The enlightenment
Enlightenment thinkers applied new methods of reasoning to politics, and human institutions
Rejected the humoral theory and claimed that chemical imbalances caused disease, meaning chemical remedies could be used to cure people.
Consumer Revolution
Francis Bacon
Nicolaus Copernicus
Challenged the geocentric model of the universe through mathematics and put forward the heliocentric model, where everything orbits the sun.
Reading 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
Galen
Scientific method
Built a telescope and observed that other planets and moons, existed, and weren’t just balls of light
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
William Harvey
Further overturned Galen’s theory by proving how the circulatory system works
Social Contract
A voluntary agreement among individuals to secure their rights and welfare by creating a government and abiding by its rules.
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.
There is no morality in the state of nature. You need government to order the chaos of nature
Contagious Diseases Act
This allowed police officers to arrest any woman they suspected to be a prostitute. They were then permitted to give that woman an examination to prevent the spread of STDs. This is state-sponsered sexual assault.
Urbanization
Thanks to new technologies, fewer people were required for farming, leading many to move to the cities.
Deism
Voltaire argued that there was a god, but god didn’t intervene in human affairs.
Charter of towns 1792
Mary Wollstonecraft
English writer and early feminist who denied male supremacy and advocated equal education for women
Denis Diderot
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.
Grew with the increased demand for leisure during the consumer revolution and helped spread enlightenment ideas
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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
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.
Philosophes
French thinkers
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Attacked mercantilist economics. Promoted laissez-faire, free-market economy, and supply-and-demand economics.
Voltaire
Diderot defined it as someone who knows about god, but actively rejects his existence
Salon
private drawing rooms where wealthy Parisian women would have intellectual discussions with aristocrats
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
