Chapter 16 AP Euro Vocab

philosophes

a group of French intellectuals who proclaimed that they were bringing the light of knowledge to their fellow humans in the Age of Enlightenment

law of inertia

a law formulated by Galileo that states that motion, not rest, is the natural state of an object, and that an object continues in motion forever unless stopped by some external force

rococo

a popular style in Europe in the eighteenth century, known for its soft pastels, ornate interiors, sentimental portraits, and starry-eyed lovers protected by hovering cupids

rationalism

a secular way of thinking in which nothing was to be accepted on faith, and everything was to be submitted to reason

empiricism

a theory of inductive reasoning that calls for acquiring evidence through observation and experimentation rather than deductive reasoning and speculation

Haskalah

the Jewish enlightenment of the second half of the eighteenth century, led by the Prussian philosopher Moses Mendelssohn

reading revolution

the transition in Europe from a society where literacy consisted of patriarchal and communal reading of religious texts to a society where literacy was common-place and reading material was broad and diverse

salon

regular social gathering held by talented and rich Parisians in their homes, where philosophes and their followers met to discuss literature, science, and philosophy

public sphere

an idealized intellectual space that emerged in Europe during the enlightenment, where the public came together to discuss important issues relating to society, economics, and politics

Enlightenment

the influential intellectual movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that introduced a new worldview based on the use of reason, the scientific method, and progress

experimental method

the approach, pioneered by Galileo, that the proper way to explore the workings of the universe was through repeatable experiments rather than speculation

Copernican hypothesis

the idea that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe

Cartesian dualism

Descartes' view that all of reality could ultimately reduced to mind and matter

cameralism

view that monarchy was the best form of government, that all elements of society should serve the monarch, and that, in turn, the state should use its resources and authority to increase the public good

natural philosophy

an early modern term for the study of the nature of the universe, its purpose, and how it functioned; it encompassed what we would call "science" today

law of universal gravitation

Newton's law that all objects are attracted to one another and that the force of attraction is proportional to the objects' quantity of matter and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them

enlightened absolutism

term coined by historians to describe the rule of eighteenth-century monarchs who, without renouncing their own absolute authority, adopted Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, progress, and tolerance