Some Characteristics of the Enlightenment Are: the value given to reason over faith, the rejection of absolutism and freedom.
In philosophy, the Enlightenment (also called Siglo de las Luces or Age of Reason) was a group of thoughts that developed in Europe during the eighteenth century, especially in the years preceding the Independence of the United States and the French Revolution .
The Enlightenment also involved profound scientific changes that were synchronized with the Industrial Age And the rise of capitalism, as well as with the knowledge that was disseminated through the Encyclopedism .
Numerous authors can attest to these discoveries and contributions to reason, such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Humboldt, Locke and Montesquieu . Not a few men applied their ideas to politics, such as Thomas Jefferson and Francisco de Miranda.
Ideologically, the Enlightenment had several features that defined its proposals proposed by its authors, which had a prolific work.
The following ten characteristics take into account its most transcendental aspects in philosophy, economics, politics, society, language, science and religion. These go hand in hand with the most famous writers of his time and the most mentioned books, read and studied of the Enlightenment.
List of 10 characteristics of the Enlightenment
1- Predominance of reason about faith
Encyclopedism is the best proof of what the Enlightenment was: the total abandonment of the medieval spirit, where theology prevailed, and the embrace of the love of knowledge, that is, philosophy and science.
The Enlightenment stood out for being rationalist and not fideísta; Only reason explains the world. Faith, on the other hand, is a private matter that does not describe things, but interprets them according to a particular religious doctrine from which it is better to separate so as to truly satisfy the thirst for knowledge.
Likewise, the rationalism of the Enlightenment led to the rejection of every link of man with his superstitions and beliefs lacking in fundamentals and evidences.
To remove the human being from his obscurantist state, it was necessary to verify the statements with logic, observation and experiments. It was also imperative that the past should be criticized with great harshness, since ancient times are proof of the barbarism occasioned by that terrible state of ignorance.
2. The rise of deism
Many of those who supported the Enlightenment or wrote for it were not theists, but deists. This means that they believed in God, but they did not have Religious affiliation Of any kind: they were not Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, or Jews.
Even some of them were close to the Freemasonry , Especially the great majority of American and Latin American heroes. This gave rise to the church qualifying them as atheists or heretics deserving excommunication.
There were specific cases of atheism Among the Enlightenment philosophers, but they were as little recurrent as those of agnosticism . In fact, there were stances reluctant to both doctrines.
For example, that of Voltaire, who firmly believed that the absence of belief in God was the polar opposite of institutionalized religions, so it had to be avoided. In this way, it was preferable to have a single faith in God that was common to all men.
3- Moral lay
The notion of ethics and morals in the Enlightenment refrained from using precepts taken from the institutional religions, to which it rejected completely, as explained in the following section.
The writers of this time used to believe in a universal morality, since all men are equal.
In this sense, it was necessary to transcend the limitations imposed by religions, whose norms had conflicts with each other, since each believed that only their faith had the absolute truth.
4- Renunciation of institutionalized religion
Not all the writers of the Enlightenment said so openly, but some did state that institutionalized religion was a harm to humanity. These thought that it was source of discrimination, division, intolerance and violence in the town; Even some were anti-Catholic.
This was what Voltaire maintained in his Treaty on tolerance , In which he denounced the abuses committed by Roman Catholicism, which was guilty of crimes against Huguenots and Protestants.
5. Rejection of absolutism and monarchy
The thinkers of the Enlightenment were reluctant to monarchy and absolutism. Therefore, they believed in the separation of powers and in a concerted government between the State and its citizens, as Rousseau said in his The c social contract .
However, the paradox in men like Rousseau is that they did not want tyranny, but they were in favor of a" Enlightened Despotism "In which there was a dictatorship where he sent the"popular will"and crushed anyone who opposed that majority.
6- Evaluation of classical Greco-Roman ideas
In the Enlightenment, intellectuals admired the Greco-Roman philosophers and used them as a model for designing their theories about the state or, at least, for schematizing their books into books and then subdividing them into chapters.
