Enlightenment And Political Rebellion

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Enlightenment and Political rebellion

Introduction

This paper highlights how enlightenment philosophies lead to a political revolution, thw works of Thomas and L'Ouverture will be assessed for this purpose to begin with we will frame the existing relation between enlightenment philosophy and political rebellion.

Discussion

The period of enlightenment refers mostly to the 18th century when the people of enlightenment followed the belief that the supreme power of the human mind, during this period mankind became overconfident over the capability and the capacity of the mind and started opposing the preexisting notions of the past. The guiding principles of this philosophy were on faith in the European reason, right to reject past traditions and search within mankind's own knowledge for useful insight on controlling nature. The main founders behind this concept were John Locke, Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes. The philosophy of enlightenment was mostly followed by the people of Germany and France (CSUDH, 2001). The philosophies gave rise to liberalism and the right to judge and question whether the government was being legitimate, eventually the philosophies started targeting religion and questioning the logic behind beliefs, religions and God. Once such radical thoughts were being floated it was only a matter of time before people started questioning everything and started denying laws and rules since they believed they were capable of thinking beyond the mere existing thoughts being imposed on them This brought forward a revolution were people demanded changes in practices and principles there was constant rebellion and political ideas were constantly being challenged. It is during the enlightenment periods that lead to the demand for democratic government which had a direct impact on colonialism all of this was based on man kind's belief in their own power of reasoning and knowledge, based on the scientific findings of Newton believed they had the whole universe in their control. These enlightened thinkers brought natural rights into politics which is considered to be the fundamental reason behind the French revolution, and eventually these thinkers started focusing on other matters instead of metaphysics they started encompassing liberty, security and freedom (Gerhard, 2011).

Montesquieu in 1748 gave his Spirit of the laws, it was this law that influenced aristocrats to consider feudalism again. Based on these thoughts and radical ideas and concepts many people revolted against the existing political situation and demanded their rights and a change in the political structure, people ...
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