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{{Short description|17th- to 18th-century European cultural movement}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}
[[File:Salon de Madame Geoffrin.jpg|thumb|Reading of [[Voltaire]]'s tragedy, ''[[L'Orphelin de
Front row, right to left: [[Montesquieu]], [[Sophie d'Houdetot]], [[Claude Joseph Vernet]], [[Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle]], [[Marie-Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin]], [[Louis François, Prince of Conti]], [[Marie Louise Nicole Élisabeth de La Rochefoucauld, Duchesse d'Anville]], [[Philippe Jules François Mancini]], [[François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis]], [[Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon]], [[Alexis Piron]], [[Charles Pinot Duclos]], [[Claude-Adrien Helvétius]], [[Charles-André van Loo]], [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]], [[Lekain]] at the desk reading aloud, [[Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse]], [[Anne-Marie du Boccage]], [[René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur]], [[Françoise de Graffigny]], [[Étienne Bonnot de Condillac]], [[Bernard de Jussieu]], [[Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton]], [[Georges-Louis Leclerc]], [[Comte de Buffon]].}}]]
{{Classicism|state=Collapsed}}
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The '''Age of Enlightenment''' (also the '''Age of Reason''' and '''the Enlightenment''') was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Age of Enlightenment: A History From Beginning to End: Chapter 3 |website=publishinghau5.com |url=http://publishinghau5.com/The-Age-of-Enlightenment--A-History-From-Beginning-to-End-page-3.php |access-date=3 April 2017 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170303123359/http://publishinghau5.com/The-Age-of-Enlightenment--A-History-From-Beginning-to-End-page-3.php |archive-date=3 March 2017}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last=Conrad |first=Sebastian |date=1 October 2012 |title=Enlightenment in Global History: A Historiographical Critique |url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/117/4/999/33183 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=117 |issue=4 |pages=999–1027 |doi=10.1093/ahr/117.4.999 |issn=0002-8762|doi-access=free }}</ref> The Enlightenment featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of [[rationalism]] and of [[empiricism]] and political ideals such as [[natural law]], [[liberty]], and [[progress]], [[toleration]] and [[fraternity (philosophy)|fraternity]], [[constitutional government]], and the formal [[separation of church and state]].<ref>{{citation|last=Outram|first=Dorinda|title=Panorama of the Enlightenment|publisher=Getty Publications|year=2006|page=29|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A84nA7Ae3t0C&q=%22Panorama%20of%20the%20Enlightenment%22&pg=PA29|isbn=978-0892368617}}</ref><ref>{{citation|first=Milan|last=Zafirovski|title=The Enlightenment and Its Effects on Modern Society|year=2010|page=144}}</ref><ref>Jacob, Margaret C. ''The Secular Enlightenment.''
The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlaps the [[Scientific Revolution]] and the work of [[Johannes Kepler]], [[Galileo Galilei]], [[Francis Bacon]], [[Pierre Gassendi]], and [[Isaac Newton]], among others, as well as the rationalist philosophy of [[Descartes]], [[Hobbes]], [[Spinoza]], [[Leibniz]], and [[John Locke]]. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of [[René Descartes]]' ''[[Discourse on the Method]]'' in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything unless there was a well-founded reason for accepting it, and featuring his famous dictum, ''[[Cogito, ergo sum]]'' ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of
Philosophers and scientists of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at [[Academy|scientific academies]], [[Masonic lodge]]s, [[salon (gathering)|literary salons]], [[coffeehouse]]s and in [[book|printed books]], [[academic journal|journals]], and [[pamphlet]]s. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism, [[socialism]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smaldone |first=William |title=European socialism: a concise history with documents |date=2014 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc |isbn=978-1-4422-0909-1 |location=Lanham |pages=3–4}}</ref> and [[neoclassicism]], trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment.<ref>Eugen Weber, ''Movements, Currents, Trends: Aspects of European Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (1992).</ref>
The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were [[Civil liberties|individual liberty]], representative government, the [[rule of law]], and [[religious freedom]], in contrast to an [[absolute monarchy]] or [[single party state]] and the [[religious persecution]] of faiths other than those formally [[established church|established]] and often [[Caesaropapism|controlled outright]] by the State. By contrast, other intellectual currents included arguments in favour of [[anti-Christianity]], [[Deism]], and even [[Atheism]], accompanied by demands for [[secular state]]s, bans on religious education, [[suppression of Monasteries]], the [[suppression of the Jesuits]], and the expulsion of [[religious orders]]. Contemporary criticism, particularly of these anti-religious concepts, has since been dubbed the [[Counter-Enlightenment]] by [[Sir Isaiah Berlin]].
