Reference this Part of: American Revolution The Enlightenment was the root of many of the ideas of the American Revolution. It was a movement that focused mostly on freedom of speech, equality, freedom of press, and religious tolerance. The American Revolution was the time period where America tried to gain its independence from England.

• They got influenced very much from many philosophers.
• That will be discussed throughout the essay.
• The Enlightenment ideas were the main influences for American Colonies to become their own nation.
• Get Help With Your Essay If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Essay Writing Service Some of the leaders of the American Revolution were influenced by Enlightenment ideas which are, freedom of speech, equality, freedom of press, and religious tolerance.

American colonists did not have these rights, in result, they rebelled against England for independence. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote about American’s natural rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These ideas came from the Enlightenment, the ideals led towards the American Revolution soon after (Fisk).

1. The American Revolution must be considered as an anticolonial war for independence, not only a war of liberation from overseas rule but a war for freedom.
2. The American Revolution was a movement to fulfill aspirations to acquire more property” (Morris, 3).
3. Montesquieu believed that everything was made up of laws or rules that never changed.

He wrote the book The Spirit of the Laws, which greatly covers the importance of separation of power in balancing the control of the government. This separation of powers was exemplified in England’s three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial.

1. With these three branches were separated, England made sure that everybody did not have any absolute power.
2. This meant that citizens of the country had a say in the actions of the government, therefore giving them much more power and freedom in the government.
3. The Spirit of the Laws was translated into English, therefore, the American Colonists could read and incorporate it’s Enlightenment ideals, such as a balance of power that provided greater liberty to individuals.

American Colonists wanted freedom and believed that England should not be able to control them overseas (Fisk). Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers during the time period of the Enlightenment. In 1762 Rousseau published The Social Contract, It became one of the most influential works of abstract political thought.

This book is about how a government could exist in a way that it protects society and citizens. Rousseau quoted in his book “Man was/is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” This philosopher was a great influence to America. These ideas were essential for the American Revolution (Delany). John Locke was one of the most important and influential philosophers in the history of the world.

He devoted a lot of his time into writing about philosophy and political thought. The founding fathers of the American Revolution drew heavily on his ideals. John Locke argued “The power of any king or government is derived from people who contract to obey their rules in exchange for law and security.

• Individuals have a natural right to hold property and this can never be taken from them without their own consent.
• If a ruler infringes the terms of the contract that empowers him or seizes property without consent, the people can resist and depose him” (John Locke).
• These arguments are things that American Colonists wanted to have but couldn’t under the control of England.

Therefore, American Colonists wanted independence from England. Thomas Hobbes is known for his political thought. His vision of the world is amazingly original. His main concern in the world is how individuals can live together with peace and not think of conflict (Williams).

He rejects free will of determinism, in which freedom is treated as having the ability to do what an individual desires (Oregon State). He believes that people should obey a group or person that is in power, rather than a state of nature (Williams). “Individuals in a state of nature, that is, a state without a civil government,” he said.

The way out of this desperate state is to establish social contract, and have the state in peace and order (Oregon State). The American Colonists ended up turning to Hobbe’s work to justify the passage of the U.S constitution. Soon after America won the war from great Britain, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

• The Declaration of Independence stated that America had won the revolution from great Britain, and that they had gained their independence.
• They now had freedom to become their own nation.
• This just shows that the Enlightenment ideals had a huge impact on America.
• The Enlightenment ideals were the main influences for American Colonies to become their own nation.

Montesquieu, Locke, and Hobbes (philosophers) ideas and thoughts on life were a big impact. Montesquieu mainly influenced the separation of powers, Locke mainly influenced natural rights, Hobbes mainly influenced individuals obeying one in power, and Rousseau influenced the social contract.

1. The United States of America turned to all of the philosophers, and in the end, Enlightenment ideas were the main influences for American Colonies to become their own nation.
2. Work Cited Delany, James J.
3. Rousseau Jean-Jacques,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.N.p.n.d.
4. Web.13 Dec.2012.
5. Fisk, Allison “The American Revolution.” The Enlightenment Roots of The French and The American Revolution.N.p n.d.

