The Enlightenment was the period were they fought for intellectual unity, a vision of secular knowledge in the service of human rights and human progress was the West's greatest contribution to civilization.
Unfortunately it failed, because the ideas no longer dominated.
Rousseau contributed a lot to these ideal and wrote in his sovereign contract "each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole". This movement failed not only because of the tyrannies but because of other intellectual oppositions.
The idea of progressive arose, "the time will come". "when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other matter than their reason".
Condorcet believed that the mind is molded wholly by its environment, so humans are free to make themselves and society as they please.His conviction came from that culture is governed by laws as exact as those of physics, We need only understand them, to keep humanity on its predestined course to a more perfect social order ruled by science and secular philosophy.
The Scientific Revolution was driven by shared a passion to demystify the world and free the mind from the impersonal forces that imprison it.They were driven by the thrill of discovery. They agreed on the power of science to reveal and orderly, understandable universe and thereby lay an enduring base for free rational discourse.They thought that the perfection of the celestial bodies discovered by astronomy and physics could serve as a model for human society. They believed in the unity of all knowledge, individual human rights, natural law, and indefinite human progress. They tried to avoid metaphysics even while the flaws and incompleteness of their explanations forced them to practiced it. They resisted organized religion, despised revelation and dogma, they tolerated the state as a contrivance required for civil order. They believed that education and right reason would enormously benefit humanity.
Francis Bacon said: " We must understand nature, both around us and within ourselves, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement. We must do it knowing that destiny is in our hands and that denial of the dream leads back to barbarism"
Observe the world around you as it truly is, and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it, put into it every fiber of your being.
The dreams of a bad night are given to us as a philosophy.You will say I am too am a dreamer; I admit it, but I do what others fail to do, I give my dreams as dreams, and leave the reader to discover whether there is anything in them which may prove useful to those who are awake". - Rousseau.
Unfortunately it failed, because the ideas no longer dominated.
Rousseau contributed a lot to these ideal and wrote in his sovereign contract "each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole". This movement failed not only because of the tyrannies but because of other intellectual oppositions.
The idea of progressive arose, "the time will come". "when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other matter than their reason".
Condorcet believed that the mind is molded wholly by its environment, so humans are free to make themselves and society as they please.His conviction came from that culture is governed by laws as exact as those of physics, We need only understand them, to keep humanity on its predestined course to a more perfect social order ruled by science and secular philosophy.
The Scientific Revolution was driven by shared a passion to demystify the world and free the mind from the impersonal forces that imprison it.They were driven by the thrill of discovery. They agreed on the power of science to reveal and orderly, understandable universe and thereby lay an enduring base for free rational discourse.They thought that the perfection of the celestial bodies discovered by astronomy and physics could serve as a model for human society. They believed in the unity of all knowledge, individual human rights, natural law, and indefinite human progress. They tried to avoid metaphysics even while the flaws and incompleteness of their explanations forced them to practiced it. They resisted organized religion, despised revelation and dogma, they tolerated the state as a contrivance required for civil order. They believed that education and right reason would enormously benefit humanity.
Francis Bacon said: " We must understand nature, both around us and within ourselves, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement. We must do it knowing that destiny is in our hands and that denial of the dream leads back to barbarism"
Observe the world around you as it truly is, and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it, put into it every fiber of your being.
The dreams of a bad night are given to us as a philosophy.You will say I am too am a dreamer; I admit it, but I do what others fail to do, I give my dreams as dreams, and leave the reader to discover whether there is anything in them which may prove useful to those who are awake". - Rousseau.