Age of Enlightenment How did Enlightenment thinkers influence society around them? What were the major ideas of the Enlightenment?

Age of Enlightenment

How did Enlightenment thinkers influence society around them?

What were the major ideas of the Enlightenment?

Enlightenment

• Age of rational thinking to solve human problems.

• Followed up on the Scientific Revolution.

• Led by Philosophes – intellectual thinkers of Enlightenment

• Social commentators

Enlightenment Philosophes

Modern-Day Philosophes?

Philosophes

• Social Commentators of The Enlightenment

• Intellectual leaders who led the movement

• Influenced many societies and governments throughout Europe

• Many Philosophes had a direct influence on the American style of government

John Locke

• Belief that everyone was born a blank slate – tabula rasa

• People are formed by their beliefs and experiences

• Belief in natural rights of man – life, liberty, property

Baron de Montesquieu

• Belief in 2 major concepts for government

• Separation of Powers

• Checks and Balances

Jean Jacques Rousseau

• Belief in the social contract and popular sovereignty

• Rule should be based on good of the people

• Favored an enlightened despot as a leader

Voltaire

• Satirical writer of the Enlightenment

• Criticized organized religion

• Exposed evils of society through comedic social commentary

Diderot

• Editor of 1st Encyclopedias

Adam Smith

• Enlightenment Economist• Wrote Wealth of

Nations, 1776• Believed in invisible hand

of free enterprise• Laissez-faire economics

– people should do what they want to do

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Pushed for women’s rights

• Believed women have same rights as men

Spread of Enlightenment Ideals

• Explosion of printed works – magazines, books, journals, newspaper articles

• Salons – entertaining rooms for the wealthy where enlightenment ideals were discussed and debated