The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment The eighteenth century’s most exciting intellectual movement is called the Enlightenment. It’s powerful dedication to reason and rational thought that until quite recently the era was sometimes characterized as the Age of Reason. The turn toward what became known by 1750 as the Enlightenment began in the late seventeenth century. Three factors were critically important in this new intellectual ferment. One, was a revulsion against monarchical and clerical absolutism and new freedom …

…with leisure to read, the philosophes opposed the old scholastic learning of the universities, mocked the clergy, and denied the Christian mysteries. They expressed confidence in science and reason, called for humanitarian treatment of slaves and criminals, and played a cat-and-mouse game with censors. Dedicated to freedom of thought and person, the combined these liberal values with secular orientation and a brief in future progress. The philosophes helped shaped, if not define, the modern outlook.