This book systematically traces the development of the idea that the improvement of human understanding requires public activity.

"...there is nothing elementary about O'Grady's primer. She pulls off the feat of writing a reliable and accessible introduction to modern philosophy that is also a meaningful contribution to the subject." - Times Literary Supplement From Descartes' famous line 'I think therefore I am' to Kant's fascinating discussions of morality, the thinkers of the Enlightenment have helped to shape the modern world. Addressing such important subjects as the foundations of knowledge and the role of ethics, the theories of these philosophers continue to have great relevance to our lives. Ranging across Enlightenment thinking from Berkeley to Rousseau, Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell explains important ideas such as Locke's ideas of primary and secondary qualities, Kant's moral rationalism, and Hume's inductive reasoning. Filled with helpful diagrams and simple summaries of complex theories, this essential introduction brings the great ideas of the past to everyone. ABOUT THE SERIES: The 'Knowledge in a Nutshell' series by Arcturus Publishing provides engaging introductions to many fields of knowledge, including philosophy, psychology and physics, and the ways in which human kind has sought to make sense of our world.

This volume offers an overview of the Enlightenment's revolution of Western theology. It explains the era's ideas within the framework of religion, politics, and society--and shows how they impacted that society.

Welcome to the 3 Books To Know series, our idea is to help readers learn about fascinating topics through three essential and relevant books.These carefully selected works can be fiction, non-fiction, historical documents or even biographies.We will always select for you three great works to instigate your mind, this time the topic is: Age of EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment - or Age of Reason - was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the sovereignty of reason and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.What is Enlightenment? by Immanuel Kant.Discourse on the Method by René Descartes.The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau."What Is Enlightenment?" is a 1784 essay by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant replied to the question posed a year earlier by the Reverend Johann Friedrich Zöllner. Kant's opening paragraph of the essay is a much-cited definition of a lack of enlightenment as people's inability to think for themselves due not to their lack of intellect, but lack of courage.Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the development of natural sciences.The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a 1762 book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society.This is one of many books in the series 3 Books To Know. If you liked this book, look for the other titles in the series, we are sure you will like some of the topics!

Enlightenment—Aufklärung in German, Lumières in French—is more an idea than a period. But it is an idea that took hold in a particular historical context of revolutionary scientific advances, increasing economic and social freedom, rising literacy and prosperity, and a greater willingness to challenge the authoritarianism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In The Wisdom of the Enlightenment, author Michael K. Kellogg points to 1637, the year that gave us Rene Descartes’ landmark inquiry into truth, as the beginning of a period that radically changed individual human thought and collective societal action. From Descartes’ assertion of “I think, therefore I am,” to the philosophies of Enlightenment thinkers like Moliere, Spinoza, Voltaire, Hume, and Kant, this book charts the new and revolutionary philosophies at a time when progress seemed possible across the whole range of human knowledge and endeavor. In sweeping aside tired superstitions and applying a new scientific methodology, the Enlightenment ideas of progress through free exercise of reason ushered us into the modern world. This engaging and comprehensive survey of Enlightenment thoughts and thinkers is a celebration of the faith that all problems are solvable by human reason. ,