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- Dictionaryenlightenment/ɪnˈlʌɪtənm(ə)nt/
noun
- 1. the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened: "Robbie looked to me for enlightenment"
- 2. a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent figures included Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.
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Enlightenment can mean the state of understanding something or the highest spiritual state in Hinduism and Buddhism. It can also refer to the 18th century period in Europe when science and reason were valued over religion and tradition.
- English (US)
ENLIGHTENMENT meaning: 1. the state of understanding...
- Traditional
ENLIGHTENMENT translate: 領悟;啓發;開導, （印度教和佛教中的）般若，智慧，覺悟,...
- English (US)
- Overview
- The age of reason: human understanding of the universe
Historians place the Enlightenment in Europe (with a strong emphasis on France) during the late 17th and the 18th centuries, or, more comprehensively, between the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789. It represents a phase in the intellectual history of Europe and also programs of reform, inspired by a belief in the possibility of a better world, that outlined specific targets for criticism and programs of action.
What led to the Enlightenment?
The roots of the Enlightenment can be found in the humanism of the Renaissance, with its emphasis on the study of Classical literature. The Protestant Reformation, with its antipathy toward received religious dogma, was another precursor. Perhaps the most important sources of what became the Enlightenment were the complementary rational and empirical methods of discovering truth that were introduced by the scientific revolution.
Renaissance
Learn more about the Renaissance.
Reformation
The powers and uses of reason had first been explored by the philosophers of ancient Greece. The Romans adopted and preserved much of Greek culture, notably including the ideas of a rational natural order and natural law. Amid the turmoil of empire, however, a new concern arose for personal salvation, and the way was paved for the triumph of the Christian religion. Christian thinkers gradually found uses for their Greco-Roman heritage. The system of thought known as Scholasticism, culminating in the work of Thomas Aquinas, resurrected reason as a tool of understanding. In Thomas’s presentation, Aristotle provided the method for obtaining that truth which was ascertainable by reason alone; since Christian revelation contained a higher truth, Thomas placed the natural law evident to reason subordinate to, but not in conflict with, eternal law and divine law.
The intellectual and political edifice of Christianity, seemingly impregnable in the Middle Ages, fell in turn to the assaults made on it by humanism, the Renaissance, and the Protestant Reformation. Humanism bred the experimental science of Francis Bacon, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Galileo and the mathematical investigations of René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Isaac Newton. The Renaissance rediscovered much of Classical culture and revived the notion of humans as creative beings, and the Reformation, more directly but in the long run no less effectively, challenged the monolithic authority of the Roman Catholic Church. For Martin Luther, as for Bacon or Descartes, the way to truth lay in the application of human reason. Both the Renaissance and the Reformation were less movements for intellectual liberty than changes of authority, but, since they appealed to different authorities, they contributed to the breakdown of the community of thought. Received authority, whether of Ptolemy in the sciences or of the church in matters of the spirit, was to be subject to the probings of unfettered minds.
Britannica Quiz
European History
The meaning of ENLIGHTENMENT is the act or means of enlightening : the state of being enlightened. How to use enlightenment in a sentence.
Enlightenment. An intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked by a celebration of the powers of human reason, a keen interest in science, the promotion of religious toleration, and a desire to construct governments free of tyranny.
Enlightenment can mean the act or state of being enlightened, or a spiritual awakening in Buddhism or Hinduism. Learn more about the word origin, synonyms, collocations and usage examples from Collins English Dictionary.
Enlightenment is knowledge or understanding of something, or the process of making somebody understand it. It can also refer to the 18th century period in Europe when science and reason were valued over religion and tradition.
Enlightenment is education or awareness that brings change, such as your enlightenment about nutrition that leads you to throw out every last bit of your family's junk food.
