The Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was a intellectual movement in Europe arguably from the mid-1600s until the start of the 1800s.  

The roots of the Enlightenment included a reaction to the religious conflict ensuing from the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, as well as new discoveries in science. These coalesced into a period of thought which emphasised the capacity of human reason to attain knowledge, and no longer needing to rely on the authority of tradition or claims to supernatural revelation. The mood of the Enlightenment can be summed up in the motto, "Sapere aude!" (Dare to know!)

One precursor of the Enlightenment was Rene Descartes, a Frenchman residing in the Netherlands, who famously doubted everything apart from his own existence, affirming "I think therefore I am." He published "A discourse on method" in 1637. Another figure at the start of the movement was the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1714).  

Many people consider the Enlightenment proper to have begun with Englishman John Locke, whose thought emphasised the role of the senses and empirical experiment to obtain knowledge. Later, the Enlightenment was prominent in France where leading advocates included polymaths such as Diderot and Alembert, and sceptic Voltaire who held Deist beliefs (God exists but does not intervene in the world he created). The French philosophes championed knowledge, and were also in many cases very hostile towards organised religion. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was another French-speaking philosophe whose writings include "The Social Contract", understanding society in terms of an agreement between ruler and ruled. 

Later, the Enlightenment in Germany included figures such as Lessing and Fichte whose writings cast doubt on our capacity to know the past. Another representative of the later phase of the Enlightenment was German Immanuel Kant who died in 1804 (some consider his death the end of the Enlightenment).  

There was also a Scottish Enlightenment which included the work of extreme sceptic David Hume and the economist Adam Smith (author of "The Wealth of Nations"). 

In 1789, the French revolution overthrew the Old Regime in France, later leading to the Terror of 1793-5, which included a campaign of Dechristianisation. There is controversy and debate over the precise relationship between the Enlightenment and the Revolution. While many Enlightenment figures favoured the model of the "Enlightened Despot", it could also be argued that the events in France from 1789 were the "fruit" of the Enlightenment's championing of the individual and rejection of all authorities in the name of reason. 

The Enlightenment period with its emphasis on reason was followed, from the early 1800s, by the Romantic period which emphasised the role of feeling.