Essay about Enlightenment: Nistha Patel Period

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Nistha Patel
Period 2
10­23­14

Enlightenment
Enlightenment was a period of time between early 17th century and the late 18th century, where individualism meaning not relying on others and having freedom mattered more than traditions meaning religions. It spread through Europe and all the way to the United States. The purpose of Enlightenment was to take religion out of society and to advance scientific knowledge. It was influenced by great philosophers like John Locke.
John Locke was born on August 29th 1632. He was an english philosopher and inspired many Enlightenment thinkers with his work. For example he was given the name ‘Father of Classical Liberalism’’ because he was very good at political philosophy and liberalism means political philosophy. Locke played a major role in the constitution.
It was Locke's idea to come up with the natural rights LIfe, Liberty, and property, which in the constitution is referred to Article two and is “ The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible right of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression”. Locke had the greatest impact on the people because he was one of the the first enlightenment philosophers, his idea made it into the constitution, both Rousseau and Hobbes were inspired by him and took ideas from him. Locke’s point of view on humans was he believed that humans were peaceful, happy, and benevolent. Even his social contract theory was a based on human nature.
The way humans would want it too sound. Lockes point of view on governance is that he believes that the government is there to serve us not us serving them. He thinks we should have the right to replace or make the changes we need when they aren’t

Nistha Patel
Period 2
10­23­14

meeting our needs. John Locke was the most influential and hepful philophers than other philosophers.
Jean­Jacques Rousseau was born on June 28th 1778. He was a philosopher, writer, and a composer in Geneva. During the 18th century. He also was a political philosopher. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and one of the outcome of the French Revolution was that they ended up having a monarchy, but they were in great debt, salary were still owed, the constitution didn’t extend universal suffrage, and the mobs weren’t checked. His influence did not help make the best choice. One of Rousseau's philosophy was “The noblest work in education is to make a reasoning man, and we expect to train a young child by making him reason! This is beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of a result. If children understood how to reason they would not need to be educated.”, which meant that he believed that it was all about reasoning. He was ruthless he didn’t care if you were young he wanted you to understand that reasoning was important. Rousseau isn’t the best philosopher he thought that all of society needed to be about reasoning, therefore the best should be brought up and form a government. Thats influenced the people and brought out great ideas like John Locke. Rossesus view on governance wasn’t great ether because he thought that government only had to do with execution of laws and he thought democracy wasn’t a good idea because of the general will of government can easily be