The Enlightenment Philosophies

There was a period in the late 17th to 18th century known as the Enlightenment where there were countless new notorious philosophical ideas on the government and politics. Some of these concepts that have arisen are typical in the government and political practice in the present. Many of the major French Enlightenment thinkers, or philosophes, were born in the years after the Glorious Revolution. The philosophes, while varying in style and area of specific concern, generally stressed the power of reason and pursued to discover the natural laws governing human society. The Baron de Montesquieu tackled politics by developing upon Locke's work, solidifying ideas such as the separation of power by means of divisions in government. Voltaire took
The Encyclopédie exposed the Enlightenment knowledge to other countries around the world. As the Enlightenment developed into the mid 1700, an obvious shift occurred away from the reason-based philosophies of most of the leading English and French thinkers. The new philosophies that developed veered to take one of two major courses. Romanticism, a philosophy greatly attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, highlighted emotions and a return to the natural state of man. Skepticism, which increased importance under Scottish philosopher David Hume and was later raised by German philosopher Immanuel Kant, doubted whether we, as human beings are actually able to perceive the world around us with any degree of accuracy. The two movements marked a disappearance from those thoughts that focused on the peak of the
This greatly devastating war that lasted from 1618 to 1648 made German writers to write cruel disapprovals about the ideas of nationalism and warfare. These authors, such as Hugo Grotius, were one of the first Enlightenment intellectuals to go against custom and suggest a better solution. At the same time, European thinkers’ curiosity in the perceptible world developed into scientific study, while grander investigation of the world uncovered Europe to other cultures and philosophies. Finally, periods of mistreatment by the monarchies and the church conveyed mediocre citizens in Europe to a breaking point, and the most scholarly and outspoken finally decided to speak their