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In recent years, scholars have expanded the time span and global perspective of the Enlightenment by examining: (1) how European intellectuals did not work alone and other people helped spread and adapt Enlightenment ideas, (2) how Enlightenment ideas were "a response to cross-border interaction and global integration," and (3) how the ...
Both the moderate Enlightenment and a radical or revolutionary Enlightenment were reactions against the authoritarianism, irrationality, and obscurantism of the established churches. Philosophers such as Voltaire depicted organized religion as hostile to the development of reason and the progress of science and incapable of verification.
The Age of Enlightenment was a broad philosophical movement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The traditional theological-political system that placed Scripture at the center, with religious authorities and monarchies claiming and enforcing their power by divine right, was challenged and overturned in the realm of ideas.
Key scientific ideas dating back to classical antiquity had changed drastically over the years and in many cases had been discredited. [5] The ideas that remained, which were transformed fundamentally during the Scientific Revolution, include: Aristotle's cosmology that placed the Earth at the center of a spherical hierarchic cosmos.
However, the prime example of reference works that systematized scientific knowledge in the age of Enlightenment were universal encyclopedias rather than technical dictionaries. It was the goal of universal encyclopedias to record all human knowledge in a comprehensive reference work. [42]
The philosophes (French for 'philosophers') were the intellectuals of the 18th-century European Enlightenment. [1] Few were primarily philosophers; rather, philosophes were public intellectuals who applied reason to the study of many areas of learning, including philosophy, history, science, politics, economics and social issues. They had a ...
Universities in northern Europe were more willing to accept the ideas of Enlightenment and were often greatly influenced by them. For instance, the historical ensemble of the University of Tartu in Estonia, that was erected around that time, is now included in the European Heritage Label list as an example of a university in the Age of Enlightenment.
The Scottish Enlightenment had effects far beyond Scotland, not only because of the esteem in which Scottish achievements were held outside Scotland, but also because its ideas and attitudes were carried all over Great Britain and across the Western world as part of the Scottish diaspora, and by foreign students who studied in Scotland.