Enlightenment

Examples of Enlightenment in the following topics:

• The Political Revolution

  • The American Enlightenment promoted ideas of individual liberty, republican government, and religious toleration.
  • The American Enlightenment is the intellectual period in America in the mid-to-late 18th century (1715-1789), especially as it relates to the American Revolution and the European Enlightenment.
  • Both the Moderate Enlightenment and a Radical or Revolutionary Enlightenment were reactions against the authoritarianism, irrationality, and obscurantism of the established churches.
  • No brief summary can do justice to the diversity of enlightened thought in 18th-century Europe.
  • In his famous essay "What is Enlightenment?

• The American Enlightenment

  • The American Enlightenment was an era of prolific discourse in which Anglo-American intellectuals studied human nature, society, and religion.
  • Influenced by the scientific revolution of the 17th century, key Enlightenment thinkers applied scientific reasoning to studies of human nature, society, and religion.
  • Enlightenment thinkers reacted against the authoritarianism, irrationality, and perceived obscurantism of the established churches.
  • The culmination of these enlightenment ideas occurred with Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, in which he declared:
  • Summarize the central commitments of the Enlightenment, particularly as it appeared in the colonies

• Deism

  • Deism played a major part in inspiring enlightenment philosophy and in the creation of the principle of religious freedom.
  • In the United States, Enlightenment philosophy (which itself was heavily inspired by Deist ideals) played a major role in creating the principle of religious freedom, which is expressed in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

• The Rights of Englishmen

  • "The rights of Englishmen" refers to unwritten constitutional rights and liberties, originating in Britain peaking in the Enlightenment.
  • These rights evolved and developed over several centuries and stages of Anglo-American history--peaking with the Enlightenment era.
  • In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the high intellectual Enlightenment was dominated by philosophes who opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs of their day, and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments derived their existence from the consent of the governed.
  • For instance, in 1690, John Locke (one of the fathers of the English Enlightenment) wrote that all people have fundamental natural rights to "life, liberty and property," and that governments were created in order to protect these rights.

• The Concept of Civic Duty

  • Furthermore, as emphasized by 17th-century Enlightenment thinkers, Parliament was considered the least corrupt form of government because governments derived existence from the consent of the governed, and the elected representative body was answerable to its constituents.
  • The highly intellectual Enlightenment was dominated by philosophers who opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs of their day and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments derived their existence from the consent of the governed.
  • For instance, in 1690, John Locke (one of the fathers of the English Enlightenment) wrote that all people have fundamental natural rights to "life, liberty, and property" and that governments were created in order to protect these rights.

• Classical Liberalism

  • Classical liberalism developed over the course of the 1800s in the United States and Britain and drew upon Enlightenment sources (particularly the works of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith).
  • Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment.

• Slavery in the South

  • In the 1730s, Enlightenment principles prompted the founding of a new colony: Georgia.
  • Despite its proprietors’ early vision of a colony guided by Enlightenment ideals and free of slavery, by the 1750s, Georgia was producing quantities of rice grown and harvested by slaves.

• Land and Liberty

  • The ideological movement known as the American Enlightenment was a critical precursor to the American Revolution.
  • Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of liberalism, democracy, republicanism, and religious tolerance.
  • Discuss the burgeoning legal characteristics of the British Colonies that eventually gave rise to Republicanism, the American Enlightenment, and, eventually, the American Revolution.

• Women and the Household

  • Much later during the colonial experience, as the values of the American Enlightenment were imported from Britain, the philosophies of such thinkers as John Locke weakened the view that husbands were natural "rulers" over their wives and replaced them with a (slightly) more liberal conception of marriage.

• The Limits of Democracy

  • The most important influences on the Constitution from the European continent were from Enlightenment thinkers John Locke and Montesquieu.