1. The Enlightenment

2. Years of the period of Enlightenment? 1660- 1770 Age of Reason. The Neo-Classical Period. Emphasis on the power of the mind. Turn to Roman past for models. No longer assumed God’s supervision of human affairs.

3. The Enlightenment Believed that Reason could improve society. Believed in tolerance for all religions. Using reason to discover laws of nature. If people used reason to find laws that governed the physical world, why not use reason to discover natural laws? Laws that govern human nature. Saw the universe as ordered

4. The Enlightenment Rene Descartes on to the philosophy of being: The mind is the source of individual being. One’s identity resides in one’s mind. What you think is more important than the outside physical world. Doubt everything. Basis of the scientific method. Truth can be derived at through empirical observation, the use of reason, and systematic doubt.

5. The Enlightenment Leibniz: Mind is isolated. No real communication can take place between one consciousness and another. “You don’t know the real me.” Possibility of the existence, beyond ourselves, of an entirely rational physical and moral universe.

6. The Enlightenment Isaac Newton’s order of natural law. The universe can be explained completely through the use of mathematics. The universe operates in a completely rational and predictable way. One need not appeal to religion or theology to explain any aspect of the physical phenomena of the universe. Universe like a massive clock built by a god and set into motion.

7. Deism Universe created by a rational being, and left it alone. One and only one God exists. God endowed the universe with natural moral and physical laws. Men endowed with rational nature. Although God created the universe, he does not interfere in its day to day running.

8. Essay on man Humanity in relation to the rest of the universe. Humanity is poised at the middle of the Great Chain of Being that extends from God to the minute forms of life. "Whatever is, is right“ The nature of God is not fully comprehensible to human reason.

9. Essay on man It is necessary that humans are limited in their reason and judgment. "Our ignorance of future events and our hope for eternal life give us the possibility of happiness.“ God, being infinite is wisdom, must have created the best system possible for man to exist in.

10. Essay on man Justification of the existing social, religious, and political order.