The Enlightenment- Attitudes of Society Essay -- Essays Papers

The Enlightenment- Attitudes of Society The Enlightenment brought somewhat fundamental changes of eyeshot in society.1 Philosophes such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau sought changes in society for the good of humanity. In addition to basic changes in society, the enlightenment brought about changes in plan in the areas of religion and science, the government, and the view of women.During the enlightenment, basic changes occurred in society. The philosophes supported bring about freedom of thought and speech, two freedoms which we often take for granted today. lot became more educated, as a print culture emerged. Journals, newspapers and books were beginning to be widely available to the oecumenic public. This had both negative and positive impacts. The literate and illiterate became divided, and the illiterate poor only became poorer. However, the print culture did pee-pee the influential social force of public opinion. Writers wrote what their audiences wanted to hear , and that translated into a political awareness of public opinion. Governments tried to regulate and censor books, but they could not ignore the publics criticisms of the government. The changes in society created a general sentiment of self-interest. People wanted to promote their happiness and welfare, and they were confident and starry-eyed that they could discover natural law and perfect worlds. Sometimes, there was an exaggerated whim in the perfectibility of man, such as in the sciences, which were still in primordial stages.2 The conflict between religion and science was one of the major issues of the enlightenment. new-sprung(prenominal) theories were being developed (like Newtons Law of Universal Gravitation) which went against the teachings of the c... ... thought were developed, governments were changed, and even though the philosophes were not really feminists, societys views of women were changed, with the help of Mary Wollstonecraft. End notes 1. Snyder, Louis L . The Age of Reason. (NY VanNostrand Reinhold Co, 1955), 13. 2. Snyder, 8. 3. Snyder, 8-11. 4. Scheider, Isidor. The Enlightenment Culture of the 18th Century, (NY George Braziller, Inc, 1965), 19. 5. Cody, David. Deism. The straight-laced Web. http//landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/religion/deism.html. (10 April 00). 6. Susan Gubar, Feminist Misogyny Mary Wollstonecraft and the Paradox of It Takes nonpareil to Know One, Feminist Studies, 20 (Fall 94) 455. 7. D.R. Woolf, A Feminine Past? Gender, music genre and Historical Knowledge in England, 1500- 1800. American Historical Review, 102 (June 97), 667-668.