The Enlightenment In America

From the late 1500’s to the late 1700’s, the Enlightenment period occurred. Thinkers and philosophers across Europe created ideas that changed the way people thought. For example, John Locke thought of the idea that everyone had natural rights. These rights consisted of the right to life, liberty, and property. Voltaire had the idea that the power lies in the hands of the people and their elected government. Benjamin Franklin, who had a great influence on the new government in the Americas as he told the ideas of government structure that he thought was better. Without these three people and their thoughts, the world wouldn't be the way it is today.

Firstly, in the beginning the government was able to control everyone, but after the Enlightenment, people started to question things. Because of this, the Enlightenment encouraged people to challenge the authority, and think upon reasoning/logic. The word/phrase "common sense" was an Enlightenment idea, which inspired a man named Thomas Paine, during the Rev War. The Declaration of Independence was based on Enlightenment ideas, which were presented by John Locke. The Enlightenment supported ideals including: liberty, democracy, individualism, religious tolerance, and

The Enlightenment was a period during the eighteenth century that brought new attitudes toward reform, faith, and reason in the governments of Europe. The Enlightenment had a massive effect on the Western Civilization. The Enlightenment brought new ideas about government that inspired the Founding Fathers and the French revolutionaries. The Enlightenment also gave birth to the ideas of free trade and it also shifted economic reliance from agriculture to industrial products. This transformation led to beginning of the globalization of Europe. The Enlightenment also started the religious idea of Deism, which states both religion and reason could be combined to give rise to new

The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries that emphasized the use of reason and individualism. It was mostly influenced by Descartes, Locke, and Newton. The idea of enlightened absolutism valued reason rather than faith. Enlightened monarchs had total control but embraced rationality. Being an enlightened ruler meant allowing religious tolerance, freedom of speech, and the right to hold private property. The so-called enlightened rulers of the 18th century included Catherine the Great, Joseph II, and Frederick the Great. Joseph II ruled with more enlightened ideas than the other too but he lacked to make a long lasting changes during his reign. But to what extent did these rulers actually rule with enlightened absolutism?

The ideas of the Enlightenment shaped the revolutions of the late seventeen hundreds in numerous ways. Because of the Enlightenment, people began to question their surrounding, leading to the separation of religion and the monarchy. This was vital because it lessened the strength of the monarchy. The Enlightenment allowed people to see that they had certain rights that they were given at birth, and that no one, not even the monarchy, could take these rights away. These basic rights are the foundations of most standing constitutions to date.

According to our studies, the Enlightenment was a movement that prioritized the human capacity for reason as the highest form of human attainment (Lecture Insert Cite). The Enlightenment originally began in Europe and found it 's way to the colonies. Before the Enlightenment, people had always believed that the social class in which they were born into would be the one in which they would die. People would follow their leader 's words without daring to question them and believed that when they died they would either face eternal salvation or eternal damnation. There was no room for thought. They were told what to think and do and they did not dare question it. That is until in the 1500 's, a European scientist named Copernicus began questioning the foundational beliefs everyone had previously been lead to believe by their leaders. This led to a change in what the people believed. Thus, by the 1600 's, educated people were postulating whether natural laws governed society and the universe (lecture cite). Essentially, the Enlightenment challenged the role of religion and divine right. This assisted Colonial America is seeing that it was possible to challenge the King and divine right. The movement ended up taking a scientific approach to the world and human nature as it challenged the role of God. It allowed people to see that

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. These new ideas played as a catalyst to acts of resistance, or in a broader retrospect, the French Revolution.

“The most perfect education, in my opinion,is…to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as well render [her] independent” (Doc D). The Enlightenment was a time period from the early 17th century to the late 18th century. There were many philosophers who contributed to making The Enlightenment. John Locke was a man who wanted freedom of government during 1690 (17th century) in England. He wanted this because he believed everyone was born with natural rights and the government should respect them and whoever didn’t, the people would have the right to impeach them. Voltaire was a man who wanted freedom of religion during 1726 (18th century) in Paris, France. He wanted this because he believed that freedom of religion would bring the world peace. Adam Smith was another man who believed of freedom, but he mostly believed in the freedom of economy.He did this during 1776 (18th century) in Europe.He thought this because he believed everyone should have the right to do what they want with their earnings that they made. Mary Wollstonecraft was a women who believed in

The Scientific Revolution started a domino effect of people beginning to understand the powers they held. People could freely ask questions instead of indiscriminately accepting what they were told. A basic summary of this effect is written in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and assume among the powers of the earth…which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them…” (p. 72). 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 movement that shunned superstition and was more in favor with a scientific explanation of the world. The Enlightenment was also known as the Age of Reason or Age of Enlightenment. It started in Europe and America around the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enlightenment was about people who used their critical thinking skills to argue knowledge, education, politics, religion, and art. The enlightenment produced an increased number of inventions, books, scientific findings, political laws, and revolutions.

Above all, the Enlightenment played crucial role in educating people in the American societies. Although the Enlightenment initially started in Europe, it was prevalent out to America. The definition of Enlightenment means to “reimbursement or clearing up” and it is a very helpful term since it assists to give proper information about what the Enlightenment is and what they tried to fulfill that time. Furthermore, the Enlightenment had hugely impacted on the American Revolution. The most well known Enlightenment theorists in America were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, I think. Due to the Enlightenment, people began to trust that agreement should be active between leader and people. People could start considering of developing their

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 changed the ways and views of authority. This began in 1715, being the year that Louis XIV died, and in 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution. The principal goal of the Enlightenment thinkers were liberty, progress, reason, fraternity, tolerance, and ending the abuses of the state and church. This era is associated with the scientific revolution. The scientific revolution was inspired by Thomas Kuhn. It was based off of the transformation of views on mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy when they started to develop. Some of the most influential work compiled together is called the Encyclopedia. It was philosophers whose work that influenced the Enlightenment. Those philosophers were Locke, Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Spinoza, but the major influencers are Cesare Beccaria, Jean Jacques, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson came to Europe and contributed actively to the scientific database. The Enlightenment engaged in the

The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening caused major changes during the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century in British North America. Not only did Americans change their way of life, but also religion became very important to them. A major religious movement became very influential during the colonial period and spread across British North America. People were exposed to the variety of religions and were able to pursue their faith in God. The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening greatly affected religion in British North America.

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