Age of Enlightenment

Advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government, and religion; gave way to truth.

Early Enlightenment

• 1685-1730
• Bacon, Locke, Hobbes, Descartes
• Scientific Revolution (Newton, Galileo)
• Debate, not unified ideas

High Enlightenment

• 1730-1780
• Focused on French philosophy (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu)
• "A chaos of clear ideas"
• Everything can be rationally demysified
• More modern countries, created revolutionaries (Paine, Jefferson)

Late Enlightenment

• 1780-1815
• Enlightenment decline, Romanticism begins
• Culminated in French Revolution
• Rationalism now apparent