Web.13 Dec.2012. http://www.intranet.potomacschool.org. “John Locke.” J.P. Sommerville.N.p.n.d. Web.13 Dec.2012. http://faculty.history.wisc.edu. Morris, Richard B., Alden T. Vaughan, and George Athan Billias. Perspectives on early American history; essays in honor of Richard B.

What Enlightenment ideas influenced the American Revolution?

Important English Documents – Ironically, the English political system provided the grist for the revolt of its own American colonies. For many centuries English monarchs had allowed restrictions to be placed on their ultimate power. The Magna Carta, written in 1215, established the kernel of limited government, or the belief that the monarch’s rule was not absolute. The ideas of the French Enlightenment philosophes strongly influenced the American revolutionaries. French intellectuals met in salons like this one to exchange ideas and define their ideals such as liberty, equality, and justice. The Petition of Right (1628) extended the rights of “commoners” to have a voice in the government.

The English Bill of Rights (1688) guaranteed free elections and rights for citizens accused of crime. Although King George III still had some real power in 1776, Britain was already well along on the path of democracy by that time. The foundations of American government lie squarely in the 17th and 18th century European Enlightenment.

The American founders were well versed in the writings of the philosophes, whose ideas influenced the shaping of the new country. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, and others took the brave steps of creating a government based on the Enlightenment values of liberty, equality, and a new form of justice.

How did the Enlightenment lead the American Revolution?

Summary: Enlightenment ideals of rationalism and intellectual and religious freedom pervaded the American colonial religious landscape, and these values were instrumental in the American Revolution and the creation of a nation without an established religion.

How did the Enlightenment and Great Awakening influence the American Revolution?

Both the Enlightenment and the Great awakening caused the colonists to alter their views about government, the role of government, as well as society at large which ultimately and collectively helped to motivate the colonists to revolt against England.

What were the effects of the Enlightenment?

Effects – Enlightenment ideas were popular and spread quickly. The Roman Catholic Church and European monarchs tried to censor, or ban, many of the books and other works of Enlightenment thinkers. The monarchs were right to be alarmed. The Enlightenment led many people to think about their government and to consider ways in which it should be reformed.

• The relationship between the people and the state began to be envisioned as a social contract rather than one in which an authoritarian leader ruled his subjects without question.
• This view eventually led to the American and French revolutions, when monarchs lost their power.
• The Enlightenment produced modern secularized theories of psychology and ethics,

The study of science and the investigation of natural phenomena were encouraged, but Enlightenment thinkers also applied science and reason to society’s problems. John Locke argued that each person is naturally free and equal under the law of nature; his doctrine of natural rights was to become profoundly influential in politics.

• In the sciences and mathematics, the logics of induction and deduction made possible the creation of a sweeping new cosmology —the idea of the universe as a mechanism governed by a few simple and discoverable laws.
• The search for a rational religion led to Deism,
• The more radical products of the application of reason to religion were skepticism, atheism, and materialism,

The Enlightenment ended as people began to react against its extremes. The celebration of abstract reason provoked contrary spirits to begin exploring the world of sensation and emotion in the cultural movement known as Romanticism, People seeking religious solace or salvation began to turn away from rationalist Deism.

What are the 2 most important Enlightenment ideas?

What were the most important ideas of the Enlightenment? It was thought during the Enlightenment that human reasoning could discover truths about the world, religion, and politics and could be used to improve the lives of humankind. Skepticism about received wisdom was another important idea; everything was to be subjected to testing and rational analysis.

What were the Enlightenment ideas in America?

2. Six Key Ideas – At least six ideas came to punctuate American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. Many of these were shared with European Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a uniquely American form.

Why was the Enlightenment important?

