HIST 2102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Gaiters, Absolute Monarchy, Montesquieu
Document Summary
There was a movement towards finding truth f they moved from religious deposition, hate, superstition, and intolerance. They wanted to open their minds towards something else. Rationalism; a secular, critical way of looking at things. It is the belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than a religious belief or emotional response. Using the observable world to find the truth over superstitions and their non observable truths. It was at least possible for humans to create better society and people through the obtainment of knowledge, and unbiased knowledge. The excitement of the scientific revolution generated a lot of doubt and uncertainty along with ideas of truth and progress. It uprooted what people had thought they knew; suddenly the things they knew" seemed silly or strange. With new revelations of people like newton, they needed to understand what to do with it, and then they felt like they didn"t know anything at all.