==Influential intellectuals==
{{Main list|List of intellectuals of the Enlightenment}}
The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the [[Scientific Revolution]].<ref>I. Bernard Cohen, "Scientific Revolution and Creativity in the Enlightenment." ''Eighteenth-Century Life'' 7.2 (1982): 41–54.</ref> Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included [[Francis Bacon]], [[Pierre Gassendi]], [[René Descartes]], [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[Baruch Spinoza]], [[John Locke]], [[Pierre Bayle]], and [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]].<ref>Israel, Jonathan I. ''Democratic Enlightenment.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011,9</ref><ref>Sootin, Harry. ''Isaac Newton.'' New York: Messner (1955)</ref> Some of
One influential Enlightenment publication was the ''{{lang|fr|[[Encyclopédie]]}}'' (''Encyclopedia''). Published between 1751 and 1772 in 35 volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]], and a team of 150 others. The ''Encyclopédie'' helped in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond.<ref>Robert Darnton, ''The Business of Enlightenment: a publishing history of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800'' (2009).</ref> Other publications of the Enlightenment included Berkeley's ''[[A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge]]'' (1710), Voltaire's ''[[Letters on the English]]'' (1733) and ''[[Philosophical Dictionary]]'' (1764); Hume's ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'' (1740); Montesquieu's ''[[The Spirit of Law|The Spirit of the Laws]]'' (1748); Rousseau's ''[[Discourse on Inequality]]'' (1754) and ''[[The Social Contract]]'' (1762); Cesare Beccaria's ''[[On Crimes and Punishments]]'' (1764); Adam Smith's ''[[The Theory of Moral Sentiments]]'' (1759) and ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' (1776); and Kant's ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' (1781).{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}
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Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, [[Individualism|individual freedom]] and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/KantOnElightenment.htm |title=Kant's essay What is Enlightenment? |work=mnstate.edu |access-date=4 November 2015 |archive-date=17 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217062357/http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/KantOnElightenment.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref> Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century.<ref>Manfred Kuehn, ''Kant: A Biography'' (2001).</ref>
[[Mary Wollstonecraft]] was one of England's earliest [[Feminism|feminist]] philosophers.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kreis |first=Steven |url=http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/wollstonecraft.html |title=Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759–1797 |publisher=Historyguide.org |date=13 April 2012 |access-date=14 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111055540/http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/wollstonecraft.html |archive-date=11 January 2014}}</ref> She argued for a society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work ''[[A Vindication of the Rights of Woman]]'' (
===Science===
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In 1776, Adam Smith published ''[[The Wealth of Nations]],'' often considered the first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century.<ref name="Fry">M. Fry, ''Adam Smith's Legacy: His Place in the Development of Modern Economics'' (Routledge, 1992).</ref> It was immediately preceded and influenced by [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot]]'s drafts of ''[[Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth]]'' (1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator.<ref>The Illusion of Free Markets, Bernard E. Harcourt, p. 260, notes 11–14.</ref>
Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher, and politician and one of the great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece ''Dei delitti e delle pene'' (Of Crimes and Punishments
===Politics===
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====Scotland====
In the [[Scottish Enlightenment]], the principles of sociability, equality, and utility were disseminated in schools and universities, many of which used sophisticated teaching methods which blended philosophy with daily life.<ref
====Anglo-American colonies====
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===Natural history===
[[File:Buffon 1707-1788.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Georges Buffon]] is best remembered for his {{lang|fr|Histoire naturelle}}, a 44 volume encyclopedia describing everything known about the natural world.]]
