The Age of Enlightenment Essay by writingsensation

This paper explains that the Age of Enlightenment refers to the period in European history when writing and thought were characterized by an emphasis on experience and reason, showing a mistrust of religion and traditional authority that resulted in the gradual emergence of the ideals of liberal, secular, democratic societies. The author points out that John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, who represent the beginning of a real political science in the seventeenth-century, described how government develops. The paper relates that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a powerful influence in the development of educational theory and was one of the primary sources for the political theory that would lead to the American and French Revolutions; Immanuel Kant challenging both scientific knowledge and moral thought, stressing a priori knowledge and morality rather than experience or sentiment.