many ways contributed to the birth of the French Revolution. Around the time of the French Revolution the church was the dominate force in France. That being said, often times the church would offer explanations to many events as acts of God. The ideas of The Enlightenment saw the opposite.
This argument is further supported as the readership of the philosophes did not extend to the peasants in pre-revolutionary France and the restrictions on publishing determined the influence of the Enlightenment. The influence of intellectual ideals poses a reconsideration of the Enlightenment, as something that was perhaps more influential than first