The Age of enlightenment

What is enlightenment?

• Let's define a lack of enlightenment:
• Inability to think for yourself due to a lack of courage
• Let's define enlightenment:
• A process by which man is educated in the use of reason

Historical details

• Mid-1600s to about 1800
• Started in France, but also happened across Europe
• Born out of Protestant reaction to Catholic Counter-Reformation
• Many philosophies to justify breaking away from the Catholic Church
• Increase in empiricism/scientific thinking, tolerance, anti-abuse of power

Cogito Ergo Sum

From Discours de la Methode: "Seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning...I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts...which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects...that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams.

But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I THINK, THEREFORE I AM, was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the skeptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search."

Rene Descartes

• French mathematician and philosopher
• "Father of Modern Philosophy"
• "Father of Analytical Geometry" (bridge connecting algebra and geometry)
• Refused authority of earlier philosophers, and did not trust his own senses
• "I think, therefore I am" published in Discours de Methode in 1637

Voltaire

• Born Francoise-Marie Arouet
• Prolific writer and philosopher famous for his wit
• Advocated for freedoms of religion and expression
• Numerous imprisonments and exiles for his published opinions
• Wrote histories, poems, plays, pamphlets, and letters

pierre bayle

• Wrote Dicionnaire Historique et Critique, one of the first encyclopedias
• Believed that gullability and stubborness were common
• And that much believed as "truth" is really opinion
• Because of limitations of human reason, we must listen to our conscience
• Promoted religious tolerance

Encyclopedie

• Edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert
• First encyclopedia to include articles written by different individuals
• First encyclopedia to include information on subjects of mechanical arts
• Had 28 volumes, 71,818 articles, and 3,129 illustrations
• Organized into categories of human thought (memory/reason/imagination