1. 18th Century Intellectual Movement
The Enlightenment
18th Century Intellectual Movement

2. Intellectual Movement
During the 18th century, certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them.
Voltaire
Rousseau
Locke
Diderot

3. Enlightenment Thinkers
These thinkers believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world.

4. Enlightenment Targets
Their principal targets were religion (the Catholic Church in France) and harsh autocratic leaders.

5. Old traditions in Europe that are questioned during the Enlightenment:
Monarchy (despotism)
Not questioning your king
Divine Right
Slavery
Religion as the authority on “right and wrong”

6. Repression of the Monarchs and Church
The 17th century was torn by witch-hunts, wars of religion, and imperial conquest.

7. Control of the Government through Censorship
All publications, whether pamphlets or scholarly volumes, were subject to prior censorship by both church and state.

8. Slavery
Slavery was widely practiced, especially in the colonial plantations of the Western Hemisphere, and its cruelties frequently defended by leading religious figures.

9. Despotism/Autocracies
Belief of Divine Right led to people fearful of questioning the kings

10. Changes in Europe that opened people’s minds:
Economic Changes
(peasants started moving into the towns)
Plus new wealth was coming in from the colonies
Political Changes
(people started to believe that they had potential to change the government)

11. New Core Values Old Values New Values Community Authority Tradition
Individualism
Freedom