CH 17 Flashcards
Enlightenment
European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.
Voltaire
“Voltaire” is the pen name under which French author-philosopher François-Marie Arouet published a number of books and pamphlets in the 18th century. He was a key figure in the European intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment.
Diderot
Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d’Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment.
Locke
John Locke was an English philosopher and political theorist. He is recognized as the founder of British empiricism and the author of the first systematic exposition and defense of political liberalism.
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe. It was also important to the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought.
Natural rights
Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).
Salons
In 18th century France, salons were organised gatherings hosted in private homes, usually by prominent women. Individuals who attended often discussed literature or shared their views and opinions on topics from science to politics.
Adam Smith
a Scottish economist, philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. … In his work, Adam Smith introduced his theory of absolute advantage.
Free trade
Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. … Other barriers that may hinder trade include import quotas, taxes and non-tariff barriers, such as regulatory legislation.
Free market
In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority, and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities.
Skepticism
skepticism, also spelled scepticism, in Western philosophy, the attitude of doubting knowledge claims set forth in various areas. Skeptics have challenged the adequacy or reliability of these claims by asking what principles they are based upon or what they actually establish.
Atheism
Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.
Religious toleration
Religious toleration in Europe began as a practical measure taken by governments that could not enforce religious conformity. Over the course of the eighteenth century religious toleration gradually evolved into freedom of religion and became one of the rights that came to be called human rights.
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850.
Carnival
Carnival, the merrymaking and festivity that takes place in many Roman Catholic countries in the last days and hours before the Lenten season. The derivation of the word is uncertain, though it possibly can be traced to the medieval Latin carnem levare or carnelevarium, which means to take away or remove meat.
Saint’s Day Festivals
All Saints’ Day, also called All Hallows’ Day, Hallowmas, or Feast of All Saints, in the Christian church, a day commemorating all the saints of the church, both known and unknown, who have attained heaven. … In Roman Catholicism, the feast is usually a holy day of obligation.
Charivari
Charivari was a ritual used by medieval and early modern Europeans to chastise community members who failed to conform to social expectations, especially sexual ones. Examples included a widow who remarried, a wife who beat her husband, or a couple who failed to have children.
Montesquieu
Montesquieu was a French lawyer, man of letters, and one of the most influential political philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. His political theory work, particularly the idea of separation of powers, shaped the modern democratic government.
Cesare Beccaria
an Italian criminologist and economist. His work was significant in the development of Utilitarianism. Beccaria advocated swift punishment as the best form of deterrent to crime.
Social Contract
In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. … Grotius posited that individual humans had natural rights.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer and a passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. She called for the betterment of women’s status through such political change as the radical reform of national educational systems. Such change, she concluded, would benefit all society.
Coffeehouses
English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries were public social places where men would meet for conversation and commerce. For the price of a penny, customers purchased a cup of coffee and admission.
Physiocrats
physiocrat, any of a school of economists founded in 18th-century France and characterized chiefly by a belief that government policy should not interfere with the operation of natural economic laws and that land is the source of all wealth.
Francois Quesnay
French economist and intellectual leader of the physiocrats, the first systematic school of political economy.
David Hume
a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism.
