1. The Age of Reason or The Age of Rationalism
The Enlightenment 1700s
The Age of Reason or The Age of Rationalism

2. 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

3. 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
Salons – Gathering place for enlightenment women
Revolutions
American Revolution 1776
French Revolution 1789

4. Enlightenment Thinkers
Philosophes
Critics of society and government
The church
Government
Published their beliefs in books, pamphlets, and plays.

5. 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!

6. 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!

7. 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

8. 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.”

9. 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.

10. Mary Wollstonecraft English author 1759-1797
Used Enlightenment thinkers’ ideas of equality to argue for women’s rights
Equality for men and women

11. 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