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Enlightenment is the term given to a historical era in the eighteenth century, roughly, that falls between the Scientific Revolution and the American and French Revolutions. As befits an epoch that followed the Scientific Revolution, the chief hallmark of the Enlightenment was a faith in reason and rationality -- the basic notion was that the scientific progress achieved by Sir Isaac Newton meant that the human mind might be capable of understanding all things in the same way. Accordingly, Babcock notes that another commonly used term for the Enlightenment is "the Age of Reason" (Babcock 221).
Because America was founded during the Enlightenment, there are plenty of traces of Enlightenment modes of thinking available in America today, built into the American system from its inception. Babcock notes (for example) that the rationalistic "Neoclassical" style of art popular during the Enlightenment...
If Monticello is an example of Enlightenment fashion in design, so is the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution's notorious refusal to mention God within its text, combined with its explicit prohibition of religious tests for holding public office, demonstrates the extent to which the wholly secular values of the Enlightenment were internalized by America's founders. As Babcock notes, "the eighteenth-century philosophers…believed that man is…capable of social perfection" (Babcock 223). Perhaps the most famous eighteenth-century example of this we can point to is America's founding document, which announces in its opening sentence the intention to "form a more perfect" social institution. Babcock also notes that the "all-seeing eye of reason" which is depicted on the Great Seal of the United States and…
References
Babcock, MA. (2011). The story of Western culture. Lynchburg: HPS Publishing.
Hence De Gouges' of the notion of bastards, even to express the relationship of male to female in the once supposedly sacred institution of wedlock. In the social contract proposed by De Gouges, human relationships between males and females become 'in kind' or communal. "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits
.. The pre-Aryan inhabitants of the Italian soil, whose complexion formed the clearest feature of distinction from the dominant blondes, namely, the Aryan conquering race:... good, noble, clean, but originally the blonde-haired man in contrast to the dark black-haired aboriginals" ("Nietzsche on Race and Sex." WVC Philosophy Home Page, 2004). Superiority and the idea that some laws apply to only some people were taken to the extreme in the mind
Enlightenment In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a scientific revolution occurred which gave humankind a much better understanding of the universe and its functioning than ever before. One of those scientists was Isaac Newton, who, in addition to his work with gravitational laws, also developed principles of light and refraction. From this revolution in science came an intellectual and cultural movement who's name came from a metaphor based in
Enlightenment and Scientific Method Robert Hollinger, in his essay "What is the Enlightenment?," notes the centrality of science to the "Enlightenment project," as he defines it, offering as one of the four basic tenets that constitute the "basic ideas of the Enlightenment" the view that "only a society based on science and universal values is truly free and rational: only its inhabitants can be happy." (Smith 1998, p. 71). As Smith
17th century and our contemporary world began with an early, optimistic outlook of hope and promise of a better future, exemplified by movements like the Enlightenment, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, culminating in the Information Age, environmental awareness and globalisation. It is during this period that a paradigm shift from faith (religion) to reason as the principal source of legitimacy and authority occurred (Badger). The shift occurred against the backdrop
Constitutional RightsIntroductionThe Constitution of the United States is an enduring document that has been the subject of much analysis and interpretation. The document establishes the framework for the federal government and guarantees certain rights and privileges to citizens. These protections have been interpreted in a variety of ways over the years, and there is still much debate about their meaning and application. One way to analyze the Constitution is through