Using general principles to determine specific consitions
Saw that the population was rising faster than the food supply, thought Europe was heading towards starvation
Nicolaus Copernicus
Consumer Revolution
Middle and upper classes had more income, rise in demand for goods increased. People began wanting larger homes and more privacy and new venues for leisure
Galileo Galilei
Built a telescope and observed that other planets and moons, existed, and weren’t just balls of light
Catherine the great extended civl liberties to Russian Jews
Despite him being a devote catholic, the pope ruled him a heretic and placed him under house arrest. But his books were published after his death
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Attacked mercantilist economics. Promoted laissez-faire, free-market economy, and supply-and-demand economics.
Thomas Hobbes
Coffee Houses
Grew with the increased demand for leisure during the consumer revolution and helped spread enlightenment ideas
Humoral theory of the body
The body is made up of 4 substances: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and flem? Imbalance of these 4 lead to disease. This is where blood letting came from
Developed inductive reasoning
Natural rights
Enlightened Absolutism
a system in which rulers tried to govern by Enlightenment principles while maintaining their full royal powers. Rulers only acted enlightened when it benefitted them.
Tenaments
a cheap apartment building often crammed with people created in response to the influx of people moving into cities
Geocentric model of the universe
Every body in the galaxy circled around the earth, including the sun. This was the Catholic Churches view and presumed model of the universe in midevil europe
Population increases in the 1700s
Rising birth rates, improving medical technology, vaccines, and bubonic plague went away
Voltaire
Most famous French philosopher. Produced many works that criticized social and religious institutions of France. Supported religious tolerance, natural rights, but didn’t believe in democracy, only enlightened absolutism
The enlightenment
Enlightenment thinkers applied new methods of reasoning to politics, and human institutions
Voltaire argued that there was a god, but god didn’t intervene in human affairs.
Denis Diderot
Collaborated with other enlightened thinkers to edit and publish an encyclopedia that contained a rational explanation for everything.
Philosophes
French thinkers
Neoclassicism
Enlightened absolutists monarchs
Frederick the great of Prussia: tried to help the people. Increased freedoms of press and speech to weaken the nobility and strengthen his power.
Argued that women and men were equal, and anything women seemed inferior at, it was only because they had been denied education and opportunities by men
During the scientific Revolution, the scientific method was invented, which emphasizes observations and experimentation
A voluntary agreement among individuals to secure their rights and welfare by creating a government and abiding by its rules.
Urbanization
Thanks to new technologies, fewer people were required for farming, leading many to move to the cities.
Enlightenment views of religion
Overall, religion was increasingly viewed as a matter of private, rather than public concern. Structures of society grew increasingly secular.
Mary Wollstonecraft
