Enlightenment Notes

Enlightenment

A cultural and intellectual movement in the 18th century emphasizing the use of logic and reason to solve problems of mankind.

Natural Law

Laws that govern human nature and rights you automatically have as being a person and alive

Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes

2 Treatises on Government

John Locke

The Social Contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Candide

Voltaire

The Spirit of Laws

Montesquieu

The Wealth of the Nations

Adam Smith

The Encyclopedia

Diderot

An Essay on Crimes and Punishment

Beccaria

A Vindication of the Rights of the Women

Mary Wollstonecraft

Enlightened Absolutism

The idea of an absolute monarch ruling with enlightened ideas or social and political reform while maintaining their absolute power.

Enlightenment Monarch’s

Catherine, Fredrick, and Joseph

Deism

The belief in a Creator God who made the universe but doesn’t interfere with the way the things happen

Natural rights

They are the pre-political, inalienable claims (such as life, liberty, and property) that every person possesses simply by being human, which governments do not create and cannot justly take away.

laissez faire

Means let it be and doesn't let the government interfere with the markets and businesses.

Scientific Method

A systematic process that is used to answer questions and look into observations

Nicolaus Copernicus

contributed to the heliocentric model placing the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the solar system

separation of powers

a constitutional design that divides state government responsibilities into distinct branches to prevent any single group from holding too much power

Divine Right

The belief that a monarch gets its power from God rather than the people

Philosophes

People who led the enlightenment in the 18th century

Locke

Locke- Claimed people were greedy, selfish and rude. Believe absolute rule was best and that people should enter a social contract with their government.

Hobbes

Argues against absolute rule and believed people were good and people should have the right to overthrow their government if it fails to protect their natural rights. Believed in a representative government

How does John Locke view human nature?

He thought they were reasonable and rational.

How does the US constitution represent enlightenment?

It is a social contract.

What does the scientific revolution and the enlightenment both don't have?

Divine rights

What did Voltaire advocate?

religious tolerance

What did Louis XIV do?

 He moved all the nobles into a house.

Louis XIV

King Louis XIV of France, known as theSun King, contributed major political, cultural, and economic structures that defined European absolutism

Henery XIII

Known for his 6 wives. He made himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, separating the nation from papal authority.

Peter the Great

known for Westernizing and modernizing Russia and transforming it into a major European empire. 

Catherine the Great

Transformed Russia into a major European power. Read the works of French philosophers like Voltaire and Denis Diderot and wrote letters to them.

Absolutism

a political system or philosophical stance wherea single ruler, authority, or principle holds complete, unlimited power and is not subject to regularized checks or balances.

General Will

the collective will of a political community aimed at the common good and public interest.

Reformation/Protestantism

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century religious and intellectual movement that challenged the Roman Catholic Church and created Protestantism, one of the major branches of Christianity.

Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was a period of drastic change in European thought between the 16th and 17th centuries that marked the emergence of modern science.

Social Contract

an implicit or explicit agreement among the members of a society—or between the people and their rulers—that defines their mutual rights, duties, and responsibilities

Religious Tolerance

the willingness to accept, respect, and permit the religious beliefs and practices of others, even when you disagree with them.

Freedom of Speech

a core principle protecting the right of individuals and communities to share opinions and ideas without government censorship or legal punishment

What did European rulers try to do during the Age of Absolutism?

During the Age of Absolutism, European rulers attempted to centralize all political power under their direct personal control and eliminate competing centers of authority.

How did the Divine Right Theory justify absolute monarchy?

The divine right of kings theory justified absolute monarchy by claiming that a monarch's authority came directly from God rather than from the people, parliaments, or earthly institutions like the church.

how did the reformation contribute to the rise of absolutism?

weakening the independent power of the Catholic Church and creating a demand for strong, centralized royal authority to restore order after decades of religious warfare

how did absolute monarchs use their power to make positive changes in their countries

bring order, economic growth, and modernization to their nations, often transitioning into "enlightened absolutism" to reform infrastructure, law, and education.

Why was the Scientific Revolution important?

it replaced ancient and religious assumptions about the universe with a new method of learning based on observation, testing, and mathematical proof

Geocentric models

places the stationary Earth at the center of the universe.

why did the catholic church oppose some ideas of the scientific revolution

new empirical claims—most notably heliocentrism—appeared to contradict literal interpretations of specific biblical passages and challenged the institutional authority of the Church

Scientific Revolution to Enlightenment

shifting human thought from tradition and religious authority to reason, observation, and natural law.