Contribution of Enlightenment to the French Revolution

The major feature of the 18th century was the intellectual revolution in Europe. In this era, many such scholars appeared in Europe, who awakened the sleeping soul of the third class by using their writings and inspired them to get their rights. It contributed significantly to the French Revolution.

Epistemological twist and negation of Metaphysics

Progress in natural science brought a major turning point in epistemology by the 18th century. Now religious books and personalities lost their importance as a means of knowledge. In its place, knowledge has now become experiential and empirical. While opening Rene Descartes emphasized skepticism, Bacon pointed to the rat box and said that this is the source of my knowledge. In fact epistemology has attained the positivist level after the religious speculation and the spiritual stages. After this change, people developed indifference towards the questions of metaphysics i.e. soul, heaven and God. It has been said that now the veil has been removed from the mysteries of nature, no God runs the nature, but nature itself runs by its own rules. Now new topics have become the center of discussion and debate. Such as liberty, equality, progress, tolerance, reason and fraternity etc.

The main thinkers of the Enlightenment

Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment as the courage to know that enlightenment is the name of freedom from self-imposed immaturity. Man always remains immature because of laziness and cowardice. He opposed dependence on traditional institutions and systems. Rousseau, through his theory of "social contract", rejected the divine theory of the origin of the state and society and called it a compromise that could be broken. Napoleon often said that if there was no Rousseau, there would have been no revolution. Montesquieu in his book "The Spirit of the Law" gave the theory of the separation of power. Voltaire, who is called the true reflection of the French Revolution, said that I know that you are wrong, yet I will give my life for your right to say this.

The Social, Political and Economic Aspects of the Enlightenment

Since natural science has removed the veil from the mystery that nature is not governed by any God but it operates by its own laws, there is no need of any divine person or any divine principle in society and politics. Therefore, there is no need of any privileged class in the society, neither the church nor any divine king to rule. After the logic of Adam Smith, bypassing the interference of the state in the economy, like the eternal natural laws, the eternal laws of the market i.e. the invisible law of supply and demand were recognized.

The Enlightenment: The Basis of the French Revolution

Thus, Europe which was going through a process of socioeconomic change due to various reasons and due to these changes two centers of power emerged. First autocratic monarchy and second ambitious middle class. The arguments of the Enlightenment had brought strength and self-confidence to the middle class. He put pressure on the monarchy to allow the middle class also to share power. The monarchy became concerned with the growing ambition of the middle class and tried to establish a close relationship with the aristocracy and the church to consolidate its position, so the monarchy, the nobility and the church were attacked by the middle class.