Arkansas State University Renaissance Era Rationalism and Humanism Questions you have everything you need to do to finish this homework in the word documen

Arkansas State University Renaissance Era Rationalism and Humanism Questions you have everything you need to do to finish this homework in the word document and if you need anything to help work on the homework tell me, you have a due date for each question so you dont need to finish all of them at ones Question 1
Introduction to the Renaissance and the Age of Reason
Due Tuesday by 23:59
For this assignment you will:
1. Read the Introduction for Renaissance and the Age of Reason starting
on page 100 and watch

2.

3. Read Enlightenment word document
3. Write an 8 to 13 sentence paragraph about what you understand the
characteristics of of the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras and the
influence of these in philosophy.
Question 2
Renaissance Discussion
.No unread replies.No replies
:For this assignment you will
.Read pages 100-107, 112-123, and 130-141 .1
2. Watch the following videos:




Create a 400 word post answering the following questions:
•
In what ways do Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, and Descartes compare and contrast
in their arguments about knowledge and why?
•
What are the pros and cons of both “The Ends Justifies the Means” and
Contractarianism?
Enlightenment
First published Fri Aug 20, 2010; substantive revision Tue Aug 29, 2017
The heart of the eighteenth century Enlightenment is the loosely organized activity of
prominent French thinkers of the mid-decades of the eighteenth century, the so-called
“philosophes”(e.g., Voltaire, D’Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu).
The philosophes constituted an informal society of men of letters who collaborated on a
loosely defined project of Enlightenment exemplified by the project of the Encyclopedia (see
below 1.5). However, there are noteworthy centers of Enlightenment outside of France as
well. There is a renowned Scottish Enlightenment (key figures are Frances Hutcheson, Adam
Smith, David Hume, Thomas Reid), a German Enlightenment (die Aufklärung, key figures of
which include Christian Wolff, Moses Mendelssohn, G.E. Lessing and Immanuel Kant), and
there are also other hubs of Enlightenment and Enlightenment thinkers scattered throughout
Europe and America in the eighteenth century.
What makes for the unity of such tremendously diverse thinkers under the label of
“Enlightenment”? For the purposes of this entry, the Enlightenment is conceived broadly.
D’Alembert, a leading figure of the French Enlightenment, characterizes his eighteenth
century, in the midst of it, as “the century of philosophy par excellence”, because of the
tremendous intellectual and scientific progress of the age, but also because of the expectation
of the age that philosophy (in the broad sense of the time, which includes the natural and
social sciences) would dramatically improve human life. Guided by D’Alembert’s
characterization of his century, the Enlightenment is conceived here as having its primary
origin in the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. The rise of the new science
progressively undermines not only the ancient geocentric conception of the cosmos, but also
the set of presuppositions that had served to constrain and guide philosophical inquiry in the
earlier times. The dramatic success of the new science in explaining the natural world
promotes philosophy from a handmaiden of theology, constrained by its purposes and
methods, to an independent force with the power and authority to challenge the old and
construct the new, in the realms both of theory and practice, on the basis of its own
principles. Taking as the core of the Enlightenment the aspiration for intellectual progress,
and the belief in the power of such progress to improve human society and individual lives,
this entry includes descriptions of relevant aspects of the thought of earlier thinkers, such as
Hobbes, Locke, Descartes, Bayle, Leibniz, and Spinoza, thinkers whose contributions are
indispensable to understanding the eighteenth century as “the century of philosophy par
excellence”.
The Enlightenment is often associated with its political revolutions and ideals, especially the
French Revolution of 1789. The energy created and expressed by the intellectual foment of
Enlightenment thinkers contributes to the growing wave of social unrest in France in the
eighteenth century. The social unrest comes to a head in the violent political upheaval which
sweeps away the traditionally and hierarchically structured ancien régime (the monarchy, the
privileges of the nobility, the political power of the Catholic Church). The French
revolutionaries meant to establish in place of the ancien régime a new reason-based order
instituting the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality. Though the Enlightenment, as a
diverse intellectual and social movement, has no definite end, the devolution of the French
Revolution into the Terror in the 1790s, corresponding, as it roughly does, with the end of
the eighteenth century and the rise of opposed movements, such as Romanticism, can serve
as a convenient marker of the end of the Enlightenment, conceived as an historical period.
For Enlightenment thinkers themselves, however, the Enlightenment is not an historical
period, but a process of social, psychological or spiritual development, unbound to time or
place. Immanuel Kant defines “enlightenment” in his famous contribution to debate on the
question in an essay entitled “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (1784),
as humankind’s release from its self-incurred immaturity; “immaturity is the inability to use
one’s own understanding without the guidance of another.” Expressing convictions shared
among Enlightenment thinkers of widely divergent doctrines, Kant identifies enlightenment
with the process of undertaking to think for oneself, to employ and rely on one’s own
intellectual capacities in determining what to believe and how to act. Enlightenment
philosophers from across the geographical and temporal spectrum tend to have a great deal of
confidence in humanity’s intellectual powers, both to achieve systematic knowledge of
nature and to serve as an authoritative guide in practical life. This confidence is generally
paired with suspicion or hostility toward other forms or carriers of authority (such as
tradition, superstition, prejudice, myth and miracles), insofar as these are seen to compete
with the authority of one’s own reason and experience. Enlightenment philosophy tends to
stand in tension with established religion, insofar as the release from self-incurred
immaturity in this age, daring to think for oneself, awakening one’s intellectual powers,
generally requires opposing the role of established religion in directing thought and action.
The faith of the Enlightenment – if one may call it that – is that the process of enlightenment,
of becoming progressively self-directed in thought and action through the awakening of
one’s intellectual powers, leads ultimately to a better, more fulfilled human existence.
Reference:
Bristow, William. “Enlightenment.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University,
29 Aug. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/.

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