Question

How and to what extent did the Enlightenment thinkers challenge social and political aspect of the world in the 1700s?

Answer 1

The Enlightenment Era, also known as the “Age of Reason”, took place from around 1715 until 1789.

Thinkers during this time (including Locke, Bacon, Descartes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Benjamin Franklin) challenged social and political aspects leading to the diminishing of the authority of the French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church.

This was major for this time period as every idea, both socially and politically, went through either one or both of those heads and for the first time in French history this was no longer necessarily true. The Enlightenment Era led to many of the political movements of the 18th and 19th centuries promoting the ideals of liberty, separation of church and state, social and religious tolerance, and constitutional government. These ideals forever changed the history of the western world and modern day society.