A genre that greatly rose in importance was that of scientific literature. Natural history in particular became increasingly popular among the upper classes. Works of natural history include [[René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur|René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur]]'s ''Histoire naturelle des insectes'' and [[Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty|Jacques Gautier d'Agoty]]'s ''La Myologie complète, ou description de tous les muscles du corps humain'' (1746). Outside [[Ancien Régime]] France, natural history was an important part of medicine and industry, encompassing the fields of botany, zoology, meteorology, hydrology, and mineralogy. Students in Enlightenment universities and academies were taught these subjects to prepare them for careers as diverse as medicine and theology. As shown by Matthew Daniel Eddy, natural history in this context was a very middle class pursuit and operated as a fertile trading zone for the interdisciplinary exchange of diverse scientific ideas.<ref name="
The target audience of natural history was French upper class, evidenced more by the specific discourse of the genre than by the generally high prices of its works. Naturalists catered to upper class desire for erudition: many texts had an explicit instructive purpose. However, natural history was often a political affair. As Emma Spary writes, the classifications used by naturalists "slipped between the natural world and the social ... to establish not only the expertise of the naturalists over the natural, but also the dominance of the natural over the social."<ref>Emma Spary, "The 'Nature' of Enlightenment" in ''The Sciences in Enlightened Europe,'' William Clark, Jan Golinski, and Steven Schaffer, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 281–82.</ref> The idea of taste (''le goût'') was a social indicator: to truly be able to categorize nature, one had to have the proper taste, an ability of discretion shared by all members of the upper class. In this way, natural history spread many of the scientific developments of the time but also provided a new source of legitimacy for the dominant class.<ref>Spary, 289–93.</ref> From this basis, naturalists could then develop their own social ideals based on their scientific works.<ref>See Thomas Laqueur, ''Making sex: body and gender from the Greeks to Freud'' (1990).</ref>
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The predominant educational psychology from the 1750s onward, especially in northern European countries, was [[associationism]]: the notion that the mind associates or dissociates ideas through repeated routines. In addition to being conducive to Enlightenment ideologies of liberty, self-determination, and personal responsibility, it offered a practical theory of the mind that allowed teachers to transform longstanding forms of print and manuscript culture into effective graphic tools of learning for the lower and middle orders of society.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Eddy |first=Matthew Daniel |title=The Shape of Knowledge: Children and the Visual Culture of Literacy and Numeracy |journal=Science in Context |year=2013 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=215–245 |url=https://www.academia.edu/1817033 |doi=10.1017/s0269889713000045 |s2cid=147123263}}</ref> Children were taught to memorize facts through oral and graphic methods that originated during the Renaissance.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hotson |first=Howard |title=Commonplace Learning: Ramism and Its German Ramifications 1543–1630 |year=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford}}</ref>
Many of the leading universities associated with Enlightenment progressive principles were located in northern Europe, with the most renowned being the universities of Leiden, Göttingen, Halle, Montpellier, Uppsala, and Edinburgh. These universities, especially Edinburgh, produced professors whose ideas had a significant impact on Britain's North American colonies and later the American Republic. Within the natural sciences, Edinburgh's medical school also led the way in chemistry, anatomy, and pharmacology.<ref
===Learned academies===
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Masonic lodges created a private model for public affairs. They "reconstituted the polity and established a constitutional form of self-government, complete with constitutions and laws, elections, and representatives." In other words, the micro-society set up within the lodges constituted a normative model for society as a whole. This was especially true on the continent: when the first lodges began to appear in the 1730s, their embodiment of British values was often seen as threatening by state authorities. For example, the Parisian lodge that met in the mid 1720s was composed of English [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] exiles.<ref>Jacob, pp. 20, 73, 89.</ref> Furthermore, freemasons across Europe explicitly linked themselves to the Enlightenment as a whole. For example, in French lodges the line "As the means to be enlightened I search for the enlightened" was a part of their initiation rites. British lodges assigned themselves the duty to "initiate the unenlightened." This did not necessarily link lodges to the irreligious, but neither did this exclude them from the occasional heresy. In fact, many lodges praised the Grand Architect, the masonic terminology for the deistic divine being who created a scientifically ordered universe.<ref>Jacob, 145–47.</ref>
