Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment Term List

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Sources:
-History Text Book
-Dictionary.com
-Reference.com

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"Newtonian Revolution": ?? 17th century. A revolution caused by Newton's ideas and thoughts, also his laws and conclusions?
Scientific Method: A method in which a problem is stated, necessary data and research is found, a hypothesis is created, and that hypothesis is tested through research and experiments.
Voltaire: During the late 1600's to the 1700's. French, Voltaire is not his real name. A writer, he was Absolutist (I think). He challenged the church, believed in God, just thought he created world and then stepped back and let it run (Clock analogy). He studied law, and then was a secretary for a while, then became a writer, and has written many works (plays, books, and letters).
Kepler: Brahe's assistant (because Brahe could not understand math). German, during late 1500's to early 1600's. Created the 3 laws of motion (1. planets orbit around the sun in elliptical orbits, 2. the planets do not move at a constant speed, 3. The time that a planet takes to go around the sun is related to its distance.) He mathematically proved that the sun was at the center.
Copernicus: In the early 1500's. He was polish and an astronomer and part of the clergy. He believed in the Greek idea that the sun was the center of the universe. He thought that the sun was fixed,/did not move. He published, the year of his death, his work On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. His theory was attacked by Protestants and other religious leaders.
Descartes: He was a philosopher from France, around the 15 and 16 hundreds NOT centuries). Used math more than Bacon. He believed if you are able to doubt something, then doubt it, and then use deductive reasoning to figure it out and prove it or support it (whether true or false). His ideas and ways are also part of the scientific method.
Scientific Revolution: The worldwide change in thinking and views on and about sciences, causing people to change the way they thought and the things that they believed and chose to believe.
Wollestonecraft: A feminist, and author during about/around 1700's. English.
Rousseau: 1700's. Swiss. He was influenced by Voltaire and Diderot. He was very into and committed to individual freedom. He said/believed that being rational and civilized was causing people not to have liberty or to be free. He rebelled against the Enlightenment and he helped start/cause the Romantic movement. He was a part of the social contract too.
Philosophes: People who believed that they were bringing knowledge to those who had not received it in the "Age of Enlightenment".
Galileo: - Florentine poor nobleman. He id controlled experiments to find out what was happening. Created the Law of Inertia that everything is continuously moving unless it is stopped by an external force. Made his own microscope (was NOT the first) and studied the moon. In 1633 he was tried for heresy by the papal Inquisition. He was then put in prison and people threatened to torture him.
Salon: Women's drawing-rooms in which they would get together and talk. This is where they would have their social gatherings and talks about things and what was going on (ex. Philosophy and literature).
Diderot: During the 1700's. he believed that people should think critically all the time and he taught them how. He was one of the editers of the Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts, and hoped that this would help the people think in new ways. His beliefs held this book together and kept it running for about 15 years.
Kant: He was a German philosopher. He marked the beginning of idealism.
Adam Smith: He was a Scottish economic who stood by/ believed in free trade.
Montesquieu: One of the Philosophes. The Persian Letters. These were letters that were supposedly written by Persian travelers, and this is how he could criticize things without getting in trouble. The Spirit of Laws was another one of his works. He focused on liberty, freedom, and not tyrants. This was caused by the success in Absolutism caused by Louis XIV.
Enlightenment ("Age of Reason"): Time when people began to think in different ways and began to question and not just believe things because people told you to, or becsue people said that they were truthful/correct.
Social Contract: Based off of "the general will and popular sovereignty" which shows the interests and wants of the people and that this will is not always the majorities. It may also be the long-term needs of the people seen by a minority.
Bentham: An English philosopher who set the foundation and stage for utilitarianism.
Bacon: Around during the late 1500's and early 1600's. An English man, (politician, courtier, and writer), who was an "advertiser" for the new experimental method. He believed and argued that the new ideas had to be experimentally and research proved. He put together Galileo and Brahe's ideas into a main theory called "empiricism"- using research and experiments to prove.
Enlightened despot: Enlightened absolutism. Belief that change and ruling is best coming from the ruler himself.
Deism: Believing in God because/using reason and nature.
Newton: He was in the lower English class and was very religious. He lived During the late 1600's and the early 1700's. Wrote Principia. He used and put together in his own way the laws and ideas/theories that the past philosophers had put together in his own set of laws. A main part of these laws was the Law of Universal Gravitation. This law states that "every body in the universe attracts every other body in the universe" in a certain math relationship. This relationship was based on mass and distance. Also the whole world was based off of one system.

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