Question

In what ways did the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment challenge the intellectual and political status quo in early modern Europe?

Answer 1

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment brought about significant intellectual and political changes in Europe, challenging established religious and political structures with an emphasis on reason, empirical evidence, and natural rights, leading to events like the French Revolution.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment were transformative periods in early modern Europe that radically shifted the intellectual and political landscape. The Scientific Revolution introduced the concept that the universe was orderly and subject to rational laws, confounding the traditional religious justifications for social hierarchies and cosmological beliefs.

During the Enlightenment, thinkers like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Montesquieu advocated for a society grounded in reason and empirical evidence rather than tradition and divine authority. This intellectual fervor spurred discussions about natural rights and the separation of powers in government, influencing events such as the French Revolution.

These movements paved the way for progressive ideas about liberty, constitutional governance, and the social contract, challenging the legitimacy of absolutist monarchies and inspiring revolutionary changes in political systems across the globe. The power of reason and scientific thought became tools to question and ultimately redefine the established order in Europe and beyond.

Answer 2

The correct answer is: "Enlightenmnet ideas challenged the power structures of the Old Regime: religion and absolut monarchies, implementing new goverment principles for societies based on reason and popular sovereignty and not in authoritarism".

The Enlightenment philosophers, such as Locke, Monstequieu or Rosseau. introduced ideas that challenged, and ended up derrocating, the power structures of the Old Regime.They promoted reason and the scientific method over religious dogmatism and superstititions.

The main principles developed were the following: definition of bills of citizens' rights, social contract (citizens electing political representatives to create goverments through suffrage, in opposition to the prevailing absolute monarchies whose power was supposed to arise from God's will), and the division of the powers of the state in order to avoid excessive power accumulation in certain sectors, and risks of authoritarism.