Which best describes the Enlightenment as a historical phenomenon (c. 1680–1800)?
A single unified doctrine, centred in France, that worshipped Reason and rejected all religion A plural, pan-European movement — Aufklärung, lumières, the Scottish and English Enlightenments, the Haskalah — unified less by a creed than by a family of values rooted in reason as the tribunal of belief A purely scientific enterprise concerned only with physics and mathematics, with no bearing on religion or politics A German philosophical school founded by Kant and confined to the late eighteenth century
Next question → Kant's motto 'sapere aude' is best translated and understood as…
'Know as many facts as possible' — Enlightenment as the accumulation of information 'Trust the learned authorities' — deferring to experts who have dared to know for you 'Dare to know' / dare to use your own understanding — a demand on courage and will, since the obstacle is nerve, not intelligence 'Reject all tradition and faith' — Enlightenment as the abolition of religion
Next question → The term 'Dark Ages' is significant to the study of the Enlightenment mainly because…
it is a precise, neutral historical periodization still favoured by scholars today it was a medieval self-description that the Enlightenment merely inherited unchanged it names the period of the Scientific Revolution that the Enlightenment rejected it is largely an Enlightenment (and Renaissance-humanist) coinage — a polemical label pinned on the medieval past, revealing how the movement defined itself by contrast as the 'dawn' of light
Next question → What did the editors intend the Encyclopédie (1751–72) to accomplish?
To gather and diffuse human knowledge so as to 'change the common way of thinking' and quietly weaken dogma — a collective engine of Enlightenment, sometimes subverting orthodoxy by cross-reference To provide an impartial, apolitical inventory of settled facts with no reforming aim To defend Catholic doctrine with the resources of the new science To serve as a technical manual for a small circle of professional scientists
Next question → What did the Enlightenment take from Newton, and what from Locke?
From Newton, government by consent; from Locke, the three laws of motion From Newton, the doctrine of innate ideas; from Locke, universal gravitation From Newton, that nature is lawful and knowable by observation and mathematics (a model of secure, cumulative knowledge); from Locke, that the mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) filled by experience, together with toleration and government by consent From both, a rejection of experience in favour of purely a priori system-building
Next question → The Enlightenment's characteristic methodological shift is best described as a turn…
from experience and observation back toward grand a priori metaphysical systems from grand a priori systems (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) toward experience, observation, criticism, and utility — so that 'the century of philosophy' meant critical inquiry, not system-building from reason toward faith and revelation as the primary sources of knowledge from mathematics toward pure literary speculation with no method
Next question → According to the moderate/radical distinction (associated with Jonathan Israel), which statement is correct?
The moderates rejected reason while the radicals embraced it The split tracks nationality exactly: moderates were French and anti-clerical, radicals German and pious Both wings appealed to reason but disagreed over its limits: moderates (Locke, Voltaire's deism, Montesquieu, Kant) reconciled reason with faith, tradition, and authority — reform, not demolition — while radicals (the later Diderot, d'Holbach) drove reason to materialism, democracy, and full secularity, drawing underground on Spinoza's Deus sive Natura The radicals wanted to preserve the church and monarchy while the moderates wanted to abolish them
Next question → Which pair of claims correctly states Rousseau's dissenting position?
The arts and sciences have improved our morals; and freedom means each person doing exactly as he pleases The arts, sciences, and civilization have corrupted our morals and bred inequality; and true freedom is obedience to the general will — the shared will oriented to the common good, not the mere sum of private preferences or the majority's vote Progress is unqualifiedly good; and the general will simply means the decree of the monarch Nature is a single material substance with no supernatural remainder; and the general will means everyone's private desires added together
Next question → ✍️ Open answer · AI-graded
The Enlightenment is often caricatured as a single, confident cult of Reason. Drawing on this unit, argue against that caricature: characterize the Enlightenment as a plural movement, and show how its internal tensions — moderate versus radical, and Rousseau's dissent over progress — reveal it to be self-critical rather than a unified doctrine.
What to cover: Establish the shared family of values first, then use the moderate/radical split and Rousseau to show the movement arguing with itself. Name real figures, works, and dates, and be precise about what each side actually claimed.
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