oh my goodness get ready to crack them brain folds wide open because in this video I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about the enlightenment for AP European History and there is a lot so as folks like Galileo and Kepler were using new methods of thinking and observation to revolutionize Humanity's conception of the natural world Enlightenment thinkers started thinking you know I wonder if we can apply those same methods of thinking to Social and human institutions and spoiler alert that's what they do so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked with a healthy dose of rationalism let's get to it so let's start with the definition of the Enlightenment and hey if you don't want to write it all down then I've got note guides for this video and all my videos you can grab right here so the enlightenment was a European intellectual movement in the 18th century that applied new methods of rational thinking to Social and human institutions in general there were three main emphases of this movement that you need to know first the methods of science pioneered by Kepler and Newton and Galileo and others could be used to improve Society the name for this was rationalism and it meant that everything in human life could and should be submitted to the process of Reason second Enlightenment thinkers believe that as the scientific method could be used to discover the laws of nature it could also be used to discover the laws of society and third if both of the first two were true then Enlightenment thought could lead to progress in the human spirit so those are the big ideas of the Enlightenment so now let's get down and dirty in the details and for that let me introduce you to the major French philosophs and you know that's just the French word for philosopher don't get confused and the reason Enlightenment thought first took root in France is because France was kind of the biggest deal there was in the European continent during this time all right the first thing or to know is the baron de Montesquieu and as a member of France's Noble class he was not a big fan of the growth of absolutism under Louis XIV to see the king consolidating all the power under himself was to Montesquieu and that objection animated the production of one of his greatest works namely the spirit of the law in this book Montesquieu argued that separating power into multiple branches of government so that each branch can check the other was the only way to avoid tyranny and encourage equality the second thing I want to introduce you to is the granddaddy of all French philosophs namely a Voltaire he was definitely the most famous of the philosophers and probably the most representative of their work I wrote something like 70 books in many different genres it all had one thing in common criticism of the social and religious institutions of France a Voltaire cringed hard at the religious intolerance that he observed in France and he spent some time in England and saw that because so many competing versions of religion were allowed they could exist peacefully in France where Catholicism was forcibly imposed upon the population Voltaire viewed it as oppression even so Voltaire was kind of a big fan of absolutism because as he believed that ordinary people weren't really capable of governing themselves but he argued that absolutism must be tempered by Enlightenment thought and third let me introduce you to Denny he was responsible for cataloging the new Enlightenment worldview in a work called the encyclopedia now didero didn't write this whole volume but rather collaborated with many other Enlightenment thinkers to produce over 72 000 articles on every conceivable realm of human life filtered through the grid of Enlightenment thoughts it's hard to underestimate the influence of this volume on the spread of the Enlightenment it's sold like Madness people began reading it it had a significant impact on how they thought about the world now in addition to publishing books the ideas of the Enlightenment spread through a variety of Institutions for example in France one of the most popular was the salon which were private meetings held in opulent houses where the intelligencia openly discussed and debated new ideas of the day and then for the less well-off coffee houses provided a place where folks could gather and buy coffee for a penny and discuss the new ideas of the day while drinking enough caffeine to kill a small horse okay now one of the major institutions of focus for Enlightenment thinkers was government and politics and for that let me introduce you to two other thinkers who contributed their big brains to this endeavor John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau now there are definitely nuanced differences between these two thinkers but for our purposes you just need to know the two main Concepts on which lock and Rousseau agree the first political idea these men put forward was the idea of natural rights and these were rights that people had naturally honestly it's a pretty good name for it the idea here is that just by virtue of being a human born into the world everyone had certain rights to which they were entitled for example Locke wrote in his Second Treatise on civil government that people were born with rights to life liberty and property and those rights were granted by the Creator that last phrase is crucial to understand if those rights are given by the Creator then that means they are not given by a monarch and thus cannot be taken away or infringed upon by a model and in the environment of absolutism that