Enlightenment


[en-lahyt-n-muh nt] /ɛnˈlaɪt n mənt/

noun
1.
the act of .
2.
the state of being :
to live in spiritual enlightenment.
3.
(usually initial capital letter) Buddhism, Hinduism. .
4.
the Enlightenment, a philosophical movement of the 18th century, characterized by belief in the power of human reason and by innovations in political, religious, and educational doctrine.
[pruhj-nyah, -nuh] /ˈprʌdʒ nyɑ, -nə/
noun, Buddhism, Hinduism.
1.
pure and unqualified knowledge.
/ɪnˈlaɪtənmənt/
noun
1.
the act or means of enlightening or the state of being enlightened
2.
(Buddhism) the awakening to ultimate truth by which man is freed from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations to which all men are otherwise subject
3.
(Hinduism) a state of transcendent divine experience represented by Vishnu: regarded as a goal of all religion
/ɪnˈlaɪtənmənt/
noun
1.
the Enlightenment, an 18th-century philosophical movement stressing the importance of reason and the critical reappraisal of existing ideas and social institutions
/ˈprʊdʒnə; -njɑː/
noun
1.
wisdom or understanding considered as the goal of Buddhist contemplation
n.

1660s, “action of enlightening,” from enlighten + -ment. Used only in figurative sense, of spiritual enlightenment, etc. Attested from 1865 as a translation of German Aufklärung, a name for the spirit and system of Continental philosophers in the 18c.

The philosophy of the Enlightenment insisted on man’s essential autonomy: man is responsible to himself, to his own rational interests, to his self-development, and, by an inescapable extension, to the welfare of his fellow man. For the philosophes, man was not a sinner, at least not by nature; human nature — and this argument was subversive, in fact revolutionary, in their day — is by origin good, or at least neutral. Despite the undeniable power of man’s antisocial passions, therefore, the individual may hope for improvement through his own efforts — through education, participation in politics, activity in behalf of reform, but not through prayer. [Peter Gay, “The Enlightenment”]

An intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked by a celebration of the powers of human reason, a keen interest in science, the promotion of religious toleration, and a desire to construct governments free of tyranny. Some of the major figures of the Enlightenment were David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire.

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