Enlightenment Thinkers

Enlightenment Thinkers: American History Dictionary - Enlightenment

Definition and meaning of Enlightenment:

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was an intellectual awakening of the eighteenth century that celebrated human reasoning powers. This major intellectual movement was inspired by recent scientific advances; Enlightenment thinkers emphasized the role of human reason in understanding the world and directing its events. Their ideas placed less emphasis on God's role in ordering worldly affairs. Enlightened rationalism had a major impact on American political thought.

(Source: Madrid Waddington High School )

Also see these pages: American History, American History Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia II - Asturias - Famous citizens Leopoldo Alas, 19th century author of La Regenta, a seminal work in the Spanish literary canon Fernando Alonso, Formula 1 racing driver, 2005 World Champion Letizia, Princess of Asturias, a native of Oviedo and wife of Felipe, Prince of Asturias Severo Ochoa, 1959 Nobel Prize winner for Medicine Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, philosopher, politician, Enlightenment thinker. ...

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19th-century philosophy - Brief Historical Outline

19th-century philosophy - Influences from the Late Enlightenment

19th-century philosophy - List of Philosophers

Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804), was a German philosopher and scientist (astrophysics, mathematics, geography, anthropology) from East Prussia. Kant is generally considered one of the greatest and most influential thinkers of modern Europe and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant - Kant and his philosophy. Kant defined the Enlightenment, in the essay "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?", as an age shaped by the motto, "Dare to know". T ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Christian Definition of True Reality

Christian Definition of True Reality

How does one define reality from the perspective of faith? St Anselm defines theology as "faith seeking understanding".

St Augustine, citing Plato, argued for the necessity of eternal, universal spiritual principles and laws on which our contingent and temporal realm of existence is based. For Augustine, God is the author and overseer of these principles and laws.

Making this Platonic distinction between the spiritual and material, early mediaeval Christianity came to value the spiritual realm of life far more than the material. The attendant dualistic anthropology led to an overvaluation of the development of the soul, in comparison to the body.

Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu

By category Medieval 16th Century - 17th Century 18th Century -19th Century 20th Century - Contemporary Chronological list Writers by category Novelists - Playwrights Poets - Essayists Short Story Writers Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (January 18, 1689 – February 10, 1755), more commonly known as Montesquieu, was a French political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment and is famous for his articulation of the theory of ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment refers to the 18th century in European philosophy, and is often thought of as part of a larger period which includes the Age of Reason. The term also more specifically refers to a historical intellectual movement, "The Enlightenment." This movement advocated rationality as a means to establish an authoritative system of ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge. The intellectual leaders of this movement regarded themselves as courageous and elite, and regarded their purpose as leading the world toward progress and out ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Cosmic pluralism

Cosmic pluralism or the plurality of worlds describes the belief in numerous other worlds beyond the Earth which harbour extraterrestrial life. The debate began as early as the time of Thales and has continued, in different form, until the modern era. In Greek times the debate was largely philosophical and did not conform to present notions of cosmology. Cosmic pluralism was a corollary to notions of infinity and the purported multitude of life-bearing worlds were more akin to parallel universes (either cotemporaneously ...

Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Positivism

Positivism can have several meanings. Positivism - Law. Legal positivism is a view which, in contrast to the natural law view, claims that a legal system can be defined independently of evaluative terms or propositions. Sometimes legal positivism is understood as the view that laws must be obeyed, whatever their content. The late Carlos Nino called the former view "methodological" and the latter "ideological," claiming that only the former was philosophically defensible. Legal Positi ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Wonhyo

Wonhyo (617 - 686) was one of the leading thinkers, writers and commentators of the Korean Buddhist tradition. With his life spanning the end of the Three Kingdoms period and the beginning of the Unified Silla, Wonhyo played a vital role in the reception and assimilation of the broad range of doctrinal Buddhist streams that flowed into the Korean peninsula at the time. Wonhyo was most interested in, and affected by Tathāgatagarbha, Yogācāra and Hwaeom thought. However, in his extensive scholarly works, composed as commentari ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Cynicism

Cynicism (Greek κυνισμός) was originally the philosophy of a group of ancient Greeks called the Cynics, founded by Antisthenes. Presently the word generally describes, somewhat pejoratively, the opinions of those inclined to disbelieve in human sincerity, in virtue, or in altruism: individuals who maintain that only self-interest motivates human behavior. A modern cynic typically has a highly contemptuous attitude towards social norms, especially those which serve more of a ritualistic purpose than a pract ...

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Cynicism - External link

Read more here: » Cynicism: Encyclopedia - Cynicism

Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Materialism

In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to 'exist' is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of 'material' and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. Science uses a working assumption, sometimes known as methodological materialism, that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural. Materialism - Overview. The first detailed ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Ali Shariati

Ali Shariati (Persian: علی شريعتی‎) (1933–1977) was an Iranian sociologist, well known and respected for his works in the field of sociology of religion. Shariati was born in 1933 in Mazinan, a suburb of Sabzevar, Iran, and his father was a progressive nationalist preacher who would later participate in his son's political movements. In his years at the Teacher's Training College, Shariati came into contact with young people who were from the less privileged economic classes of the society, and for the first ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Tendai

Tendai (Japanese: 天台宗, Tendai-shū) is a Japanese school of Buddhism, a descendant of the Chinese Tiantai or Lotus Sutra school. Tendai - History. The Tiantai teaching was first brought to Japan by the Chinese monk Jianshen (鑑眞 Jp: Gishin) in the middle of the 8th century, but it was not widely accepted. In 805, the Japanese monk Saichō (最澄; also called Dengyō Daishi 伝教大師) returned from China with new Tiantai texts and made the temple that he had built on Mt. Hiei (比叡山), ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Nagarjuna

Nāgārjuna (నాగార్జునా in Telugu, 龍樹 in Chinese) (c. 150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher, the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and arguably the most influential Indian Buddhist thinker after the Gautama Buddha himself. His writings were the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school, which was transmitted to China under the name of the Three Treatise (Sanlun) School. He is credited with developing the philosophy of the Prajnaparamita sutras, a ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Cesare Marquis of Beccaria

Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria (or the Marchese de Beccaria-Bonesana) (March 11, 1738 - November 28, 1794) was an Italian philosopher and politician. Cesare Marquis of Beccaria - Birth and education. He was born in Milan, and educated in the Jesuit college at Parma. He showed a great aptitude for mathematics. The study of Montesquieu redirected his attention towards economics; and his first publication (1762) was a tract on the derangement of the currency in the Milanese states, with a proposal for its ...

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia - Deism

Historical and modern Deism is defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God. Deists reject both organized and revealed religion and maintain that reason is the essential element in all knowledge. For a "rational basis for religion" they refer to the cosmological argument (first cause argument), the teleological argument (argument from design), and other aspects of what was called natural religion. Deism has become identified with the classical belief that God created ...

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Deism - Overview

Deism - Deism and prayer

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Enlightenment Thinkers: Encyclopedia II - Social Darwinism - History

Social Darwinism - Darwinism and theories of social change. Theories of social evolution and cultural evolution are common in European thought. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin often speculated that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes's 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is d ...

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