had gripped Europe during that time that was some spicy sauce the second political idea these men put forth was the idea of the social contract Rousseau wrote a book called the social contract in which he argued that at the bottom of things the power to govern was in the hands of the people in order to protect their natural rights the people choose to give some of that power over over to a government and then the contract piece of it means that if the government becomes a tyrannical turd then the people have the right nay the responsibility to abolish that government and establish a new one that upholds their rights the idea here is that people can only be governed by their own consent and that the root of governance does not reside in the divine right of kings that's also is getting even spicy now when I say that Rousseau argued that the power to govern is in the hands of the people it's not quite accurate more accurately all the man people have the power to govern we so believe that men and women were patently not equal he taught that women were by nature to remain subservient and to stay home raising children and making their husbands sandwiches however in the late 18th century women like Mary Wollstonecraft objected powerfully to this kind of gendered inequality her book a Vindication of the rights of women argued that women by Nature should have equal rights to men and moreover that women should be entitled to the same education as men oh baby let's keep that Enlightenment thinking train going and see how it applied to economics and for this I need to introduce you to Adam Smith of the Scottish Enlightenment in his book The Wealth of Nations Smith hack the mercantilist policies of European nations and remember mercantilism was a state-driven economic system Smith argued instead that governments ought to get their Filthy Hands out of the economy and instead let people make the economic decisions based on the laws of supply and demand he argued that decisions made in self-interest and not State interest would ultimately lead to flourishing economy and so Smith's work became the theoretical basis for concepts of the free market and free trade now at the same time French economic thinkers known as the physiocrats were arguing for similar economic principles for example physiocrat and Robert Robert it isn't it's French as it wrote Robert I don't know I can't imagine a French person saying Robert we'll say Robert and Robert Jacques turgot advocated for laissez-faire economics in France which when being translated means let alone he argued that the government should have a minimal role in economics and instead let people decide what they wanted to buy and what kind of work they wanted to contribute to society now religious and metaphysical beliefs were also challenged and changed by the enlightenment Voltaire popularized a belief called Diaz this is the idea that there was indeed a God but that God was uninvolved in human Affairs God of deism was like a clock maker who put all the gears of the universe together and then wound it up real tight and then just let it tick away without any further interference now this of course was a serious challenge to Christianity which emphasized the miraculous intervention of God in human history not least in the centerpiece of the faith the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ another Scottish thinker named David Hume developed the idea of skepticism the idea here is that all human knowledge all our ideas are gained through our sins experience like we taste Things We Touch things we hear things we see things that our brains Cobble all that information together into knowledge about the world and if that's how we get now knowledge then our brains can only really reflect the world as it exists in material reality and that further means that since God or the creation of the universe cannot be mediated through our senses then they're not legitimate articles of knowledge and finally didero through his encyclopedia popularized atheism which is the belief that no God exists more to the point an atheist is someone who knows about God and consciously rejects God's existence now with these very public attacks on religion religious belief more and more became a matter of private instead of public concern this way religious revival movements emphasized personal piety and individual relationships to God for example the rise of German pietism in the 17th and 18th century led by count Nicolas Von Zinzendorf pietism taught that true religious experience was not just about belonging to a church but rather was bound up in the mystical personal religious experience now and much of Germany of course Lutheranism was the accepted religion but zinsendorf reacted strongly against the rationalistic approach to Christ that they preach and then influenced by German pietism and English Anglican preacher named John Wesley gave birth to the Methodist movement after Wesley himself had a powerful personal experience with God he set out preaching in the streets and in the fields acts that were considered very improper by the Anglican establishment but Wesley argued that true Christianity was a matter of the heart not any external fact therefore to truly know God a person had to be seized by a great affection all right I hope that helped you should click right here if you want to keep reviewing unit 4 of AP or you can click right here and get my AP Euro review pack which is going to help you get an A in your class and a five on your examine thanks for coming around I'll catch you on the flip-flop heimler out