SOCRATES ARISTOTLE
THE FOUNDING OF THE UNITED STATES
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
ROOTS
The Enlightenment, also known as The Age of Reason, was
an intellectual movement usually associated with the 18th century. Where
did this movement get the name 'Enlightenment'?
Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris,
believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to
enlighten them.
Who were these thinkers and why did
they believe they were more enlightened than others. What did their ideas
have to do with the founding of the United States? Let's explore these
questions. We will meet the thinkers one at a time. What beliefs did
they share?
They believed that
human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to
build a better world. Their principal targets were religion (embodied in France
in the Catholic Church) and the domination of society by a hereditary
aristocracy.
The roots of the movement go far back in
time. The Enlightenment had much to do with logic and the belief that the
human mind is capable of solving very complex problems. Logic was most
notably used by the ancient Greeks, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It was
they who first set out the rules of logic and discourse which have been used by
western civilization ever since.
Click the yellow links to visit a website about these men.
The tools of logic were used by churchmen to defend the
dogmas of Christianity. Probably the most notable of these churchmen was
Thomas
Aquinas now known as St Thomas Aquinas. The
tools of logic were just too powerful to be confined to church use. The
Renaissance saw the emergence of thinkers known now as 'Humanists'. Like
Aquinas, they used logic to support their beliefs.
The Humanists argued that the proper worship of God
involved admiration of his creation, and in particular of that crown of
creation: humanity. By celebrating the human race and its capacities they argued
they were worshipping God more appropriately than gloomy priests and monks who
harped on original sin and continuously called upon people to confess and humble
themselves before the Almighty. Indeed, some of them claimed that humans were
like God, created not only in his image, but with a share of his creative power.
The painter, the architect, the musician, and the scholar, by exercising their
intellectual powers, were fulfilling divine purposes.
The goal of Renaissance humanists was to
recapture some of the pride, breadth of spirit, and creativity of the ancient
Greeks and Romans, to replicate their successes and go beyond them. Europeans
developed the belief that tradition could and should be used to promote change.
By cleaning and sharpening the tools of antiquity, they could reshape their own
time.
The Age of Enlightenment can be said
to be centered on the 18th century. This, of course, is the period in
which the United States had its birth. The founders of the United States
were deeply influenced by Enlightenment thinkers. Who were these thinkers
and what did they say?
Let's start
with the Enlightenment in England.
Enlightenment links:
Fordham
University
General
Survey
The quotes in blue are from a website
by Paul Brians. Click here to visit his
website.