Enlightenment | Definition, Summary, Ideas, Meaning, History, Philosophers, & Facts Historians place the Enlightenment in (with a strong emphasis on ) during the late 17th and the 18th centuries, or, more comprehensively, between the in 1688 and the of 1789.

• It represents a phase in the intellectual history of Europe and also programs of reform, inspired by a belief in the possibility of a better world, that outlined specific targets for criticism and programs of action.
• It was thought during the Enlightenment that human reasoning could discover truths about the world, religion, and politics and could be used to improve the lives of humankind.

Skepticism about received wisdom was another important idea; everything was to be subjected to testing and rational analysis. Religious tolerance and the idea that individuals should be free from coercion in their personal lives and consciences were also Enlightenment ideas.

Enlightenment, French siècle des Lumières (literally “century of the Enlightened”), German Aufklärung, a European movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in,, and politics.

Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness. A brief treatment of the Enlightenment follows.

1. For full treatment, see,
2. The powers and uses of reason had first been explored by the of,
3. The Romans adopted and preserved much of Greek, notably including the ideas of a rational natural order and,
4. Amid the turmoil of empire, however, a new concern arose for personal, and the way was paved for the triumph of the,

Christian thinkers gradually found uses for their Greco-Roman heritage. The system of thought known as, culminating in the work of, resurrected reason as a tool of understanding. In Thomas’s presentation, Aristotle provided the method for obtaining that truth which was ascertainable by reason alone; since Christian revelation contained a higher truth, Thomas placed the natural law evident to reason subordinate to, but not in conflict with, eternal law and divine law.

1. The intellectual and political edifice of, seemingly impregnable in the, fell in turn to the assaults made on it by, the, and the,
2. Humanism bred the experimental of,, and and the mathematical investigations of,, and,
3. The Renaissance rediscovered much of Classical culture and revived the notion of humans as creative beings, and the Reformation, more directly but in the long run no less effectively, challenged the authority of the,

For, as for Bacon or Descartes, the way to truth lay in the application of human reason. Both the Renaissance and the Reformation were less movements for intellectual liberty than changes of authority, but, since they appealed to different authorities, they contributed to the breakdown of the of thought.

• Received authority, whether of in the sciences or of the church in matters of the spirit, was to be subject to the probings of unfettered minds.
• The successful application of reason to any question depended on its correct application—on the development of a of reasoning that would serve as its own guarantee of validity.

Such a was most spectacularly achieved in the and, where the logics of and made possible the creation of a sweeping new, The formative influence for the Enlightenment was not so much content as method. The great geniuses of the 17th century confirmed and amplified the concept of a world of calculable regularity, but, more importantly, they seemingly proved that rigorous mathematical reasoning offered the means, independent of God’s revelation, of establishing truth.

• The success of, in particular, in capturing in a few mathematical equations the laws that govern the motions of the, gave great to a growing faith in the human capacity to attain knowledge.
• At the same time, the idea of the universe as a mechanism governed by a few simple—and discoverable—laws had a subversive effect on the concepts of a personal God and individual salvation that were central to Christianity.

: Enlightenment | Definition, Summary, Ideas, Meaning, History, Philosophers, & Facts

What was the significance of the Enlightenment?

Politics – The Enlightenment has long been seen as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture. The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies.

This thesis has been widely accepted by scholars and has been reinforced by the large-scale studies by Robert Darnton, Roy Porter, and, most recently, by Jonathan Israel. Enlightenment thought was deeply influential in the political realm. European rulers such as Catherine II of Russia, Joseph II of Austria, and Frederick II of Prussia tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism,

Many of the major political and intellectual figures behind the American Revolution associated themselves closely with the Enlightenment: Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence ; and Madison incorporated these ideals into the U.S.

What is the Enlightenment and why is it important?

The Enlightenment – the great ‘Age of Reason’ – is defined as the period of rigorous scientific, political and philosophical discourse that characterised European society during the ‘long’ 18th century : from the late 17th century to the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.

