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Main Ideas

  1. What revolutionary discoveries were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
  • Contributions from the Muslim WOrld
    • Muslim scholars established the world’s first institutions of higher learning which were devoted to Islamic theology and law
    • Arab and Persian mathematicians invented algebra, the concept of algorithm and decimal point notation
    • Astronomhy
  • Natural Philosophy
    • Based on the ideas of Aristotle
    • Questions about the physical nature of the universe and how it functioned
    • Four centuries later, Greek scholar Ptolemy, introduced a theory which the plantes moved in small circles and this became the basic foundation of knowledge about the earth.
  • Overcoming the authority of the ancients to develop a new understanding of the natural world, derived fom precise techniques of observation and experimentation, was the Scientific Revolution’s monumental achievement
  • Copernican hypothesis
    • Enormous scientific and religious implicationis
    • Destroyed main reason for believe in crystal spheres capalle of moving the stars around the earth
    • Suggested a universe of staggering size
    • Challenged the traditional hierarchy of the disciplines
    • He created doubt about traditional astronomy4
  • Kepler
    • Proved that Copernicus was right
    • Proved mathematically the precise relations of a solar system.
    • His work demolished the old system of Aristotle
  • Galileo
    • Examined motion and mechanics
    • The law of inertia (object continues in motion forever)
  • Newton’s Synthesis
    • United the experimental and theoretical mathematical sides of modern science
    • Law of universal gravitation
  • Stream of new information about plant and animal species overwhelmed existing intellectual frameworks
  • Magic and Alchemy
    • Practices of these things remained important traditions for natural philospohers
  1. What intellectual and social changes occurred as a result of the Scientrific Revolution?
  • Bacon and Descartes were influential in describing and advocation for improved scitinf methods based on observation and inductive reasoning
  • Inductive experimentalisim (Bacon)
    • Specific observations up to broader generalizations and theories
  • Cartesian Dualism(Descartes)
    • All of reality could ultimately be reduced to mind and matter
  • Medicine, the Body, and chemistry
    • Paracelsus was an early proponent of the experimentalmethod in medicine and the use of chemist
    • Vesalius studied anatomy by dissecting human bodies
    • Boyle helped create the Royal Society
  • Science and Religion
    • Most practitioners were devoutly religious and saw their work as contributing to the celebration of God’s glory rather than undermining it.
    • Heliocentrism, which displaced the earth from the center of the univers, threntehn the understating of the place of mankind, were not easily accepted by the religions derived from the old testament
    • The Catholic Church became more hostile to science, a change that helped account for the decline of science in Italy
  • Science and Society
    • International scientific community
      • Linked together by common interests and values
      • Success of scientists dependen on making new discoveries
    • Governments
      • The new scientific community became closely tied to the state and its agendas
    • The practice of science relied onartisans expertise in making instruments and conducting precise experiments
  1. How did the Enlightenment emerge, and what were major currents of Enlightenment through?
  • Enlightenment introduced a new worldview based on the Scientific Revolution
  • The conflicts of te Reformation, increased movement of people, goods, and ideas across continents, and the Scientific Revolutions inspired the Enlightenment
  • Rationalism
    • Now this was to be accepted on faith and everything was to be submitted to reason
  • Early Enligthenment
    • Dutch Republic
      • Tradition of religious tolerance and republican rule influenced two writers
      • Bayle concluded that nothing can ever be known beyond all doubt (skepticism)
      • Spinzoa believed that mind and body were united in one substance and that God and nature were the same thing (espouse monism)
    • John Locke
      • Senstationalism, the idea that all human ideas and thoughts are produced as a result of sensory impressions
      • Insisted on sovereignty of the Parliamenta against the authority of the Crown
  • The Influence f the Philosphes
    • Philosophes
      • French intellectuals who proclaimed that they were bringing the light of reason to their ignorant fellow humans
    • France became a hub of Enlgihtenment because they were the international language for the educated class, the rising unpopulatiroty fo the French monarchy called for reforms, and the philosophes made it their goal to reach a larger audience of elites
    • Montesquieu
      • Concerenced that absolutism in France was turning into a tyranny
      • Argued for a separation of powers
    • Voltaire
      • Believed in a monarch bc humans can not govern themselves
      • Did not believe in social and economic equality
      • Believed in Deism
      • Hated religious intolerance
    • Rousseau
      • Rebelled against the culture of the Enlightenment (believed that rationalism and civilization was destroying
    • Enlightenment Movements across Europe
      • Reputblic of Letters

★international group of schoras and writers

★ identified numerous regional and national particularties

      • Catholic Enlightement

★ aimed to review and reform the church from within

★ looked to divene grace as the source of progress

      • Scottish Enlightenment

★ emphasis on common sense and scientific reasoning

★ David Hume- emphasis on civic morality and religious skepticism( undermined the Enlightnement’s faith by emphasizing the superiority of the senses)

★ Adam Smith ( economic liberalism

  1. How did the Enlightenment change social ideas and practices?
  • Europeans’ increased interactions with non European peoples and cultures also heloped produce the Enlightnement spirit
  • Enlightenment ideas spread in a new “public sphere”
  • Global Contacts
    • European opinion on China and the Muslim world were divided
    • The discovery of the New World and explorations in the Pacific Ocean challenged existing norms and values in Europe
  • Enightnemnet Debats about Race
    • Scientists began to classify humans into hierarchically ordered “races”
    • Scientific racism helped legitimate and justify the growth of slavery
  • Women and the Enlightenment
    • Most philosophes accepted that women were inferior to men intellectually as well as physically
    • Sought moderate reform, particularly in the arena of female education
    • Women writers made crucial contribute to debate about women’s rights
    • Salons
      • Social gatherings where philosphes and their followers met to discuss literature, science, and philosophy
    • Rococo
      • Style known for its soft pastels and sentimental portrait
    • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • Urban Culture and LIfe in the Public Sphere
    • Production and consumption of books grew significantly
    • Public Sphere
      • Celebrated open debate informed by critical reason
    • Common people were deemed “children” unable to handle the enlightenment
  1. What impact did new ways of thinking have on politics?
  • Enlightened Absolutism
    • Absolutist monarchies adopted Enlgihtenemnet ideals of rationalism progress, and tolerance
  • Frederick the Great of Prussia
    • Legal systems and the bureaucracy were Frederick’s primary tools
    • Cameralism
      • View that monarchy was the best form of government
      • Emphasis on rationality , progress, and utilitarianism
  • Catherine the Great of Russia
    • Ruled in an enlightened manner
    • Three main goals
      • Brought culture of western Europe to Russia
      • Domestic reform

★restric the practice of torture

★ limited relgoius toleration

★ improved education

★ strengthen local government

★ because of a peasant rebellion Catherine gave the nobles absolute control of their serfs (very oppressive)

      • Territorial expansion
  • Austrain Habsburgs
    • Power politics was more important to Maria Theresa than Enlightenment teachings
    • Initiated church reform
    • Administratrive renovations strengthened the central bureaucracy
    • Gov’t sought to improve the conditions of the agricultural population
  • Jewish LIfe and the Lmits of Enlightened Absolutism
    • Haskalah
      • Jewishe Enligthenment ledy by Mendelssohn
      • Began to advocate for freedom and civil rights for Jew