Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment Key terms and Questions

What does Descartes mean by his famous quote, "I think therefore I am."

He found that he could not doubt that he himself existed, as he was the one doing the doubting in the first place

How did Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Rousseau's The Social Contract support Locke's view on the role of government?

Lockes view on the government was that it should protect peoples rights and that people should be equal no matter what they believe in. He also stated that people created the government and gives it its power. Smith also believes that people deserves basic rights. Rousseau believe in the social contract in which the government gives the people. protection and stability while the people gives the government power and authority.

Volatire

Most important French philosopher who believed that the government must protect people's basic rights. Included freedom of speech and religion. He believed that no religion or religious group should be favored by the government.

Explain Newton's analogy of the universe and his concept of "Physical laws"

nature is like a machine. Humans can understand a clock. If you understand a clock, the universe can be understood with the right materials

John Locke, Two Treatise of Government

A carefully developed defense of individual political liberty, based on his theory of natural rights and natural law. He believed that a key feature of the state of nature is a state of perfect freedom. All persons are not only equal but also rational

Nicolaus Copernicus

A mathematician and astronomer who proposed that the sun was stationary in the center of the universe and the earth revolved around it instead of the planets orbiting the Earth. He laid out his model of the solar system and the path of the planets.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Believed in a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. States that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature can only be avoided by a strong undivided government. Hobbes argue that believers do not ender their prospects of salvation by obeying a sovereign's decrees to the letter, and he maintains that churches do not have any authority that is granted by the civil sovereign.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

He says that a social contract is an agreement among a whole society that it would be governed by the general will. General will represent what is best for the entire community. He believes that individuals who want to follow their own self-interest must be forced to abide by the general will.

Enlightened Absolution

Incorporation of Enlightenment ideas (such as religious toleration, freedom of speech) into monarchical practices; often used to enhance the ruler's own power by limiting the power of the church and the nobility

How did the Scientific Revolution reshape thinking about the universe?

The Scientific Revolution was a new way of thinking about the natural world. That way was based upon careful observation and a willingness to question accepted beliefs. A combination of discoveries and circumstances led to the Scientific Revolution and helped spread its impact.

Empiricism

The belief that there is no such thing as innate knowledge and that instead knowledge is derived from experience.

Francis Bacon

an English Renaissance statesman and philosopher who is best known for his promotion of the scientific method whereby the laws of science are discovered by gathering and analyzing data from experiments and observations, rather than by using logic-based reasoning

Encyclopedia by Denis Diderot

the development of this encyclopedia was to change the way people think and for people to be able to inform themselves and to know things. He was an original scientific Theories of the Enlightenment, who connected the newest scientific trends to radical philosophical ideas such as materialism.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

A Scottish philosopher who argued that money in and of itself did not constitute wealth, but merely its marker. He advocated the Laissez-faire economic theory. Laissez-Faire means that individuals should freely pursue their own economic interests. Free individual enterprise would create more wealth than any artificial regulation could encourage. No government interference

Scientific Method

A method of investigation: State the Question, Research, Hypothesis, Experiment, Observation, Result/conclusion

Rationalism

A philosophy that viewed reason as the chief source and test of knowledge

Isaac Newton

A scientist, mathematician, and astronomer who is best known for defining the three laws of motion and universal graviton and invented calculus.

What was the Enlightenment?

An intellectual movement emphasizing reason, individualism, skepticism, and science. Enlightenment thinking helped give rise to deism, which is the belief that God exists but does not interact supernatural with the universe. Enlightenment thinkers believed that they could help create better societies and better people. It is known as the Age of Reason because it emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith. This was a sharp turn away from the prevailing idea that people needed to rely on scripture or church authorities for knowledge.

René Descartes

Considered the father of modern philosophy. He made an important connection between geometry and algebra, which allowed for the solving of geometrical problems by way of algebraic equations. He argued the theory of innate knowledge and that all humans were born with knowledge through the higher power of God. It was this theory of innate knowledge that later led John Locke to combat the theory of empiricism which held that all knowledge is acquired through experience. A rationalists

What was the Scientific Revolution

It replaced the Greek view of nature that had dominated science for almost 2,000 years. The period saw a fundamental change in scientific ideas across mathematics, physics, astronomy, and biology in institutions supporting the scientific investigation and in the more widely held picture of the universe. The scientific revolution was so revolutionary because people started to use experimentation, the scientific method, and math to discover the world and prove things. Common people were able to gain knowledge for themselves instead of believing old teachings and the Catholic Church for information.

How did the Renaissance and the Reformation create the conditions which enabled the Scientific Revolution?

The Renaissance encouraged curiosity, investigation, discovery, modern-day knowledge. It caused people to question old beliefs. During the Scientific Revolution, people began using experiments and mathematics to understand mysteries. The Reformation helped spread the Scientific Revolution because it encouraged to question and contradict higher authority. Not only to question it but to also find evidence to support your conclusions

Why did the Enlightenment alter the way people viewed the government?

The enlightenment led to ration ideas about the government. Kings no longer ruled by divine right; rather, the government was to be rational. For some people, this meant a rise in republican thought because it was thought that the people could best govern themselves according to what they need. The change in the relationships between citizen and government was Divine rights and liberties should be limited by the need for social order.

Montesquieu, Separation of Powers

The first political scientist. He studied the government to find natural laws governing social and political relationships by using the scientific method. He believed that he English created the most freedom and security for the nation by preventing one group from having too much power, and by creating a system of checks and balances. He was inaccurate in is analysis of the English government because power was not strictly separated as he claimed, but distributed in a much more complex way.He was right to say that the English government balanced power in the system

Heliocentrism vs. the Ptolemaic View (Geocentrism)

The heliocentric model considered the sun as the center and the planets revolved around the sun. The Ptolemaic model says that the earth is at the center of the cosmos/universe, and the planets revolve around the sun, and the moon while the stars circles around it

How did governments respond to Enlightenment ideas?

The spread of enlightenment ideas sparked changes in governments and society throughout Europe. Encouraged by ideas such as natural law and social contracts, people challenged the structure of governments and society in existence. Favored limited government. The government also began to adopt ideas like natural rights, popular sovereignty, the election of government officials, and the protection of civil liberties