What was the American Enlightenment summary?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The American Enlightenment was a period of intellectual and philosophical fervor in the thirteen American colonies in the 18th to 19th century, which led to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America. The American Enlightenment was influenced by the 17th- and 18th-century Age of Enlightenment in Europe and native American philosophy,

• According to James MacGregor Burns, the spirit of the American Enlightenment was to give Enlightenment ideals a practical, useful form in the life of the nation and its people.
• A non-denominational moral philosophy replaced theology in many college curricula.
• Some colleges reformed their curricula to include natural philosophy (science), modern astronomy, and mathematics, and “new-model” American style colleges were founded.

Politically, the age is distinguished by an emphasis upon economic liberty, republicanism and religious tolerance, as clearly expressed in the United States Declaration of Independence, Among the foremost representatives of the American Enlightenment were presidents of colleges, including Puritan religious leaders Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Clap, and Ezra Stiles, and Anglican moral philosophers Samuel Johnson and William Smith,

Which Enlightenment thinkers influenced the United States government?

Developments in Democracy – BRIA 20:2 Home | How Women Won the Right to Vote | Have Women Achieved Equality? | Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau on Government Starting in the 1600s, European philosophers began debating the question of who should govern a nation.

• As the absolute rule of kings weakened, Enlightenment philosophers argued for different forms of democracy.
• In 1649, a civil war broke out over who would rule England—Parliament or King Charles I.
• The war ended with the beheading of the king.
• Shortly after Charles was executed, an English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), wrote Leviathan, a defense of the absolute power of kings.

The title of the book referred to a leviathan, a mythological, whale-like sea monster that devoured whole ships. Hobbes likened the leviathan to government, a powerful state created to impose order. Hobbes began Leviathan by describing the “state of nature” where all individuals were naturally equal.

Every person was free to do what he or she needed to do to survive. As a result, everyone suffered from “continued fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In the state of nature, there were no laws or anyone to enforce them. The only way out of this situation, Hobbes said, was for individuals to create some supreme power to impose peace on everyone.

Hobbes borrowed a concept from English contract law: an implied agreement. Hobbes asserted that the people agreed among themselves to “lay down” their natural rights of equality and freedom and give absolute power to a sovereign. The sovereign, created by the people, might be a person or a group.

The sovereign would make and enforce the laws to secure a peaceful society, making life, liberty, and property possible. Hobbes called this agreement the “social contract.” Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the sovereign could take. Placing all power in the hands of a king would mean more resolute and consistent exercise of political authority, Hobbes argued.

Hobbes also maintained that the social contract was an agreement only among the people and not between them and their king. Once the people had given absolute power to the king, they had no right to revolt against him. Hobbes warned against the church meddling with the king’s government.

• He feared religion could become a source of civil war.
• Thus, he advised that the church become a department of the king’s government, which would closely control all religious affairs.
• In any conflict between divine and royal law, Hobbes wrote, the individual should obey the king or choose death.
• But the days of absolute kings were numbered.

A new age with fresh ideas was emerging—the European Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers wanted to improve human conditions on earth rather than concern themselves with religion and the afterlife. These thinkers valued reason, science, religious tolerance, and what they called “natural rights”—life, liberty, and property.

How did the Great Awakening influence American society?

Common Questions about the Effects of the Great Awakening – Q: What is the significance of the Great Awakening? The movement reduced the higher authority of church doctrine and instead put greater importance on the individual and his or her spiritual experience.

An important effect of the Great Awakening was the transformation of the religious climate in the American colonies. Q: How long did the Great Awakening last? The Great Awakening began in the 1730s and lasted less than ten years, until 1740. The effects of the Great Awakening, though, lasted much longer and, according to some scholars, still affect the American society.

Q: What was a leading effect of the Great Awakening? The primary effect of the Great Awakening was that it encouraged people to rethink and renew their religious commitment and passion to develop a greater appreciation for God’s mercy. Q: What was the Great Awakening summary? The summary of Great Awakening was breaking the monopoly of the Puritan church since after the Great Awakening colonists began pursuing diverse religious affiliations and interpreting the Bible for themselves.

