- This topic has 4 voices and 3 replies.
-
Posts
-
What new ideas did they contribute to “The Science of man”, education and religion???A discussion (arguement started in a History Club) and need more fuel for my fire! hahaha PLease discuss it would be a great help.
I think in general, philosophers during the Enlightenment heavily explored epistemology, which is the branch of study concerned with knowledge. Basically, they wanted to know how we know things. Descartes, the “father of modern philosophy” began the quest when he began his systematic doubting of everything he thought he knew until he arrived at a statement he couldn't possibly doubt – “I think, therefore I am”. After Descartes, we see an epistemological branch which takes the road of rationalism and empiricism. Without going into detail, I think these two “branches” may have helped spur the exploration of the physical works as a realm in which particular laws of nature seemed to apply in coherent fashion.
I think the rise of humanism (specifically secular humanism) gave rise to the glorification of man's ingenuity and self reliance (i.e. moving away from dependence on the Creator). Man exhibited his self reliance with his technological inventions, which inspired philosophers to seek a knowledge base independent of tradition (namely the Church). Ironically, Church theologians fashioned many of the intellectual premises that secular philosophers borrowed and merged with their own world views. Each time technology broke down a barrier for mankind, many viewed it as a means to “liberate” man from ignorance as espoused by the narrow minded dogmatists in the established churches. Still there were those like Newton and Descartes who were religionists who managed to reconcile their scientific knowledge with their faith showing it could be done. I'll have to think more about this later.
Well the philosophes, in their thinking alone, were contributing to the “science of man” simply because they felt that man had the capacity to know, understand, and classify all things (i.e. the Encyclopedia.) Religion-wise some, like Voltaire, rejected the organization of it completely. Voltaire spoke out against the Church often. The philisophes did not oppose all religion and, in fact, basically established their own. Deism consisted of two major points: 1. The belief in the existence of God, which they thought could be empirically justified 2. The belief in a life after death, when rewards and punishments would be meted out according to the virtue of the lives people led on earth. I hope this helps. I think you might want to be more specific on your question though.
Well the philosophes, in their thinking alone, were contributing to the "science of man" simply because they felt that man had the capacity to know, understand, and classify all things (i.e. the Encyclopedia.) Religion-wise some, like Voltaire, rejected the organization of it completely. Voltaire spoke out against the Church often. The philisophes did not oppose all religion and, in fact, basically established their own. Deism consisted of two major points: 1. The belief in the existence of God, which they thought could be empirically justified 2. The belief in a life after death, when rewards and punishments would be meted out according to the virtue of the lives people led on earth. I hope this helps. I think you might want to be more specific on your question though.
Deism is a religious reaction to predestination Calvinism; not a secular creation of philosophers. It was an idea that many Christians adopted to explain the nature of evil and the suffering of man allowed by God because predestination sounded more cruel to them.
