9781422282779

SPEECH, MEDIA, AND PROTEST

QUOTABLE ENLIGHTENMENT

Two of the most influential philosophers of the early European Enlightenment were the Frenchman René Descartes (1596–1650) and the German Immanuel

Kant (1724–1804). Considered by many to be the father of modern philosophy, Descartes is known best for one succinct statement: “ je pense, donc je suis ,” which translates as “I think, therefore I am.” This statement emphasized the importance of rational individual thought. In one of Kant’s signature works, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795), he emphasizes the capacity and willingness of human beings to cooperate and build democratic societies.

A portrait of René Descartes by Jan Baptist Weenix.

of the political power and religious authority of an increasingly corrupt and widely unpopular Roman Catholic Church. What began as a protest movement against the church evolved into a broader Reformation in which “Protestant” denominations split with Catholicism. The Reformation was built on the premise that Christians had the ability to practice their faith on the basis of the Bible, without instruction from the Catholic Church on precisely how to do so. It provided the impetus for the longer-term Enlightenment agenda of secularism and democratic political reforms that undercut both papal and royal power across the continent. The settlement of the Thirty Years’ War of 1618–1648 reduced the power and influence of the Holy Roman Empire. Those changes in the political and religious landscape helped create the intellectual space needed for the gifted philosophers

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