Mid-term history exam - Essay Example

The fundamental changes happening in the natural sciences, in particular, generated a new image of the universe that emphasized the supernatural less (Westfall). This proved crucial for a gradual change in society and an increasingly deemphasized role of religion in our modern society. An example of such a change in ideas was the replacement of the Earth with the Sun as the center of the universe, which contradicted Aristotelian and Christian scientific doctrines. The Age of Enlightenment, like the scientific revolution, was the source of dramatic change in European society, centered primarily in the 18th century.

The movement changed the way people thought about the world, insofar as it created a shift to a so-called “rational” view of the universe. Instead of allowing the “sacred circle”, which refers to the hereditary aristocracy and leaders of the church, to continue, the Enlightenment allowed individuals and thought to break through the value systems of the past (Gay). Among these new values were those of freedom, democracy, and reason as the goals and reason for society. In particular, the idea that rationality ought to be applied to every problem left a significant impact on many areas of society.

These kinds of fundamental shifts in thinking are what made scientific advancements, like those seen during the scientific revolution, possible in the first place. Scholars contrast the Age of Enlightenment with the Middle Ages, which is nearly universally held to be a time of scientific and rational suppression (Lindberg). In terms of science during the Middle Ages, most of the inquiry was based around the texts of ancient scholars like Avicenna and Aristotle. Scientific practices from these ancient sources were marginally empirical and often depended on philosophical systems about how the universe was structured, as opposed to utilizing mathematical functions or previously acquired empirical knowledge to make new hypotheses.

As a result, the science from the Middle Ages was lacking in productivity or practical applications to the problems of society. The scientific revolution, which sought the practical aspect of science, and the Enlightenment, which sought the application of reason to life’s problems, changed this emphasis. However, the Middle Ages did leave a lasting impact on the practice of science, through to the modern period, which is the university system where science was centralized and practiced openly (Lindberg).

Even if the science practiced in these universities was strongly influenced by the religious doctrines that governed the universities, the practice of locating the practice of that science into one location was a lasting influence. The Enlightenment has directly affected modernity in a number of ways, including but not limited to the political revolutions of the late 18th century in America and France. Although the French revolution eventually became an exercise in irrationality and hysteria, the ideas behind it and the American revolution were born out of a changing value structure in society.

No longer were the “sacred circle” that highest value and hierarchically placed at the top of society; rather, it was ideas and reason placed at the top of this structure. Governing a society with ideas led to the concept of the “rule of law”