German historian Reinhart Koselleck claimed: "On the Continent there were two social structures that left a decisive imprint on the Age of Enlightenment: the Republic of Letters and the Masonic lodges."<ref>Reinhart Koselleck, ''[[Critique and Crisis]],'' p. 62, (The MIT Press, 1988)</ref> Scottish professor Thomas Munck argues that "although the Masons did promote international and cross-social contacts which were essentially non-religious and broadly in agreement with enlightened values, they can hardly be described as a major radical or reformist network in their own right."<ref>Thomas Munck, 1994, p. 70.</ref> Many of the Masons values seemed to greatly appeal to Enlightenment values and thinkers. Diderot discusses the link between Freemason ideals and the enlightenment in D'Alembert's Dream, exploring masonry as a way of spreading enlightenment beliefs.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/Dalemberts_Dream.pdf |last=Diderot |first=Denis |title=D'Alembert's Dream |year=1769 |access-date=17 November 2014 |archive-date=29 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129024943/https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/Dalemberts_Dream.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> Historian Margaret Jacob stresses the importance of the Masons in indirectly inspiring enlightened political thought.<ref>Margaret C. Jacob, ''Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century Europe'' (Oxford University Press, 1991.)</ref> On the negative side, [[Daniel Roche (historian)|Daniel Roche]] contests claims that Masonry promoted egalitarianism and he argues the lodges only attracted men of similar social backgrounds.<ref>Roche, 437.</ref> The presence of noble women in the French "lodges of adoption" that formed in the 1780s was largely due to the close ties shared between these lodges and aristocratic society.<ref>Jacob, 139. See also Janet M. Burke, "Freemasonry, Friendship and Noblewomen: The Role of the Secret Society in Bringing Enlightenment Thought to Pre-Revolutionary Women Elites," ''History of European Ideas'' 10 no. 3 (1989): 283–94.</ref>
The major opponent of Freemasonry was the Catholic Church so in countries with a large Catholic element, such as France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico, much of the ferocity of the political battles involve the confrontation between what Davies calls the reactionary Church and enlightened Freemasonry.<ref>Davies, ''Europe: A History'' (1996) pp. 634–635</ref><ref>Richard Weisberger et al., eds., ''Freemasonry on both sides of the Atlantic: essays concerning the craft in the British Isles, Europe, the United States, and Mexico'' (2002)</ref> Even in France, Masons did not act as a group.<ref>Robert R. Palmer, ''The Age of the Democratic Revolution: The Struggle'' (1970) p. 53</ref> American historians, while noting that Benjamin Franklin and [[George Washington]] were indeed active Masons, have downplayed the importance of Freemasonry in causing the American Revolution because the Masonic order was non-political and included both Patriots and their enemy the Loyalists.<ref>Neil L. York, "Freemasons and the American Revolution," ''The Historian'' Volume: 55. Issue: 2. 1993, pp. 315+.</ref>
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* [[Ritchie Robertson|Robertson, Ritchie]]. ''The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680–1790''. London: Allen Lane, 2020; New York: HarperCollins, 2021
* {{citation |last=Porter |first=Roy |title=The Enlightenment |edition=2nd |year=2001 |publisher=Macmillan Education UK |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z6C9zlVo7cAC |isbn=978-0-333-94505-6}}
* [[Daniel Roche (historian)|Roche, Daniel]]. ''France in the Enlightenment''. (1998).
{{refend}}
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* {{cite book |last=Sarmant |first=Thierry |title=Histoire de Paris: Politique, urbanisme, civilisation |year=2012 |publisher=Editions Jean-Paul Gisserot |isbn=978-2-7558-0330-3}}
* {{cite book |last1=Statman |first1=Alexander |title=A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science |date=2023 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0226825762}}
* {{citation |last=Warman |first=Caroline |title=Tolerance: The Beacon of the Enlightenment |series=Open Book Classics |year=2016 |volume=3 |publisher=Open Book Publishers |url=http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/418/tolerance--the-beacon-of-the-enlightenment |isbn=978-1-78374-203-5 |display-authors=etal |doi=10.11647/OBP.0088 |editor1-last=Warman |editor1-first=Caroline |ref=none |doi-access=free}}
* Yolton, John W. et al. ''The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment.'' (1992). 581 pp.
{{Refend}}
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