Humanities

Welcome to the Discussion Board for Chapters 25 and 26. Although, as Watson says, one could still easily be murdered, tortured or imprisoned for Catholic or Protestant religious dissent (e.g. for the Catholics and Calvin, merely believing in the Copernican view- the correct view- was heresy and subject to punishment), the world was changing, and doing so quickly. Indeed, with the discovery of the new world and with new astronomical discoveries, religious skepticism seemed possible. Indeed, this is what happened. Thinkers from this time- most of whom, like Erasmus, were still religious- challenged both scripture and basic Christian ideas (e.g the soul), at least in their details. Intellectually, it was no longer a given that thinkers must just adhere to traditional dogma, but at least could see other options. Given this background, the Enlightenment was born. The Enlightenment (e.g. in England, and Scotland), embodied a new desire to use scientific methods to understand human nature, and also involved a secular outlook on the world, politics, and economics. Not surprisingly, then, the enlightenment thinkers, although diverse, were were quite optimistic about the future. In other words, this period is marked by scientific thinking and discoveries, such that thinkers became optimistic about how much we can know, and how much we can change.

Answer the question:

1. During this period, many thinkers were important (e.g. Montaigne, Hobbes, Galileo, Newton, de La Mettrie, Locke, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, or Smith, to name but a few). Who were the most important skeptics and Enlightenment thinkers, and why? In saying why, make sure to say what each of these thinkers contributed.

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