Illuminismo

'Illuminismo' it was a cultural and philosophical movement that is diffused in Europe from the beginning of XVIII century until French revolution.

In the period known like Age of the Illuminismo, Europe of XVIII the century she was witness of remarkable cultural changes, it characterizes from one loss to you of the faith in traditional religious sources of authority and addressing towards human rights, science, thought rations them and the substitution of teocrazia and autocracy with republic democratic.

One of the infuences on the Illuminismo consisted in the reports of the catholic priests in China, that they served like model for a lay person despota illuminated.

The sollevazioni ofAge of the Lumi they carried directly to Revolution American therefore like to French Revolution and they influenced meaningfully Industrial revolution. The ideas of the Illuminismo were also strongly influential in the drawing up of Constitution of the United States and of that they followed, above all in the European states.

The Illuminismo also was marked rising of Capitalism and from the wide availability of printed publication material. Encyclopédie French, it arranged articles on the free thought with technological information.

An important answer to the Illuminismo to the inside of the European Jewish community was the movement Haskalah.

The concept of a single movement of European dimensions can sure be defied in the details: it reflects a cultural predominion of the French thought. It is in fact possible to analyze various national movements.

The term "illuminismo" was used from the writers of the time, convinced to come from an age of dusk and ignorance and to head towards one new age, marked from the emancipation of the man and the progresses of science under the guide of "lumi" of the reason. The illuminismo had like main centers of spreadEngland and France. England had been the Country where better it had been assertedempirismo, a guideline of philosophical thought that the acquaintance to the experience of the senses led back, denying the existence of innate ideas or an a priori thought ("that that before comes" that is an acquaintance who acquires itself prescinding from the experience, that is by means of the single deductive reasoning). Common features to the doctrines empiricists are the attention for the data empiricists like are introduced in the perception, the use of the inductive method regarding that deductive one, the mental reduction of the universal concepts to simple names or rappresentazioni, the antimetaphysics, the sperimentalismo. From the "philosophy they" of the English scientist experiments Newton the illuministi second assumed a conception of the scientific thought which, the human reason, adhering itself to the examination of the phenomena, it proceeds towards the principles, until reaching, as it demonstrated the discovery of the law of the universal gravitation, to a unitary picture of the physical world. The illuminismo had for premonitory also razionalisti thinkers like the French Descartes, of which i philosophers del XVIII century deductive acquaintance refused the pretension of one deriving from innate ideas and famous principles to priori, but they made the requirement of "clarity and distinction" of the ideas own, refusing the traditional principle of authority. Many illuministi, refusing the metaphysics, naturalistic vision and atheist of the truth tried the confirmation of one, propugnarono tolerance and the superstizioni and the prejudgments polemizzarono against. In the illuminismo heterogenous aspects were met, of the modern philosophy and the culture, from the scientific revolution started from Copernico and Galilei on the induced cultural repercussions from the geographic explorations, from the rationalism of Descartes to the empirismo of Locke. The illuminismo was megaphone of the modern scientific spirit, that refusing the authority of Aristotle and of Bible rivendicò the direct observation of the phenomena and the independent use of the reason. The confidence in the reason, conjugating itself with the model they of science experiments Newtonian, it seemed to render possible to discover is the laws of the natural world, it is those of the social development. It was believed then that, using saggiamente the reason, an indefinite progress of the acquaintance would have been possible, of the technique and the moral.

Although Church it was seen like the main responsible of the limitation of the human reason in the past and the religion was characterized like cause of the superstizione and the fanatismo, many illuministi thinkers not rinunciarono totally to the religion, opting for a deismo shape that refused the Christian theology. Other illuministi philosophers, above all in France, they were turned to thought shapes materialistico and they were express atheists. More than a systematic thought, the illuminismo marked one intellectual style and a surveying method, nacque desire to place in argument acquired concepts and values, to inquire in multiple directions. Many illuministi were not philosophers, but divulgatori it engages to you in the aware attempt of cultural battle and spread of the new ideas. Also in the heterogeneity of the addresses, some topics were common to all the illuministi thinkers: a antitradizionalista attitude, nourished from the conviction that the past, above all medieval, it was the age of the ingiustizia, of the sopruso, of the superstizione and the ignorance; the aversion in the comparisons of metaphysics; the adoption of method experiences them, that it privileges the analysis of the phenomena; the refusal of the a priori principles; the conviction that all that that is conoscibile is relative to the phenomena and the sensitive experience; the confidence in the progress, then inherited from positivismo nineteenth-century.

The illuminismo is diffused quickly in Europe and the North American colonies, but France enumerated many eminent spirits. The giurista and philosopher of politics Charles de Montesquieu, one of the first exponents of the movement, esordì publishing written satirici against the institutions at the same time to one study on the political institutions, The spirit of the laws (1748). To Paris Denis Diderot, author of numerous deals to you philosophical, the publication began ofEncyclopédie in 1750, taking advantage itself of the collaboration of the mathematician Of Alembert. Such work was, not only a compendium of acquaintances, but also means of spread of the illuminismo and critic of the oppositori. Most representative between the French illuministi writers it was Voltaire, that it began its career as dramatist and poet and he was author of pamphlets (satirici and polemici pamphlets), tests, to satire and short storys in which disclosed science and the philosophy of its age. The philosopher entertained moreover one voluminosa correspondence with writers and European monarchs. The written ones of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, like The social contract (1762), Emilio (1762) and Confessions (1782), they exercised a deep infuence on the political and pedagogical theories of the following century and gave impulse to romanticismo nineteenth-century. The illuminismo was also a deeply cosmopolita movement: thinkers of various nationalities felt themselves join from one deep unit to you of attempts, maintaining tightened epistolari contacts between they. They were illuministi Italians Peter Verri and Cesar Beccaria in Italy, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in the colonies Americans. During the first half of XVIII the century, many between the main exponents of the illuminismo were pursued to you for written theirs or were puttinges tacere from the governmental censorship and the attacks of the Church, but in the last few decades of the century, the movement was asserted in Europe and inspired revolution American. The happened one of the new ideas, supported from the publication of reviews and books and from new scientific experiments diffuse fashion between noble and the clergy even inaugurated one. Some European monarchs adopted the ideas and the language of the illuminismo. Voltaire and other illuministi, attracted from the philosopher-king concept who illuminates the people from the high, they watched with favor to politics of the so-called despoti illuminates to you, like Federico II of Prussia, Caterina II of Russia and Giuseppe II of Austria. The French Revolution placed aim to the pacific spread, but also sometimes only elitaria, of the illuminismo and, for its more bloody episodes, it threw I discredit on the illuminismo. The romantica controversy, at the beginning of XIX century, it opposed the sottovalutazione of the traditions and the history, the propensione for the atheism, indiscriminate exaltation of the rationality. The illuminismo diffuses between wide layers of the population preparing the advent of the contemporary age.