The Enlightenment

in the seventeenth century with the writings of Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes; it is seen in France with the new emphasis on unaided reason as expressed in the works of RenT Descartes. The full-flowing of the Enlightenment came in the eighteenth century, especially in France, Scotland, and Germany, where the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is particularly significant. The Enlightenment is associated with a materialist view of human beings, an optimism about human progress through education, and a general utilitarian approach to society and ethics. The U.S. Constitution, while not a utilitarian document, is often cited as a concrete embodiment of the ideals of the Enlightenment.

The emphasis on learning in the Enlightenment would contribute to the development of various systems of learning, the founding of universities and colleges, and the development of philosophical systems such as the one offered by Kant. A principle offered by Descartes explains the nature of the Enlightenment as he refers to the task of the will being to guide the path of knowledge so that we can confront this knowledge with the demand for clear and distinct ideas. It is through this principle that Kant sees the true

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nd would thus also affect the education offered, extending general education to the populace at large rather than confining it to the upper classes. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes represented the beginning of a real political science in the seventeenth-century, and their conceptions of how government developed and what government should and should not do would be refined and extended by Rousseau and others and would eventually become the basis for the constitutional democracy of the United States. Hobbes and Locke both offer the idea of the social contract as the basis of society, and to this end they begin with a consideration of man in a state of nature. The individual is seen as existing in one state in nature and in a different state in society. The act of coming together in society is based on the social contract, something that is viewed somewhat differently by the two writers, though each sees it as the basis of society, as a voluntary agreement, and as both the source of government power and the protection of the individual from that power. For Locke, the state of nature was a state of full natural rights so that there had to be a compelling advantage in any social agreement that would replace it. For Hobbes, the state
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Jeremy Bentham's, Immanuel Kant, Meditations Descartes, Locke Hobbes, Hobbes Locke, Thomas Hobbes, , pleasure pain, RenT Descartes, Rousseau Hume, Peter Gay, principle utility, social contract, chance followed sensations, emergence self-imposed, self-imposed nonage, one's own, another's guidance, thomas hobbes, followed sensations, mind idea god, emergence self-imposed nonage, person person,
Approximate Word count = 1903
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)