Modern World History: Who was the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment?
Who do you think was the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment? Give their philosophy and why you believe it is still relevant today. You may choose any of the people we have talked about in class. Or you may search and find one that we have not spoken about, but you think they deserve some credit.
posted by bcoffman | 2:32 PM
7 Comments:
I think John Locke deserves the most credit. His philosophy was that if the government does not protect you then it is your duty to overthrow them. This philosophy is what our country was built upon. If our country was not built upon this philosophy, most likely people would be dying left and right b/c the people of this world would definately NOT obey the King if there was one. We would not have the freedoms that we have to day had it not been for John Locke.
Elizabeth McClure
I think locke's rule was the most important, most all succesful governments, are ran with this system. It keeps the power balanced and that is exactly what the 3 branches of our government is designed to do, it keeps each and every branch with some power, but never enough to over throw the other 2. This is probaly the biggest, best, and most important of our government.
Voltaire is the best philosopher to come out of the Enlightenment. Voltaire had the solid philosophy of religous tolerance, which, I believe, is the greatest freedom in our first ammendment. His theory that if we were all accepting of every religion, the world would be rid of most major conflict is a solid enough argument to have his thoughts written in the first ammendment. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Montesqiue were all great philosophers as well, but religous tolerance is a grand thing indeed.
I think john locke was the most important almost all governments are now ran with the idea he came up with. althought they other men in the Enlightenment had very important roles lockes was the most important in my eyes. his idea is that if the government doesnt protect you its your duty to get rid of them. this insures everyone that our government will protect us.
i can't just pick one, they all contributed to the way our society is run. Voltaire gave us the idea of religious tolerance which as already stated is one of the best ideas a country can adopt for the bettering of its citizens. Locke gave us the idea that if the government is not doing its job properly we need to get rid of it. as citizens we should have the ability to decide if the government is filling its obligation to protect us. Hobbes gave us the idea that by entering into a social contract under a government their soul purpose is to protect us. all these philosophers and more were great and had great ideas that have developed over time. it is hard to say which is the greatest, but since i have to i will say Voltaire. he taught us that we should be tolerante of all religious beliefs which seems to come up more and more as we develope new ways of life and new technology.
The most important philosopher of The Enlightenment was Thomas Paine. We as Americans owe a lot to him since he was one of the leaders during the American Revolution. In his pamphlet, Common Sense, Paine made arguments against remaining under the rule of Great Britain and influenced many colonial Americans to begin questioning the authority they were under. I believe that this argument is still relevant today. There are many countries dealing with leaders who are not out for the best for their people and the ideas of freedom and change Paine made could be inspiration for future government changes in the world. Without Paine, we would have a much different curriculum for history, and might still be under the rule of Great Britain.
I think that the most important philosopher of the enlightenment was John Locke. He said that if the government does not protect the people, it is their duty to overthrow the government. This philosophy is important because it is what our nation is based on. The United States would not be as prosperous as it is without protection from the government. John Locke deserves credit for many freedoms we have today.
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