HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Age Of Enlightenment
Document Summary
The idea that tomorrow will be better than today. The idea of being part of western civilization. Science and technology will ensure that we will be happier, wealthier . The idea of progress enters along with the enlightenment that the idea of progress becomes a part of our vision. Any improvement to the human condition was left to the next world. The only way for the world to get better in the view of divine revelation if god made it better. The idea that we are in control of our own destinies. The eternal absolutes must always be obeyed any deviance, must be punished. The enlightenment changed the traditions and the patterns of western thought: galileo, newton. Superstitious, the divine = the unanswerable, unknown forces. If we understand the universe, we will get away from the things we thought ran the universe. Scientism forces us to be rational and reasonable.
