Overview

The Enlightenment was an intellectual and cultural movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that emphasized reason, scientific inquiry, and human rights. Enlightenment thinkers challenged absolutism, organized religion, and tradition, promoting ideas that fueled revolutions and helped shape modern Western values.

Key Themes and Developments

• Core Principles:
  • Use of reason to understand society and nature.
  • Belief in progress, liberty, education, and tolerance.
  • Skepticism toward authority, especially monarchy and the Church.
• Major Thinkers:
  • Voltaire: Critic of Church and state; champion of civil liberties and free speech.
  • Montesquieu: Advocated separation of powers in government.
  • Rousseau: Social contract theory; emphasis on general will and natural liberty.
  • Locke: Natural rights theory (life, liberty, property); influenced liberalism and revolutions.
  • Diderot: Editor of the Encyclopédie, spreading Enlightenment ideas widely.
• Enlightened Despotism:
  • Absolute rulers who adopted Enlightenment principles to reform society while maintaining power.
  • Examples: Frederick the Great (Prussia), Joseph II (Austria), Catherine the Great (Russia).
• Religious and Cultural Shifts:
  • Deism: Belief in a rational creator who does not interfere with the world.
  • Criticism of superstition, religious intolerance, and clerical privilege.
  • Rise of salons, coffeehouses, and print culture expanded public discourse.
• Partition of Poland:
  • Three partitions (1772, 1793, 1795) by Russia, Prussia, and Austria erased Poland from the map until the 20th century.
  • Illustrated the limits of Enlightenment ideals amid geopolitical ambition.

Quick Tip

The Enlightenment redefined what it meant to be human and what governments should be. Understand the key philosophers and how their ideas on liberty, reason, and reform influenced revolutions and constitutions around the world.