What Impact Did The Enlightenment Have On Europe – The Age of Enlightenment brought about a series of major changes in both Europe and the English Colonies in America. Both the American and French Revolutions were heavily influenced by ideas from the Enlightenment.

Natural rights, as defined by John Locke, greatly influenced both of these revolutions. In America, the Declaration of Independence took a lot from John Locke, especially the famous phrase, “life, liberty and happiness.” Natural rights are also guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. In France, natural rights were the basis of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a document about human rights during the French Revolution.

What Impact Did The Enlightenment Have On Europe

What Impact Did The Enlightenment Have On Europe

The social contract theory found its way into the American and French Revolutions. In both revolutions, the theory of the social contract gave the people a reason to overthrow their kings. Based on this theory, the American constitution specifies the elections for all offices as well as the way to remove the president if they fail to perform their duties. In France, people believed that their monarchy did not respect the social contract and they overthrew it and replaced it with a republic.

Education In The Age Of Enlightenment

Montesquieu’s doctrine of the separation of powers also found its place in these revolutions. When America was creating its new government, the founders created three different branches of government. These three branches, which are legislative, executive, and administrative, each has the power to supervise the other two. This system is called checks and balances. In France, the monarchy and the three estates were deposed because of how the First and Second Estates oppressed the farmers of the Third Estate.

During the age of absolute monarchy, religion played an important role. Religion was often used as a way to control people. The founders of America and the French Revolution both recognized this and took steps to ensure that this did not happen again. In America, religious freedom is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. It gave people freedom of religion and was protected by the government. In France, all religions were given both civil and political rights. The philosophy of the century has a revolutionary and intellectual character that emerged in various intellectual areas of Europe, such as France, Scotland and Germany. They were influenced by ancient philosophers, such as Descartes, Newton and Locke, philosophers of the 18th century.

All these philosophers promoted the idea of ​​progress, and by ‘development’ they referred to the combination of scientific and social developments. Progress was, by definition, gathering new knowledge through the scientific method and applying the newly acquired knowledge to social and human behavior and thereby improving the living conditions and intellectual development of society.

The scientific method, a key factor in this progress, has been defined as conducting experiments and experiments, and then analyzing the results to obtain concrete and true information. This method was proposed by the philosophers of the Enlightenment as a contradiction of the teachings of the Church and metaphysical.

Encyclopedia Of The Enlightenment (4 Vol. Set): 9780195104301: Kors, Alan Charles: Books

Since people have accepted these values ​​of the Light, our organisms have not only created the world’s products and discoveries in nature and social science but also successfully improved the overall health and quality of life around the world. Therefore, it is clear that the Enlightenment had a very positive effect on the human path since the 18th century.

The first and greatest positive influence of the Enlightenment has been the popularization and spread of scientific progress and, through this progress, mankind has reached unprecedented heights in many areas of life.

Steven Pinker, in his latest book, shows data showing the increase in average life expectancy and population growth around the world since the 1760s and then builds his argument on this data about how the Enlightenment and scientific progress followed led to “the Great Escape from poverty, disease, hunger, disability to read and write, and before death, beginning in the West and expanding throughout the rest of the world”.

What Impact Did The Enlightenment Have On Europe

The fact that the average human lifespan has more than doubled in just 200 years clearly confirms the value of the concept of scientific progress provided by the Enlightenment. If anything, the Enlightenment helped accelerate the progress of science by separating it from traditional philosophy and making it popular.

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Another profound aspect that the Enlightenment greatly influenced was the idea of ​​intellectual and social development. The philosophy of the Enlightenment directly or indirectly created modern liberal ideas such as public democracy, free thought and the free market, which paved the way for human progress.

According to Immanuel Kant, the leading philosopher of the Enlightenment, all that was needed for the realization of the Enlightenment was freedom, especially the freedom of rational thought and its application in every area of ​​life. This ideal of freedom was a key element in the Enlightenment and its triumph over opposing doctrines that greatly influenced society even decades after the Age of Enlightenment.

According to data provided by worldworldindata, literacy rates doubled between 1750 and 1850, reaching an average of 70% in Europe. The number of universities and educational institutions also saw a sharp rise before the end of the 19th century

Century. Therefore, the positive influence on people that the adoption of Enlightenment values ​​brought can be clearly seen in statistical data and even today these social and political goals of Enlightenment still lead people to continue development.

Renaissance And Enlightenment: Canvas For Ai Era

The most serious criticism against the goals of the Enlightenment and its results came from members of the philosophical movement called Conservatism. Conservatives believe that the revolutionary and radical teachings of the Enlightenment often ignore countless years of human experience and try to formulate the principles of social and political doctrine through common sense.

According to conservatives, the traditions of the Enlightenment caused more destruction to human civilization than provided real progress. Roger Scruton, a well-known contemporary conservative philosopher, emphasizes that political understanding, as a form of effective governance, does not translate easily into international laws and conservatism takes its main inspiration from that and does not interfere with what is possible. The traditional view focuses primarily on the preservation of historical and empirical knowledge as opposed to the newly developed ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.

This method of caution, which says that people are too wrong to be able to think of plans from the beginning and that they are better off sticking with the traditions they already have, has been heavily criticized by philosophers and progressive thinkers of today who try to support the traditions of the Enlightenment.

What Impact Did The Enlightenment Have On Europe

Pinker criticizes this method of conservation by pointing to the fact that the world was polluted by plagues, superstitions, genocide and war before the Enlightenment and says that it is a good thing for the god of people to get rid of those cultures. Although people are far from being without mistakes, it is evident from historical evidence that people made the most progress when they used rational thinking in problems and abandoned tradition when necessary.

What Is The Enlightenment And How Did It Transform Politics?

Therefore, the view of security fails to see that traditional culture and the institutions they organize often include harmful and limiting practices that prevent human progress in the natural and social sciences and thus prevent a better life for all people.

The Enlightenment philosophy is a topic that needs to be better explored and studied by today’s society. That, either directly or indirectly, has given us many abstract and real ideas and concepts that make our life better, healthier and more productive when compared to the life of an average person from 300 years ago.

The statement that the Enlightenment destroyed the knowledge and culture of centuries is not important as it gave us great progress. However, it is important for people to study the Philosophy of Light and follow both and opposite paths.

Instead of reaching a complete statement about the Idea of ​​Development or Conservatism, and turning it into a fruitless and violent debate between these approaches, one should use these philosophical discussions for the sake and benefit of people and their future. The picture shows the thinkers of the Enlightenment— including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and explosion of Voltaire – in the drawing room, they gathered to read Voltaire’s play “L’Orphelin de la Chine” in 1755.

Age Of Enlightenment

In 1627, officials in Cologne, Germany, accused Katharina Henot—the local postmaster and powerful social official—of witchcraft. They said he used magic, worked with the devil, and had caused the local nunnery to be destroyed by a plague of worms. For the crimes he was accused of, he was often tortured and killed in public.

While surprising by today’s standards, Henot’s story was common at the time. Between 1520 and 1700, Europe executed tens of thousands of people – mostly women – accused of witchcraft.

How did this happen? Surely anyone using science and reason would have concluded that such accusations were crazy, right?

What Impact Did The Enlightenment Have On Europe

For centuries, the intellectual and political authority of the world came from religion and other traditional beliefs. To make sense of the world—including things like worm diseases—people may turn to witchcraft or Satanism. And to explain political institutions—such as why one family had complete control over the kingdom—leaders turned to religion, claiming divine rights from God.

The Age Of Enlightenment: An Intellectual Movement Of Reason

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