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What are some of the basic principles of the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution?

What are some of the basic principles of the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution?


Taking its cue from the blossoming Scientific Revolution's of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Age of Enlightenment set out to restructure philosophy, politics, and society on totally new foundations.


The many successes of new scientific inquiries into avenues such as astronomy and cosmology; chemistry; physics; and mathematics by thinkers such as Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, and Descartes had laid the foundation for a radically new and different view of the world than the one passed down from the medieval era and the middle ages.


Starting with Descartes publications of the Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and continuing roughly through Immanuel Kant's publication of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), Enlightenment thinkers set out to explicate these new first principles. These included the quest for scientific certainty and empirical verifiability as the foundations of truth and knowledge. Instead of accepting the arguments of faith or belief handed down to them by the State or the Church, Enlightenment thinkers sought natural explanations for how or why things occurred the way they did. 


Another major principle was the use of scientific reason and experiment as the guiding force of all inquiry; and this reason was universal. All human beings were seen as rational agents capable of achieving enlightenment. These principles did not only apply to science, but to politics and society as well. Because of their belief in universal reason, rights, and the progress of science to make a better world, Enlightenment thinkers challenged the dominant political and social orders. These orders had been based on rigid nobility and inequality which were supposedly bestowed by God (i.e., the divine right of kings), thus ushering in a new era of democratic thinking.

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