"The pervasive appeal, as expressed by Voltaire, was to the(It seems to me that if we summarize this as Science and Classical Liberalism we won't be too far off . . .)
1. autonomy of reason
2. perfectibility and progress
3. confidence in the ability to discover causality
4. principles governing nature, man and society
5. assault on authority
6. cosmopolitan solidarity of enlightened intellectuals
7. disgust with nationalism."
"The most important idea of the Enlightenment was faith in the power of human reason. ... Many dismissed the idea of finding truth through authoritative sources as Aristotle and the Bible. Many enlightened writers attacked the church for suppressing free thought and exercise of reason."
"On the surface, the most apparent cause of the Enlightenment was the Thirty Years’ War. This horribly destructive war, which lasted from 1618 to 1648, compelled German writers to pen harsh criticisms regarding the ideas of nationalism and warfare. ...
Ultimately, the Enlightenment fell victim to competing ideas from several sources. Romanticism was more appealing to less-educated common folk and pulled them away from the empirical, scientific ideas of earlier Enlightenment philosophers. ... What ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment, however, was the French Revolution."
"4) through philosophical and scientific progress, reason can lead humanity as a whole to a state of earthly perfection"
"... the universe is regarded as a machine. It functions by natural and predictable rules; although God created the universe, he does not interfere in its day to day runnings. Once the world is understood as a machine, then it can be manipulated and engineered for the benefit of humanity in the same way as machines are."
"It was an age where people were enlightened because (as Edmund Burke points out again) they opposed all forms of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition, as these were established in social institutions, especially Christianity....The Enlightenment stressed the value of using reason to improve the quality of life. Therefore, science was most respected if it generated a practical application. "
"These (Enlightenment) writers prized clarity and wit, and Voltaire's writing abounds in both. However, these qualities are somewhat dimmed for many contemporary readers who don't have the background to appreciate his jokes or grasp his points without assistance. These notes try to provide some assistance in this regard, and draw the reader's attention to the most important issues."
"The ideas and energy fueling this influential era was chiefly carried over from the previous century with the popularization and understanding of the ideas of such great philosophers and scientists as Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, John Locke, and Isaac Newton. That group of thinkers had brought with them the ideas of natural law, the laws fundamental to the state before human society which all following advances were loosely based upon, and natural rights, privileges in natural law which all men were entitled to by the very fact that they were human."
"The patron saints of the Enlightenment were three Englishmen: Bacon, Locke , and Newton.
..."The three greatest men that ever lived, without any exception." -- Thomas Jefferson."
page 41
"The Philosophes
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Buffon, Condillac, Turgot, Condorcet, d'Alembert, Morellet, d'Holbach, Helvetius, Grimm, and Raynal."
page 48
"Who Are the "Great Men" of History?
D'Alembert gives a short account of the greatest of the great: Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and Locke. But he offers also a shortlist of the leading scientists and philosophers, including Galileo, Hervey, Huygens, Pascal, Fontenelle, Buffon, Condillac, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau."
page 63
-- and women --
"The advent of the Enlightenment had suddenly changed the rules of Western society from one where brute force constituted power to one where intelligence and reason were the admired and powerful traits. Since women had no trouble competing in this new field, for the better portion of the 18th Century women discretely ruled society and made advances in it, becoming authors, artists, doctors and business women."
(I think this is rather overstated.)
"The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres was published under the direction of Diderot, with 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates between 1751 and 1772. Contributors included the most prominent philosophes: Voltaire, Rousseau, d’Alembert, Marmontel, d’Holbach and Turgot, to name only a few. These great minds (and some lesser ones) collaborated in the goal of assembling and disseminating in clear, accessible prose the fruits of accumulated knowledge and learning. ... Through its attempt to classify learning and to open all domains of human activity to its readers, the Encyclopédie gave expression to many of the most important intellectual and social developments of its time."
"The basic ideas of the Enlightenment are roughly the same as the basic ideas of humanism. Jane Flax's article gives a good summary of these ideas or premises (on p. 41). I'll add a few things to her list...."
"Postmodernism, say the authors, is the deliberate negation of the Enlightenment project, which they hold to be the construction of a sound body of knowledge about the world. The academic left generally believes that the reality of the Enlightenment has been the construction of a thought-world designed to oppress women and people of color in the interests of white patriarchal capitalism. Or possibly capitalist patriarchy. Anyhow, fashion has it that the Enlightenment was a bad idea. Now that modernity is about to end, say the postmodernists, the idea is being refuted on every hand. Actually, it seems to many people of various ideological persuasions that the end of modernity is indeed probably not too far off: no era lasts forever, after all. However, it is also reasonably clear that postmodernism is not on the far side of the modern era. Postmodernism is simply late modernity. Whatever follows modernity is very unlikely to have much to do with the sentiments of today's academic left. ...
It would be folly to dismiss so great a pulse of human history as the Enlightenment with a single characterization, either for good or ill. Everything good and everything bad that we know about either appeared in that wave or was transformed by it. Its force is not yet wholly spent. However, one important thing about the Enlightenment is that it has always been a movement of critique. It is an opposition to the powers that be, whether the crown, or the ancient intellectual authorities, or God. The authors of Higher Superstition tell us that the academic Left hopes to overthrow the Enlightenment, while the authors cast themselves as the Enlightenment's defenders. The authors are correct in seeing the academic left as silly people, who do not know what they are about. The authors are mistaken too, however. The fact is that the academic left are as truly the children of the Enlightenment as ever the scientists are. Science was once an indispensable ally in the leveling of ancient hierarchies of thought and society, but today it presents itself to postmodern academics simply as the only target left standing. Is it any wonder that these heirs of the Enlightenment should hope to bring down the last Bastille?"
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"This is one of those rare historical movements which in fact named itself. Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them.
They believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world. Their principal targets were religion (embodied in France in the Catholic Church) and the domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy."