Enlightenment: The Age of Enlightenment (also

The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason) was a period in the history of Europe and Western civilization [1] during which the Enlightenment , [b] an intellectual [6] and cultural [6] movement, flourished, emerging in the late 17th century [6] in Western Europe [7] and reaching its peak in the 18th century, as its ideas spread more widely across Europe [7] and into the European colonies, in the Americas and Oceania. [8][9][10] Characterized by an emphasis on reason, empirical evidence ... For Enlightenment thinkers themselves, however, the Enlightenment is not an historical period, but a process of social, psychological or spiritual development, unbound to time or place. Immanuel Kant defines “ enlightenment ” in his famous contribution to debate on the question in an essay entitled “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment ?” (1784), as humankind’s release from its self-incurred immaturity; “immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding ... The Enlightenment had three main phases: the early phase influenced by scientific revolutionaries like Newton and Galileo, the high Enlightenment led by French philosophes like Voltaire and Rousseau, and the late phase marked by the French Revolution and economic liberalism. Key characteristics included the emphasis on scientific temper and reason, skepticism towards traditional authority, belief in human progress, and local variations in Enlightenment ideas across Europe. Empiricism ... We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us.