The enlightenment was a great time of change in both Europe and America. Some of the biggest changes, however, happened in the minds of many and in the writings of many philosophers. Writers during this time focused on optimism, which is the opinion to do everything for the best (Chaney 119), and the best for these philosophers was to stretch the minds of the ordinary. The writers during the Enlightenment period including David Hume and Jean Jacques Rousseau reshaped the minds of pessimists.
David Hume was Scottish and was born on April 26, 1711 and died in 1776. He states that he was not born into a rich family and was born into the Calvinist Presbyterian Church. However, after being influenced by the works of Isaac Newton and John Locke he began to draw back from the church. He writes in Enquiry, “The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom.” (Pomerleau 214) The questions he brought up against religion were that concrete experiences must lead us and that we must think about the quality of the stories that were handed down to us. He wanted everyone to only believe the
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None of these people ever take in to consideration the less fortunate. His first years of life were very hard because his mother died shortly after his birth and he was sent to live with his aunt. To him kings are just concerned with themselves and when one dies, another one is needed. Therefore, the stories conflicted each other leaving a person to not know what to believe. First of all, the facts to the stories are never the same to everyone. Again, these questions began to be disputed and the people began to realize that their lives could mean more than just what the world is really about. Rousseau was involved with the social contract like Hume. actions were four basic problems to the stories that we hear. Most of them had to publish their books in secrecy and still had to deal with them getting burned as officials found out. Ideally, everyone in a society needs to be in agre!
ement with one another. Finally, not all of the religions agree. His book, however, did not become popular until after the French Revolution because these were the conditions that the revolution was based on (Chambers 669). Whether the readers believed he philosophers or not, it got the reader thinking and he talked to his friends and the revolts began.
For most of the philosophers during the time of the Enlightenment, things were bad. Whether philosophy, religion, or politics were the basis of one’s reading they were generally flipped around.
Approximate Word count =
880
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4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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