What were 3 results of the Enlightenment?

In 1627, officials in Cologne, Germany, accused Katharina Henot—a local postmaster and influential socialite—of witchcraft. They claimed she wielded magic, worked with the devil, and had infested a local nunnery with a plague of caterpillars. For these alleged crimes, she was repeatedly tortured and publicly executed.

While extraordinary by today’s standards, Henot’s case was alarmingly common for the time. Between 1520 and 1700, Europe executed tens of thousands of people—mostly women—on charges of witchcraft. How did this happen? Surely anyone using science and reason could have deduced that such charges were ludicrous, right? Then again, science and reason have not always prevailed.

For centuries, intellectual and political authority came from religion and other traditional beliefs. To understand the world—including phenomena such as plagues of caterpillars—people would turn to supernatural belief in witches or religious belief in Satan.

And to explain political systems—like why a particular family had absolute rule over a kingdom—leaders turned to religion, claiming a divine right from God. But during this time, a series of religious, political, and scientific upheavals began challenging the status quo, culminating in the Enlightenment—an intellectual movement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that sought to improve society through fact-based reason and inquiry.

The Enlightenment brought secular thought to Europe and reshaped the ways people understood issues such as liberty, equality, and individual rights. Today those ideas serve as the cornerstone of the world’s strongest democracies. This lesson explores the history of the Enlightenment and the radical ways in which Enlightenment ideas changed society for centuries to come.

What did the Enlightenment promote?

Key Points –

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.

What was unique about the Enlightenment?

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was an intellectual and cultural movement in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith.

What are 2 ideas from the Enlightenment that appear in the US Constitution?

The big ideas of the Enlightenment certainly had a huge impact on our Founding Fathers. The ideas of the social contract, natural laws and natural rights, and separation of powers, are all found in our Founding Documents, like the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

When was the Enlightenment in America?

The American Enlightenment | Treasures from the Stanford University Libraries – “Thus in the beginning all the World was America,” wrote the English philosopher John Locke at the end of the seventeenth century. Like many European Enlightenment theorists, Locke had never been to the New World, but this small detail did not stop him from grounding some of his revolutionary ideas in the vast Enlightenment laboratory called America.The Enlightenment, that great age of intellectual inquiry and discovery that stretched from roughly 1680 to 1820, drew fundamentally from the European colonization of the Americas.

• The discovery of the New World prompted a flurry of new questions about society, government, art, religion, and nature.
• Did American Indians represent the fundamental state of nature from which all human societies developed? Could a perfect new government or society—uncorrupted by European degeneracy—be created in the New World? Did plants, animals, and peoples improve or degenerate in the American climate? These were just a few of the questions that revolutionized intellectual life in this era.British Americans were at both the center and the edge of the Enlightenment.

The source of so many discoveries that fostered new ideas about nature and government, British Americans knew they also lived at the periphery of the community of learned Europeans called the “republic of letters.” The great centers of learning in London, Paris, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Rome lay thousands of miles away. This exhibition puts American books at the center of the great transatlantic conversation of the Enlightenment. “American” here is meant broadly: viewers will find books published by Americans, books owned by Americans, and books about America. The exhibition focuses especially on books unique to the Stanford University Libraries: “association copies.” These are books connected to a (usually) famous owner who has recorded his or her ownership or reactions in the book.

Some people autographed the title page; others wrote curious or revealing things in the margins. We often imagine that a printed text is the same everywhere; this exhibition returns us to the unique copy, the book or pamphlet owned by a particular person at a particular time. We have also displayed letters by famous Americans such as Benjamin Franklin, a reminder of the continuing relevance of the archive.

In all, we have tried here to recapture the personal, revealing stories of ownership that bring the grand ideas of the Enlightenment to the intimate scale of the human. For further reading, see American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016).

What are the three main ideas of the Enlightenment?

