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The Causes And Impacts Of The French Revolution

1859 Words8 Pages

“I wish not merely to think, but to act.” Fichte The French Revolution (1789-1799) had a tremendous impact on all spheres of life in Europe. German intellectuals such as Kant, Fichte and Schiller, to name a few, were deeply inspired, at least initially, by this uprising of the French people for human rights, that is, until the Revolution turned into a vicious bloodbath much to the horror of the whole of Europe. The Revolution was a watershed moment in European history and after it, many questions of community, nation and relations between the individual and society became important. In Holy Roman Empire German Nation, the intellectuals who belonged to the Aufklärer, a society founded during the German Enlightenment comprising of members such as Thomas Abbot, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn, and who greatly believed in the power of reason as the guiding principle of human behaviour would be unable to explain the extremism of the Revolution. What had started as a triumph of reason had turned into pure violence and the Aufklärer would have to modify its ideas and reach a new understanding of human reason. A political movement aimed towards the betterment of society through education and culture, many intellectuals like Immanuel Kant, Johann Fichte and Johann Herder and even Romantics like such as Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis saw themselves as belonging to the Aufklärer. They believed in the power of philosophy to transform the state but in their writings,

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