The Modern Scholar
Enlightenment: Reason, Tolerance, and Humanity
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Narrated by:
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Professor James Schmidt
About this listen
This course will explore this remarkable period. It will discuss the work of such influential thinkers as Voltaire, John Locke, Denis Diderot, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and Benjamin Franklin. It will also spend some time with less well-known, but no less influential, figures such as Joseph Priestly - a clergyman, scientist, and philosopher who was one of the most passionate defenders of the American Revolution in England - and the remarkable John Toland, a man whose writings on religion changed the way many Europeans thought about the Scriptures
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2005 James Schmidt (P)2005 Recorded BooksRelated to this topic
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What listeners say about The Modern Scholar
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Scott
- 10-11-12
Brilliant--nearly flawless
Nicely read, well thought out. Connects the dots on many points in history. An important series of lectures.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Lou Harrison
- 10-11-22
An Undiscovered Gem
I’ve accessed several lecture series on the Enlightenment, but Professor Schmidt’s is clearly the best. You cannot understand today’s world, or tomorrow’s, without a firm understanding of the Enlightenment. Here Professor Schmidt can save you a heck of a lot of very difficult reading.
We join the lectures after Protestantism poured a river of blood across Europe and opened the floodgates of empiricism to Christian doctrine. Professor Schmidt takes us down the winding back alleys of the Enlightenment, into the salons, the coffee houses, the private libraries -- and the secret societies. We learn of a spate of revolutions as we see the ardor for liberty catch and spread, the rule of kings give way to the rule of law, and the domination of religion give way to reason and conscience.
He covers the very important subject of the influence of aboriginal Americans on the European Enlightenment: What counts as men? Women? People of color? How did it affect the Enlightenment to discover that the so-called savages who haven’t even been exposed to Christianity can be happier and more moral than Europeans? Does civilization create misery?
Finally, Professor Schmidt leaves us with the understanding that toleration was the great ideal of the Enlightenment, and “Where reason rules, toleration is possible.”
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