What were the 3 major ideas of the Enlightenment? Reason, individualism and skepticism were three major ideas that came out of the Enlightenment. One person who espoused all three of these values was the French philosopher, Voltaire.

What were the main ideas of Enlightenment?

Enlightenment | Definition, Summary, Ideas, Meaning, History, Philosophers, & Facts Historians place the Enlightenment in (with a strong emphasis on ) during the late 17th and the 18th centuries, or, more comprehensively, between the in 1688 and the of 1789.

• It represents a phase in the intellectual history of Europe and also programs of reform, inspired by a belief in the possibility of a better world, that outlined specific targets for criticism and programs of action.
• It was thought during the Enlightenment that human reasoning could discover truths about the world, religion, and politics and could be used to improve the lives of humankind.

Skepticism about received wisdom was another important idea; everything was to be subjected to testing and rational analysis. Religious tolerance and the idea that individuals should be free from coercion in their personal lives and consciences were also Enlightenment ideas.

Enlightenment, French siècle des Lumières (literally “century of the Enlightened”), German Aufklärung, a European movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in,, and politics.

Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness. A brief treatment of the Enlightenment follows.

• For full treatment, see,
• The powers and uses of reason had first been explored by the of,
• The Romans adopted and preserved much of Greek, notably including the ideas of a rational natural order and,
• Amid the turmoil of empire, however, a new concern arose for personal, and the way was paved for the triumph of the,

Christian thinkers gradually found uses for their Greco-Roman heritage. The system of thought known as, culminating in the work of, resurrected reason as a tool of understanding. In Thomas’s presentation, Aristotle provided the method for obtaining that truth which was ascertainable by reason alone; since Christian revelation contained a higher truth, Thomas placed the natural law evident to reason subordinate to, but not in conflict with, eternal law and divine law.

1. The intellectual and political edifice of, seemingly impregnable in the, fell in turn to the assaults made on it by, the, and the,
2. Humanism bred the experimental of,, and and the mathematical investigations of,, and,
3. The Renaissance rediscovered much of Classical culture and revived the notion of humans as creative beings, and the Reformation, more directly but in the long run no less effectively, challenged the authority of the,

For, as for Bacon or Descartes, the way to truth lay in the application of human reason. Both the Renaissance and the Reformation were less movements for intellectual liberty than changes of authority, but, since they appealed to different authorities, they contributed to the breakdown of the of thought.

1. Received authority, whether of in the sciences or of the church in matters of the spirit, was to be subject to the probings of unfettered minds.
2. The successful application of reason to any question depended on its correct application—on the development of a of reasoning that would serve as its own guarantee of validity.

Such a was most spectacularly achieved in the and, where the logics of and made possible the creation of a sweeping new, The formative influence for the Enlightenment was not so much content as method. The great geniuses of the 17th century confirmed and amplified the concept of a world of calculable regularity, but, more importantly, they seemingly proved that rigorous mathematical reasoning offered the means, independent of God’s revelation, of establishing truth.

1. The success of, in particular, in capturing in a few mathematical equations the laws that govern the motions of the, gave great to a growing faith in the human capacity to attain knowledge.
2. At the same time, the idea of the universe as a mechanism governed by a few simple—and discoverable—laws had a subversive effect on the concepts of a personal God and individual salvation that were central to Christianity.

: Enlightenment | Definition, Summary, Ideas, Meaning, History, Philosophers, & Facts

What were John Locke’s Enlightenment ideas?

John Locke was perhaps the foremost philosopher of the Enlightenment. He believed that a government was legitimate only if the people it ruled consented to its authority. He also believed the government should protect the natural rights of citizens and that all individuals should be equal under the law.

How did Enlightenment thinking influence the Declaration of Independence?

The big ideas of the Enlightenment certainly had a huge impact on our Founding Fathers. The ideas of the social contract, natural laws and natural rights, and separation of powers, are all found in our Founding Documents, like the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.