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The Late Modern Age

The Enlightenment

The philosophical movement that championed reason, rights, and progress in 18th-century Europe.

Wikimedia Commons · Benoît-Louis Prévost, after Charles-Nicolas Cochin · Public domain

60-Second Review

Express review

A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

  1. Historical Context and Origins of Enlightenment Thought. The Enlightenment spread confidence in reason and progress across Europe from the late 1600s to the late 1700s.
  2. British Empiricism: Locke, Newton, and Hume. Locke, Newton, and Hume built the empiricist foundation on which much of the European Enlightenment rested.
  3. Voltaire and the Enlightenment Critique of Religious Fanaticism. Voltaire fought fanaticism and intolerance and became Europe's leading popularizer of deism.
  4. Montesquieu and Rousseau: Constitutionalism and the Social Contract. Montesquieu theorized the separation of powers while Rousseau grounded legitimate sovereignty in the general will.
  5. The Encyclopédie, Salons, and the Republic of Letters. The Encyclopédie, Parisian salons, and clandestine printing networks spread Enlightenment ideas across Europe.
  6. Economic Liberalism and Penal Reform: The Physiocrats, Adam Smith, and Beccaria. The Physiocrats, Adam Smith, and Beccaria applied Enlightenment reason to economics and criminal law.
  7. National Variants: The Scottish Enlightenment and the German Aufklärung. Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Kant's Königsberg, produced two of the Enlightenment's most distinctive national schools.
  8. Enlightened Despotism, Science, Global Contradictions, and Legacy. Enlightenment ideas reshaped monarchies and science while colliding with slavery, colonialism, and later criticism.

This is the starting point of The Late Modern Age: you don't need any prior knowledge of this subject to begin.

Key points

Visual module map

1Historical Context and Origins of Enlightenment Thought
2Voltaire and the Enlightenment Critique of Religious Fanaticism
3The Encyclopédie, Salons, and the Republic of Letters
4Economic Liberalism and Penal Reform: The Physiocrats, Adam Smith, and Beccaria
5Enlightened Despotism, Science, Global Contradictions, and Legacy

Alternative visual view: a simplified sequence of some of the module's key points, in their order within the syllabus.

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Final test

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Memory

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Time Attack

Answer true or false statements before time runs out.

Chronological Order

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Further reading

Bibliography and cited sources used to create this module.

  • Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation.
  • Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750.
  • Roy Porter, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment.
  • Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800.
  • Voltaire, Philosophical Letters (Letters Concerning the English Nation).
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract.
  • Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.
  • Immanuel Kant, "An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?"