什麼是啟蒙運動

17和18世紀歐洲的一次思想運動，它把上帝、理性、自然、人類等各種概念綜合為一種世界觀，得到廣泛贊同，由此引起藝術、哲學及政治等方面的各種革命性的發展變化。啟蒙運動的思想重點是對理性的運用和讚揚。對啟蒙運動的思想家來説，一般承認的權威，無論是在科學或宗教方面，都要置於獨立自由的心智的深入探查之下。在科學和數學方面，邏輯歸納法和演繹法的應用，使一種嶄新的宇宙論點產生成為可能。為尋求合於理性的宗教而促使自然神論的產生；還有更為激進的理性運用的結果，如︰懷疑論、無神論和唯物論（materialism）。啟蒙運動產生了心理學和倫理學上第一批非宗教化現代理論，由洛克、霍布斯（Thomas Hobbes）等人提出，這些觀點導致各種激進的政治學説的產生。洛克、邊沁、盧梭、孟德斯鳩（Montesquieu）、伏爾泰和傑佛遜都對獨斷專行的國家體制作過順乎潮流的批判，並根據天賦人權和政治民主構擬出一種更高級的社會組織形式。啟蒙運動所留下來最有價值的遺產是︰人類歷史是一部人類普遍進步的紀錄這樣一種信念。

Enlightenment

European intellectual movement of the 17th-18th century in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were blended into a worldview that inspired revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason. For Enlightenment thinkers, received authority, whether in science or religion, was to be subject to the investigation of unfettered minds. In the sciences and mathematics, the logics of induction and deduction made possible the creation of a sweeping new cosmology. The search for a rational religion led to Deism; the more radical products of the application of reason to religion were skepticism, atheism, and materialism. The Enlightenment produced modern secularized theories of psychology and ethics by men such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, and it also gave rise to radical political theories. Locke, Jeremy Bentham, J.-J. Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Thomas Jefferson all contributed to an evolving critique of the authoritarian state and to sketching the outline of a higher form of social organization based on natural rights. One of the Enlightenment's enduring legacies is the belief that human history is a record of general progress.