Unit two-scientific revolution and Enlightenment
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Terms
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- Copernicus
- Polish astronomer who promulgated the now accepted theory that the earth and the other planets move around the sun
- Newton
- English mathematician and scientist who invented differential calculus and formulated the theory of universal gravitation, a theory about the nature of light, and three laws of motion. His treatise on gravitation, presented in Principia Mathematica (1687), was supposedly inspired by the sight of a falling apple
- Wollestonecraft
- 759-97, English author and feminist (mother of Mary Shelley)
- Bentham
- English philosopher and jurist; founder of utilitarianism
- social contract
- the voluntary agreement among individuals by which, according to any of various theories, as of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, organized society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare or to regulate the relations among its members
- Descartes
- French philosopher and mathematician; developed dualistic theory of mind and matter; introduced the use of coordinates to locate a point in two or three dimensions (1596-1650)
- Galileo
- talian astronomer and mathematician who was the first to use a telescope to study the stars; demonstrated that different weights descend at the same rate; perfected the refracting telescope that enabled him to make many discoveries (1564-1642)
- enlightened despot
- a form of despotism in which rulers were influenced by the Enlightenment, a historical period. Enlightened monarchs embraced the principles of the Enlightenment, especially its emphasis upon rationality, and applied them to their territories. They tended to allow religious toleration, freedom of speech and the press, and the right to hold private property. Most fostered the arts, sciences, and education.
- Philosophes
- A group of radical thinkers and writers in France in the eighteenth century, including Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The philosophes stressed the use of human reason and were especially critical of established religious and political practices in France.
- Bacon
- English-born American colonist who led Bacon's Rebellion (1676), in which a group of frontiersmen captured and burned Jamestown in an attempt to gain reforms and greater participation in the government of Virginia
- Adam Smith
- Scottish political economist and philosopher. His Wealth of Nations (1776) laid the foundations of classical free-market economic theory
- Voltaire
- French philosopher and writer whose works epitomize the Age of Enlightenment, often attacking injustice and intolerance. He wrote Candide (1759) and the Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
- Deism
- The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation
- "Newtonian Revolution"
- the time when everyone became interested in rational ideas because of newton's ideas
- Kant
- - German philosopher whose synthesis of rationalism and empiricism, in which he argued that reason is the means by which the phenomena of experience are translated into understanding, marks the beginning of idealism. His classic works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788), in which he put forward a system of ethics based on the categorical imperative
- Scientific method
- - a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested
- Kepler
- German astronomer and mathematician who is considered the founder of celestial mechanics. He was first to accurately describe the elliptical orbits of Earth and the planets around the Sun and demonstrated that planets move fastest when they are closest to the Sun. He also established that a planet's distance from the Sun can be calculated if its period of revolution is known.
- salon
- an assembly of guests in such a room, esp. an assembly, common during the 17th and 18th centuries, consisting of the leaders in society, art, politics, etc.
- Rousseau
- Swiss philosopher and writer who held that the individual is essentially good but usually corrupted by society
- Diderot
- French philosopher who was a leading figure of the Enlightenment in France; principal editor of an encyclopedia that disseminated the scientific and philosophical knowledge of the time