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The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that dominated in Europe during the 18th century. It was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and it advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. However, historians of race, gender, and class note that Enlightenment ideals were not originally envisioned as universal in today’s sense of the word.
The Philosophic Movement advocated for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation.
There were two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: the radical enlightenment, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. A second, more moderate variety sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith.
While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the west, in terms of focusing on democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies.
Enlightenment thinkers sought to curtail the political power of organized religion, and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. The radical Enlightenment promoted the concept of separating church and state.
Key Terms
scientific method: A body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The Oxford Dictionaries Online define it as “a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”
empiricism: A theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism, it emphasizes the role of experience and evidence (especially sensory experience), in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions.
Encyclopédie: A general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers and was edited by Denis Diderot, and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d’Alembert.
It is the most famous for representing the thought of the Enlightenment.
Newtonianism: A doctrine that involves following the principles and using the methods of natural philosopher Isaac Newton. Newton’s broad conception of the universe as being governed by rational and understandable laws laid the foundation for many strands of Enlightenment thought.
reductionism: The term that refers to several related but distinct philosophical positions regarding the connections between phenomena, or theories, “reducing” one to another, usually considered “simpler” or more “basic.” The Oxford Companion to Philosophy suggests a three part division: ontological (a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts); methodological (the scientific attempt to provide explanation in terms of ever smaller entities); and theory (the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb the old, but reduces it to more basic terms).
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