ENLIGHTENMENT (jul 1, 1715 – mar 19, 1789)

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What is Enlightenment?

Immanuel Kant, a German philosophe, defined “enlightenment” as an individual’s escape from nonage a sort of self-imposed intellectual childhood. Enlightened individuals are capable of thinking for themselves.

According to Kant, the only thing necessary to escape from nonage is education. Two institutions dominant in France at the time limited freedom of inquiry.

Freedom-limiting Institutions:
- Most philosophes were anticlerical (against the influence of a hierarchical, institutional Church organization – not necessarily against the general concept of religion) in their thinking.

Natural Religion:
- Knowledge of God comes from: Nature around us.

Revealed Religion:
- Knowledge of God comes from: Sacred letters.
- The religion of Deism, which boasted such illustrious adherents as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson, was a natural religion.
-The metaphysics of Deism are fairly easily explained:
- - God exists. He created an orderly universe and made it possible for human beings to understand him through the use of observation and reason
- - Sacred texts claiming to contain the revealed word of God
- - Religious dogmas derived from said texts
- - Miracles, prophecies and religious "mysteries"

Although enlightened ideals spread throughout Europe, France was the epicenter of the Enlightenment.

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