Scientific method
Neoclassicism
Thomas Hobbes
There is no morality in the state of nature. You need government to order the chaos of nature
Deductive reasoning
Using general principles to determine specific consitions
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Affirmed Copernicus’ findings and through complex math of his own, found that plants orbit in ellipses, not perfect circles
Francis Bacon
Developed inductive reasoning
Diderot defined it as someone who knows about god, but actively rejects his existence
Denis Diderot
Collaborated with other enlightened thinkers to edit and publish an encyclopedia that contained a rational explanation for everything.
A French man who believed that Human beings are naturally good & free & can rely on their instincts. Government should exist to protect common good, and be a democracy. Similar ideas to John Locke. Idea of the social contract
Natural rights
The idea that human beings, just by virtue of being human, possess rights like life liberty and property
Nicolaus Copernicus
Challenged the geocentric model of the universe through mathematics and put forward the heliocentric model, where everything orbits the sun.
Catherine the great extended civl liberties to Russian Jews
Copernicus and keplers books ended up on the index of prohibited books
These new ideas from Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo are challenging established beliefs of the Catholic Church during the catholic counter reformation. The geocentric model fit nicely with scripture so the church stuck with it.
Deism
Voltaire argued that there was a god, but god didn’t intervene in human affairs.
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.
Social Contract
Coffee Houses
Grew with the increased demand for leisure during the consumer revolution and helped spread enlightenment ideas
Paracelsus
Rejected the humoral theory and claimed that chemical imbalances caused disease, meaning chemical remedies could be used to cure people.
Consumer Revolution
The transition in Europe from a society where literacy consisted of patriarchal and communal reading of religious texts to a society where literacy was commonplace and reading material was broad and diverse. Books also became less religious. So religious censorship increased
Enlightenment thinkers applied new methods of reasoning to politics, and human institutions
Galen
Ancient Greek doctor who advanced the humoral theory of the body
Tenaments
a cheap apartment building often crammed with people created in response to the influx of people moving into cities
A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
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
Mary Wollstonecraft
Philosophes
French thinkers
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
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
Urbanization
Thanks to new technologies, fewer people were required for farming, leading many to move to the cities.
