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The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment

  • The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was an 18th-century intellectual and cultural movement that favored reason over superstition and science over superstition.

  • Using the power of the press, Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Voltaire challenged accepted knowledge and brought new ideas about openness, inquiry, and religious tolerance to Europe and America. I spread it.

  • The Age of Enlightenment is considered by many to be a major turning point in Western civilization, the Age of Light that replaced the Age of Darkness.

  • Several ideas dominated Enlightenment thought: rationalism, empiricism, progressivism, and cosmopolitanism.

  • Rationalism is the idea that people can acquire knowledge using their reasoning abilities.

  • This was a sharp departure from the popular belief that people must rely on the Bible and church authorities for knowledge.

  • Empiricism promotes the idea that knowledge comes from experience and observation of the world. Progressivism is the belief that humans are capable of infinite linear progress over time through reason and observation.

  • This belief was especially important in response to the carnage and chaos of the seventeenth-century English Civil War.

  • Finally, cosmopolitanism reflected the self-image of Enlightenment thinkers as actively engaged citizens of the world, as opposed to provincial and parochial individuals.

  • I tried to be governed by reason rather than by reason.

Ben Franklin

  • The Freemasons were members of a fraternal society that advocated Enlightenment principles of inquiry and tolerance.

  • One prominent Freemason, Benjamin Franklin, stands as the embodiment of the Enlightenment in British America.

  • In 1732 he started his annual publication Poor Richard: An Almanack, in which he gave readers much practical advice, such as “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. ”

  • Franklin subscribed to deism, an Enlightenment-era belief in a God who created but has no continuing involvement in the world and the events within it.

  • In 1743, he founded the American Philosophical Society to encourage the spirit of inquiry. His most famous work, on electricity, exemplified Enlightenment principles.

  • Franklin observed that lightning strikes tended to hit metal objects and reasoned that he could therefore direct lightning through the placement of metal objects during an electrical storm.

  • He used this knowledge to advocate the use of lightning rods: metal poles connected to wires directing lightning`s electrical charge into the ground, thus saving wooden homes in cities like Philadelphia from catastrophic fires.

  • He published his findings in 1751 in Experiments and Observations on Electricity. .

The founding of Georgia

  • The reach of Enlightenment thought was broad and profound. In the 1730s, this even led to the establishment of new colonies.

  • After witnessing the dire conditions in debtors' prisons and the consequences of the release of poor debtors on the streets of London, MP and social reform advocate James Oglethorpe proposed a charter to found a new colony.

  • petitioned George II. George II, seeing the strategic advantage of the English colony being a buffer zone between South Carolina and Spanish Florida, decided to buy Oglethorpe and his 20 like-minded owners

  • in 1732. granted a charter to Oglethorpe, and directed the settlement of a colony named Georgia in honor of the king. In 1733 he arrived on the Anne with 113 immigrants.

  • Over the next decade, Congress funded the migration of his 2,500 settlers, making Georgia the only government-funded colonial project.

  • Oglethorpe's vision of Georgia followed the ideals of the Age of Reason.

  • He saw Georgia as a place where England's "worthy poor" would make a fresh start. To encourage industry, he gave each male immigrant 50 acres of land, tools, and supplies for one year. In Savannah, the Oglethorpe Project envisioned a utopia." An agri-food model that upholds egalitarian values that keep all people equal"

  • .Oglethorpe's vision called for a ban on alcohol and slavery.

  • However, settlers from other colonies, especially South Carolina, ignored these prohibitions. Despite early visions of the content owners, guided by the ideals of the Enlightenment and freed from slavery

  • by the 1750s, Georgia was producing large amounts of rice, cultivated by enslaved peoples.

A

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment

  • The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was an 18th-century intellectual and cultural movement that favored reason over superstition and science over superstition.

  • Using the power of the press, Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Voltaire challenged accepted knowledge and brought new ideas about openness, inquiry, and religious tolerance to Europe and America. I spread it.

  • The Age of Enlightenment is considered by many to be a major turning point in Western civilization, the Age of Light that replaced the Age of Darkness.

  • Several ideas dominated Enlightenment thought: rationalism, empiricism, progressivism, and cosmopolitanism.

  • Rationalism is the idea that people can acquire knowledge using their reasoning abilities.

  • This was a sharp departure from the popular belief that people must rely on the Bible and church authorities for knowledge.

  • Empiricism promotes the idea that knowledge comes from experience and observation of the world. Progressivism is the belief that humans are capable of infinite linear progress over time through reason and observation.

  • This belief was especially important in response to the carnage and chaos of the seventeenth-century English Civil War.

  • Finally, cosmopolitanism reflected the self-image of Enlightenment thinkers as actively engaged citizens of the world, as opposed to provincial and parochial individuals.

  • I tried to be governed by reason rather than by reason.

Ben Franklin

  • The Freemasons were members of a fraternal society that advocated Enlightenment principles of inquiry and tolerance.

  • One prominent Freemason, Benjamin Franklin, stands as the embodiment of the Enlightenment in British America.

  • In 1732 he started his annual publication Poor Richard: An Almanack, in which he gave readers much practical advice, such as “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. ”

  • Franklin subscribed to deism, an Enlightenment-era belief in a God who created but has no continuing involvement in the world and the events within it.

  • In 1743, he founded the American Philosophical Society to encourage the spirit of inquiry. His most famous work, on electricity, exemplified Enlightenment principles.

  • Franklin observed that lightning strikes tended to hit metal objects and reasoned that he could therefore direct lightning through the placement of metal objects during an electrical storm.

  • He used this knowledge to advocate the use of lightning rods: metal poles connected to wires directing lightning`s electrical charge into the ground, thus saving wooden homes in cities like Philadelphia from catastrophic fires.

  • He published his findings in 1751 in Experiments and Observations on Electricity. .

The founding of Georgia

  • The reach of Enlightenment thought was broad and profound. In the 1730s, this even led to the establishment of new colonies.

  • After witnessing the dire conditions in debtors' prisons and the consequences of the release of poor debtors on the streets of London, MP and social reform advocate James Oglethorpe proposed a charter to found a new colony.

  • petitioned George II. George II, seeing the strategic advantage of the English colony being a buffer zone between South Carolina and Spanish Florida, decided to buy Oglethorpe and his 20 like-minded owners

  • in 1732. granted a charter to Oglethorpe, and directed the settlement of a colony named Georgia in honor of the king. In 1733 he arrived on the Anne with 113 immigrants.

  • Over the next decade, Congress funded the migration of his 2,500 settlers, making Georgia the only government-funded colonial project.

  • Oglethorpe's vision of Georgia followed the ideals of the Age of Reason.

  • He saw Georgia as a place where England's "worthy poor" would make a fresh start. To encourage industry, he gave each male immigrant 50 acres of land, tools, and supplies for one year. In Savannah, the Oglethorpe Project envisioned a utopia." An agri-food model that upholds egalitarian values that keep all people equal"

  • .Oglethorpe's vision called for a ban on alcohol and slavery.

  • However, settlers from other colonies, especially South Carolina, ignored these prohibitions. Despite early visions of the content owners, guided by the ideals of the Enlightenment and freed from slavery

  • by the 1750s, Georgia was producing large amounts of rice, cultivated by enslaved peoples.