Dbq on Whether or Not Enlightenment Thinkers Based Ideas Off Scientific Revolution Thinkers.
DBQ
When looking upon any thinkers in recorded history, we must analyze the influences, assuming there are some, that provide a foundation or stemmed the creation of the thinkers line of thought or view on a subject. For instance, the philosophes of the Enlightenment are often assumed to have formulated their ideas single-handedly but if we were to analyze their thoughts we would see all of them stem from other ideas, or directly oppose thinker’s views from the Scientific Revolution, such as the relationship or similarities of Humanity and Nature, the use of the Scientific Method, and the ongoing debate on religion and its place in human affairs.
To begin with, the extensive use of the newly accepted Scientific Method, or the new form of investigation that stemmed from it made the Enlightenment’s revolutionary government ideas possible. These documents support this fact, Document one, Rene Descartes’ The Discourse on Method, Document five Holbach’s The System of Nature, Rouseeau’s Social Contract and Newton’s Principia Mathematica. For instance In Rene Descartes’ The Discourse on Method he states his four steps of questioning which started with he could never accept what was truth accept what he had already determined to be, secondly divide into as many possible parts as he could, third start with the simple and work your way into the complex, and finally omit nothing and be certain of your work by painstaking records and reviews. These steps, when transferred into the research of finding the epitome of government, the interactions of a society, and human nature itself allowed a complex and encompassing view on the philosophe’s society and government. Also, by using this method a more realistic or practical form of philosophy was created. Whereas in Greek philosophy most ideas where looking at a current government or in Plato’s case creating an entirely new one with illogical and impractical theorems, the Scientific Method allowed thinkers to piece by piece
When looking upon any thinkers in recorded history, we must analyze the influences, assuming there are some, that provide a foundation or stemmed the creation of the thinkers line of thought or view on a subject. For instance, the philosophes of the Enlightenment are often assumed to have formulated their ideas single-handedly but if we were to analyze their thoughts we would see all of them stem from other ideas, or directly oppose thinker’s views from the Scientific Revolution, such as the relationship or similarities of Humanity and Nature, the use of the Scientific Method, and the ongoing debate on religion and its place in human affairs.
To begin with, the extensive use of the newly accepted Scientific Method, or the new form of investigation that stemmed from it made the Enlightenment’s revolutionary government ideas possible. These documents support this fact, Document one, Rene Descartes’ The Discourse on Method, Document five Holbach’s The System of Nature, Rouseeau’s Social Contract and Newton’s Principia Mathematica. For instance In Rene Descartes’ The Discourse on Method he states his four steps of questioning which started with he could never accept what was truth accept what he had already determined to be, secondly divide into as many possible parts as he could, third start with the simple and work your way into the complex, and finally omit nothing and be certain of your work by painstaking records and reviews. These steps, when transferred into the research of finding the epitome of government, the interactions of a society, and human nature itself allowed a complex and encompassing view on the philosophe’s society and government. Also, by using this method a more realistic or practical form of philosophy was created. Whereas in Greek philosophy most ideas where looking at a current government or in Plato’s case creating an entirely new one with illogical and impractical theorems, the Scientific Method allowed thinkers to piece by piece