Age of Enlightenment: Difference between revisions

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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 [[Isaac Newton]]'s ''[[Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica|Principia Mathematica]]'' (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of the Enlightenment.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Western-philosophy/The-Enlightenment |title=The Enlightenment |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=16 November 2023 |quote=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bristow |first=William |date=29 August 2017 |editor-last1= Zalta |editor-first1=Edward N. |editor-last2=Nodelman |editor-first2=Uri |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |chapter=Enlightenment |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Casini |first1= Paolo |date=January 1988 |title=Newton's Principia and the Philosophers of the Enlightenment |url= |journal= Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London|volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=35–52 |doi= 10.1098/rsnr.1988.0006|s2cid= 145282986 |access-date=|issn=0035-9149 }}</ref> European historians traditionally dated its beginning with the death of [[Louis XIV]] of France in 1715 and its end with the outbreak of the [[French Revolution]] in 1789. Many historians now date the end of the Enlightenment as the start of the 19th century, with the latest proposed year being the death of [[Immanuel Kant]] in 1804.<ref>{{cite web|title= British Library- The Enlightenment|url= https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/the-enlightenment|access-date= 21 June 2018|archive-date= 24 August 2023|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230824220906/https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/the-enlightenment|url-status= dead}}</ref> In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates.