The Enlightenment
1700s
The Age of Reason or The Age of Rationalism
Background Info
 Why did The Enlightenment Period begin?
 Privileged minority rules the majority
 Scientific Revolution – people want facts & no longer look to
God or gods for information about daily life.
 Monarchs ruling with absolute power
 What is The Enlightenment?
 A period in the 1700s where philosophers believed that they
could apply the scientific method & reason to explain human
nature logically
 God did not act in human affairs
 Human actions determined the future
Quick Overview
 Why was it important? And why do we need to study it?
 Many new political ideas
 Some are in our founding documents!
 New ideas led to revolutions and new governments!
 Ideas still in use today!
 Contributions
 The Encyclopedia – By Diderot & Jean d’ Alembert
 28 volumes of complaints on the church, government, slave
trade, taxes, & war
 1751-1772
 Salons – Gathering place for enlightenment women
 Revolutions
 American Revolution 1776
 French Revolution 1789
Enlightenment Thinkers
 Philosophes
 Critics of society and government
 The church
 Government
 Published their beliefs in books,
pamphlets, and plays.
Thomas Hobbes
 Lived through the English Civil War
 People are naturally in a state of
total freedom & chaos (anarchy) &
need a government to keep order
and stop self interest from taking
over.
 SO, people give up their freedom to
enter a Social Contract
 An agreement between the people
and the government that they form
 Contract is FINAL and the leader
has absolute power!
John Locke
“The Father of the Social Contract”
 Modifies Hobbes’ theory by stating that
people still have rights even under a social
contract & government.
 Life, Liberty, & Property
 We need a government to protect those
rights
 The people can amend (change) the
contract!
 We have changed the Constitution 27 times!
 If the government or leaders aren’t
protecting the people’s rights – the people
can overthrow them and create a new one!
Baron de Montesquieu
 French author who wrote The Spirit of the
Laws
 He describes the perfect government
 His idea of a perfect government has 3
branches…
 Executive
 Legislative
 Judicial
 All of these have Checks & Balances which
allow each to limit or check the power of the
other two.
 Believed Great Britain had the best
government
Voltaire
 French author who wrote satires about the
French government and the leaders of the
church.
 Most famous was Candide
 Believed in personal freedoms
 Freedom of Speech
 Freedom of Religion
 Arrested twice for his views.
 “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
 Wrote The Social Contract
 People are naturally good but their
environment, laws, & education corrupt
them.
 SO, government should be made by the
people, for the people
 Popular Sovereignty
 “We, the People” in the US Constitution
 Did not want a strong centralized
government.
 The only Enlightenment thinker who did not
like the idea of reason or rationalism.
Mary Wollstonecraft
 English author
 1759-1797
 Used Enlightenment thinkers’ ideas of
equality to argue for women’s rights
 Equality for men and women
Long Term Effects
 People fought for their new
ideas in government and
revolution ensued.
 Many enlightenment ideas
can be found in America’s
founding documents!
 Especially the Declaration
of Independence,
 The Bill of Rights
(Amendments 1-10),
 The Constitution
 They still form the basis for
human rights violations