the enlightenment - week 7

Views of History: we are always on the number lie of Continuum, on one-side objective fact, and another side-agenda

Objective fact v. agenda: Not reading what happened in the past, but what the author wants you to know.

Objective facts can be situational, example: john shot abraham lincoln.

Agenda, the “fuzzy” details (ex; why did john wilked booth shoot abe lincoln?)

  • You are able to recognize in a lot of cases we read something in someone else’s filter

  • When you are reading, you aren’t reading what happened in the past, you are reading what the author wants you to believe

  • You are ALWAYS reading someone’s agenda. they are telling you what they want you to know, and not what you need to know

Great Men (leaders) v. Vommon Folk (perspectives in life)

  • We tell our story through talking about leadera, great men, dukes, kings, presidents, or do we talk about it through commmon folk

  • Our experience today, next week, or 4 years from now is gonna make more of a difference from the experience of someone higher than us, like the president or Jeff Bezos

Sources

  • primary sources: comes from a direct person in the story

  • secondary sources: comes from someones who did not experience it first-hand or participated in the event or condition you’re reading about (highschoolers live and breathe by secondary sources)

The great men of enlightment

  • Rene Descartes: died in 1650-

  • Frenchman, mathematician, philosopher, writer

  • What makes him very influential and famous is that he was one of the first people to write about existence, being.

  • He makes a statement in latin “cogito, ergo sum” which means “I think, therefore I am” We can use our rational minds to understand things- self aware.

  • Isaac Newton: died in 1724- englishman, scientist

  • Takes descarte ideas, expands them, and takes them into the physical world.

  • Invents calculus.

  • Thomas Hobbes: died in 1679- british, englishman, mathematician

  • He takes the understandings of newton and descartes and applies them to human interaction.

  • Hobbes says, human interaction can be understood, it is rational, we can talk about human interaction in the same way we talk about the scientific world.

  • John Locke: died in 1704- englishman, really smart

  • Reads all the other men’s ideas, this law is different from Hobbes.

  • He states natural laws.

  • Natural law #1: only legitimate form of government is a government that has the concent of the governed.

  • Natural law #2: everyone has the right to life, liberty, and property.

  • Francois-Marie Arouet- Voltarie: died in 1778-

  • He takes his last name from a pen name, voltarie was his staged name.

  • He takes these ideas and makes them understandable and digestable, writes 2,000 books and pamphlets.

  • People become interested and wanted to learn more.