the Enlightenment

noun

: a movement of the 18th century that stressed the belief that science and logic give people more knowledge and understanding than tradition and religion

Examples of the Enlightenment in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But the Enlightenment, by way of John Locke, made illustrations more acceptable in the classroom. —JSTOR Daily, 24 June 2024

Classical learning involves chronologically studying literature, philosophy, history and science from the ancient Greeks and Romans through the Enlightenment period. —Luke Fountain, Charlotte Observer, 22 June 2024

The order originated with Adam Weishaupt, a professor and philosopher at the University of Ingolstadt, who wanted to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment to the intellectuals and elites of the future. —Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 13 June 2024

German Jews, who were emancipated at the tail end of the Enlightenment period and throughout the Romantic era, took to Bildung almost as a new faith, or the natural development of the old one. —John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024

Not only were they tied to the Enlightenment, in that they were said to provide equal opportunities to their initiates, but their elections embodied the ideals of the era. —Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 13 June 2024

In the Enlightenment era, panpsychist thinkers like Spinoza, Leibniz, and Diderot challenged Descartes’ dualism. —Sigal Samuel, Vox, 4 June 2024

There is an old assumption that belief in magic faded away in the Enlightenment, shepherding a new age dominated by rational decision-making and scientific progress. —Tabitha Stanmore, TIME, 24 May 2024

It was established by eighteenth-century polymaths as an expression of the Enlightenment conviction that universal truths might be arrived at through intellectual inquiry and scientific reason. —Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 6 May 2024