The+Enlightenment+Period

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** The Age of Enlightenment ** The Age of Enlightenment

Introduction: Most historians consider that the Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement during the 18th Century. This movement is considered to be mainly based in the Western world, and focused on understanding the world and humankind place in it solely through reason and logical deductions, rather than relying on religious faith. This led to the avocation of the use of reason and logic to establish systems of ethics, government, aesthetics and even religion in some cases. This movement of thought was brought up after the revolutionary introduction of Newtonian physics and due to the weariness of wars caused by religious conflict. The eventual consequences of this movement were huge, with the development of scientific movement and political/economical liberty to name but a few.

Philosophy: To simplify the major schools of thoughts during the period, they can be split into two major groups. One group were the Rationalists while the other groups were the Empiricists. The Rationalists believed in the idea that all knowledge can be found from reason alone, while the Empiricists contradicted this idea, that knowledge can only come from the senses or experience. Both, however, believed in the usage of reason as the basis of scientific advancement,

Developments in Literature:  During this period, the distribution of book and other forms of literary media improved due to the usage of the printing press to mass produce these forms of literature. As of such, the novel came into prominence, with Robinson Crusoe (1719), by Daniel Defoe (1659-1731) and other such novels which focused on moral characteristics of the human. Another key factor in the literature of the Enlightenment period was the notable satire of old customs and institutions. Examples of such works of satire were Candide (1759), by Voltaire (1694-1778) and Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) both of which mocked the old systems that were practiced during those times.