The Many Paths of the Enlightenment

The amazing diversity of the enlightenment makes it slippery to pinpoint the exact date of its creation and the exact nature of what it was. Many historians and philosophers have tried to express a definition that would satisfy the largest audience, yet the diversity of the enlightenment leaves no room for a set of specific beliefs or dates. Influential thinkers in France and England were beginning to challenge the authority of the church and state. Rational thought and the value of reason were rapidly replacing superstition and faith. Science held greater sway and it was through science, not traditional faith that these intellectual thinkers looked for a better understanding of the world and the societies they lived in. It is impossible to pinpoint the date of the “age of reason”, and the enlightenment could best be described as a value system.

The age of enlightenment, with its intellectual movement towards reason and individualism over tradition, has been said to arrive when Immanuel Kant wrote his 1784 essay “Beantwortung der Frage: was ist Aufklarung?” “What is Enlightenment?” (Merritt 2011). Bertrand Russell that the era was born out of the Protestant reaction against the Catholic Church, a manifestation of the schism that began with Martin Luther (Bertrand Russell – Stanford). Some argue the French Revolution was the beginning of enlightenment, or the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars is a convenient starting point. Jonathon Israel argues after 1650, everything was questioned in light of philosophy and reason. Between 1650-1750, Spinoza challenged the fundamentals of religion, tradition and morality. Jonathon Israel says: “The lineage of this Radical Enlightenment (is traced) to Baruch Spinoza, the 17th-century philosopher who serves here as the father of all atheists and “one substance” materialists who rejected the suspiciously spiritualist dualism of mind and body” (Israel, cited in McMahon 2011). Spinoza was a radical critic of Scripture and the Catholic Church. By Israel’s account, Spinoza’s ideas came fully formed and included equality, democracy and a formula of basic human rights (McMahon 2011). So, the age of enlightenment has many dates, most would agree that a statement of the movement occurring during the 17th and 18th century of Europe would not be incorrect.

All of these events demonstrate the diversity of ideas that were occurring between the 17th and 18th centuries. France had a large contingent of philosophers stirring things up. These new intellectuals spread to England, Scotland, Poland, Netherlands, the German States, Spain, and Australia and then jumped the Atlantic to the European Colonies of the New World. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin were influenced by the movement. The enlightenment played a major role in the American Revolution and the United States Bill of Rights.

The Enlightenment's greatest contributors came from all fields of interest. Voltaire’s contribution was primarily literary. He was not interested in music like Rousseau, he was a man of words. Voltaire can be credited with popularizing ideas, which would have been considered covert in the past. Voltaire could be said to have fought against established Christianity, by popularizing philosophy and writing about God, freedom and the immortality of the soul (Wright 2013). The Enlightenment is often thought of as the birth of the scientific movement.

Scientists Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. All were finding their voices during this period. Much of the rise in the public’s interest in science was due to the rise in literacy rates in Europe, and the availability of print. The most famous vehicle for the propagation of these ideas was the great collective brainchild of the “Encyclopedie”, edited by Jean le Rond d’ Alembert and Denis Diderot between 1751 and 1772. Jean le Rond d’ Alembert was a French mathematician, philosopher and physicist. The idea behind the “Encyclopedie” was to make information available, like an early Internet, to change the way people think by providing a source of the world’s information. Many of the noted figures of the French Enlightenment provided contributions to the “Encyclopedie”, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Montesquieu. Louis de Jaucourt was the largest contributor (MIT libraries exhibit). The publication was a place where ideas could be shared and saved.

The diversity of the enlightenment gives the large picture of a growing value system of autonomous thought. The encouragement of free thinkers, the increase in public literacy, and the questioning of traditional religious and political ideas all led to new ideas in science, philosophy and the arts. Influential thinkers in France and England were beginning to challenge the authority of the church and state. Rational thought and the value of reason were rapidly replacing superstition and faith. It is impossible to pinpoint the date of the “age of reason”, and the enlightenment could best be described as a value system, with far reaching consequences right up to our current history today.

Works Cited

"Bertrand Russell (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell/.

"MIT Libraries Exhibit." Introduction to the Encylopedie. MIT, n.d. http:/http://libraries.mit.edu/exhibits/maihaugen/diderots-encyclopedie/introduction/.

Merritt, Melissa. "Kant on Enlightened Moral Pedagogy." Southern Journal of Philosophy 49.3 (2011): 227-253. Ebsco Host.

Wright, Johnson Kent. "Voltaire Candide." Candide, Voltaire, and the Enlightenment. Yale Press, n.d. yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/excerpts/voltaire_candide.pdf.