The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment movement had the reason to believe in, the philosophy of the movement believes that reasoning is the best way to fight the tyranny of the kings, the oppression of the Catholic Church and the ignorance, but also the Enlightenment believed in building a better world.
The history of the world argued that the Enlightenment movement had its role at the end of 17th century through the 18th century, but if we read the history about René Descartes, he was the philosopher that tried to knowledge his own existence, and he said in the 17th century that “I think, therefore I am”. If we analyze this thought, then we can see that Descartes tried to use his reasoning to analyze who we are, and where we came, and he tried to use his reasoning to know about his own existence.
By the way, the Enlightenment grew up in the period of society focusing on fanaticism and a strong belief in God. Then, the dogma of religion obstructed the logic of thought. This was the reason that the Enlightenment thinker tried to use reasoning, because reasoning is the powerful way to use common sense. For example, in class we read Candide by Voltaire, in his book, he critiques 18th century society because Candide tried to use his reasoning to understand the world and he also makes fun of the cause it effects on human behavior. He is compared to the rich and the poor, trying to look for many answers about the misery of the world, that is the reason that he has opened many questions to society but he never tell us his answer, also, we can find in Candide’s different philosophy that there are pessimist and optimist. In his book Voltaire uses satire and parody to be critical about the European monarchy because Voltaire believed in the constitutional monarchy, and its shared powers.
The Enlightenment is the movement of reason, and everything could be rebated because no one has the truth in their hands. Most of the Enlightenment thinkers have their principal target in their own religious beliefs. The idea was that they do not believe in any kind of religion because they know that it is man made.
February 12, 2007 at 1:20 am
Good summary of the Englightenment. I especially like your sentence “reasoning is the powerful way to use common sense.” I think that sums it up quite well.
February 14, 2007 at 3:34 am
I liked how you said it….religion is man made (and don’t forget woman made but we traditionally think of men). Only the human race could have screwed up beautiful teachings and causes/principles with a laundry list of do not do this, do this every week, or do this once a month, etc……The Enlightenment thinkers were so correct in their insistence to move away from dogmatic teachings and blind faith.