For example, him social contract Of Rousseau is very reminiscent of Aristotle In terms of form (see how the stagirite composed his Politics ), But in its underlying plot structure has clear reminiscences of the Republic from Plato .
7- Concern for gaining knowledge
Once again we must mention encyclopedism. In this case, the thinkers of the Enlightenment were not content with just being rationalists and leaving faith aside to explain the cosmos. It was necessary to gather the knowledge, to order it, to prepare it for its diffusion throughout the generations, to delve into the unknown...
However, these thinkers still disdained the exotic, since many European intellectuals did not believe that America had anything special.
8- Ideological and economic freedom
There is no point in talking about Enlightenment without freedoms. The intellectuals of this current never forgot to mention them in their books and the politicians did not take them out of their speeches.
The question was simple but important: no one should be persecuted for their way of thinking or for their religious beliefs. More important still, there had to be free trade between nations, without the restrictions of protectionism and without the obstacles of colonialism.
This last one was one of the main triggers of the War of American Independence and one of the motivations for the emergence of the Independence of Venezuela in 1811.
In this regard, politicians took into account the free trade Adam Smith , Pioneer of capitalism. These concepts were also complemented by those of Locke, on the basis of which the defense of private property and individual rights was established.
9- Universalism, anthropocentrism, pragmatism
The Enlightenment advocates that the virtues of man are universal, as well as the knowledge he acquires and his moral values.
In this sense, God himself is only one and, therefore, there is no reason to adhere to what a particular institutionalized religion says.
This notion led his intellectuals to believe that men are not only thinking animals but are human beings endowed with a reason that makes them equal and free by nature.
On the other hand, the anthropocentrism of the Enlightenment argues that everything revolves around the human being, what he conceives and what he can do with his environment.
Nothing can be understood or valued except from the perspective of man, who lives and works for himself, although it seems to benefit other species or the environment. Even faith, which focuses on God, passes to man, without which religious exercise would have no meaning or reason.
The pragmatism that is in the Enlightenment follows what for thinkers like Jeremy Bentham Was translated into a utility principle: if an idea is useful, then it can and should be put into practice.
This principle was fundamental for the American politicians during their process of emancipation, in which they could only implant a political system - call Centralism or federalism - to guarantee the maximum amount of happiness and well-being possible, for the common good.
10- Presence of vernacular languages
A peculiar feature of the Enlightenment is that its intellectual production is very different from that of the Renaissance Or in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In those times many works were written and published in Latin, such as Copernicus or Galileo , But already in the eighteenth century it was common for the thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment to express their opinions in languages such as English, Spanish and, par excellence, French. Of course, the classical languages never stopped studying.
As for the type of language used, it varies depending on the philosopher of the Enlightenment concerned.
In political positions, some men like Rousseau were more lenient in their denunciation of monarchical and religious authority.
Other intellectuals like Voltaire were more ardent, with a more extroverted discourse that often became incendiary. The latter used strong accusations against absolutism and the institutions of Catholicism.
Influences of the Age of Light
The Enlightenment emerged in the Old Continent and had many intellectuals in France, but also gained adherents in England, Russia, Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, North America and Spanish America.
The Enlightenment had a strong intellectual influence on events between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as the aforementioned emancipation of the Americans and the revolution of the French, apart from the independence of most of the Hispanic viceroys in the Spanish America, such as New Granada.
In other latitudes of Europe, it was transcendental for movements such as the Italian Risorgimento and even for the formation of Marxism.
References
- Audi, Robert (1999). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Blackburn, Simon (2016). The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Delon, Michel (2013). Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. London: Routledge.
- Encyclopædia Britannica (2017). Enlightenment. London, United Kingdom. Recovered from britannica.com
- Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de (2001). The Spirit of Laws (translated by Thomas Nugent). Ontario: Batoche Books.
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (2007). The social contract; 12th edition (translation by Fernando de los Ríos). London: Oxford University Press.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016). Enlightenment. California, United States: Stanford University. Recovered from plato.stanford.edu
- Voltaire (2007). Treaty on tolerance, 2nd edition (translation by Mauro Armiño). London: Oxford University Press.