Background Essay: The Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory. Background Essay: The Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory

– I can explain the historical context for the emergence of the Enlightenment.. – I can explain the major ideas of Enlightenment thinkers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

|absolute monarchy||a form of government under which the monarch holds all political power|. |civil society||the groups of citizens and organizations that make up society and work for the common concerns in a community|

Example Question #11 : Philosophies And Ideologies 1450 To 1750. Which of these statements would John Locke most likely disagree with?

Mankind, when forced to live in a state of nature, is incredibly barbaric and brutish. The people have the right to revolt against an inadequate government

Government has a responsibility to protect the individual rights of its citizens. Mankind, when forced to live in a state of nature, is incredibly barbaric and brutish

Although there is no consensus about the exact span of time that corresponds to the American Enlightenment, it is safe to say that it occurred during the eighteenth century among thinkers in British North America and the early United States and was inspired by the ideas of the British and French Enlightenments. Based on the metaphor of bringing light to the Dark Age, the Age of the Enlightenment (Siècle des lumières in French and Aufklärung in German) shifted allegiances away from absolute authority, whether religious or political, to more skeptical and optimistic attitudes about human nature, religion and politics

Some coupled science and religion in the notion of deism; others asserted the natural rights of man in the anti-authoritarian doctrine of liberalism; and still others touted the importance of cultivating virtue, enlightened leadership and community in early forms of republican thinking. At least six ideas came to punctuate American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress

The pre- and post-revolutionary era in American history generated propitious conditions for Enlightenment thought to thrive on an order comparable to that witnessed in the European Enlightenments. In the pre-revolutionary years, Americans reacted to the misrule of King George III, the unfairness of Parliament (“taxation without representation”) and exploitative treatment at the hands of a colonial power: the English Empire

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.. – “A Letter Concerning Toleration” “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” “Essays on the Law of Nature” “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” “The Reasonableness of Christianity” “Two Tracts on Government” “Two Treatises of Government”

What contributions did John Locke make to epistemology?. What contributions did John Locke make to political theory?

He was an inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United States. His philosophical thinking was close to that of the founders of modern science, especially Robert Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, and other members of the Royal Society

The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment,[note 2] also known as the Age of Reason, was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe, especially Western Europe, in the 17th and 18th centuries, with global influences and effects.[2][3] The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as natural law, liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.[4][5]. The Enlightenment was preceded by the Scientific Revolution and the work of Francis Bacon and John Locke, among others

Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of the Enlightenment. European historians traditionally date its beginning with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with the 1789 outbreak of the French Revolution

Philosophers and scientists of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffeehouses and in printed books, journals,[7] and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Catholic Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries

The Political Philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. This complete module with all materials may be downloaded as a PDF here.

government class to teach the AP syllabus topic “Constitutional Foundations: English Enlightenment Influences.” However, the module may be utilized in standard or honors U.S. Estimated module length: Two hours and fifteen to twenty minutes

A number of American founders, familiar with both political philosophers, favored the ideas of Locke, particularly the assertions that men had natural rights, rulers should derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and the governed had the right to overthrow governments that abused their rights.. This module is designed to introduce students to the political thought of both men and serves as a bridge to future lessons concerning the Declaration of Independence, the U.S Constitution, and other foundational documents.

John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch

Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments

Locke also defends the principle of majority rule and the separation of legislative and executive powers. In the Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke denied that coercion should be used to bring people to (what the ruler believes is) the true religion and also denied that churches should have any coercive power over their members

(Image via Wikimedia Commons, painted by Godfrey Kneller 1697, public domain). The American revolutionary generation drew many of its ideas from the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704)

Locke argued against the ‘paternal’ supervision of government. Locke was born into a prosperous family that held parliamentary sympathies during the English Civil War

During political exile in Holland, Locke refined his most famous works of philosophy and political theory: the Essay concerning Human Understanding and the Two Treatises of Government, respectively. Both works are based on the premise that since human beings are capable of exercising reason, they can be trusted to manage their own affairs without the “paternal” supervision of government, as he argues in his Second Treatise (1952 edition: 30).