THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN

EUROPE
6.2: EQ – How did differing views on society affect the development of
democracy and civilization in Europe and the world?
 Understanding the Title
 Definition: Enlightenment
 To be enlightened:
 Having or showing a rational, modern,
and well-informed outlook
 Period in Europe (~1700)
 Intellectual movement
 Stressed reason, thought, power of
individuals to solve problems
 “Age of Reason”
 Connection to Scientific Revolution
 Reformation
 Challenge to religious world
 Scientific Revolution
 Challenge to the physical world
 Before: Greeks/ Romans, or God/Church =
authority
 After: Logic (scientific method) = authority
 New theories, new inventions
 Impact:
 New ways of thinking
 Reevaluate old notions about other aspects of society
 government, religion, economics, and education
 2 Views on Government (~1600)
Hobbes (Pessimist) Locke (Optimist)
People = good
Leviathan (1651)

  Reasonable beings
 Horrorsof English Civil  Naturally able to govern and look after society

War → ↓ views on people  Natural rights

 “Inalienable”
 Humans = wicked,  Born free and equal

government = order  Life, Liberty, and…

 Property
 Social contract  Agreement of government
 Government has rights,  Gov’t represents people (people consent)

people do not 


If not, overthrow it
→ modern democracies, revolutions
 Philosophes Advocate Reason
 Philosophe
 Beccaria
 Social critic  Laws = social order, not Avengers
 Popular philosophes  Wollstonecraft
 Voltaire  Women = men, education →
 Fight against intolerance → exile useful, women → men’s fields
 Montesquieu  5 beliefs
 Separation of powers (→checks
and balances)  Reason, nature, happiness,
 Rousseau progress, liberty
 People should be free,
government should not limit them
 Legacy of Enlightenment
 Impacts  Before: mysteries of universe = God’s
doing
 → revolutions
 After: math can solve it
 → western democracy
 people can solve it
 Belief in progress
 Individualism
 end of slavery
 Pre-Renaissance: God/church matters
 greater social equality
 Post-Reformation: Monarchs matter
 democratic style of government
 Enlightenment: people matter
 Secular outlook
 Definition: secular
 Non-religious