Enlightenment

• Enlightment (rare)

Proprialization from enlightenment.

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈlaɪtənmənt/, /ənˈlaɪtənmənt/, /-laɪtmənt/

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the Enlightenment

1. (history) A 17th- and 18th-century European intellectual and cultural movement emphasizing rationalism. The period during which it flourished is called the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason.

   Synonyms: European Enlightenment, Euro-American Enlightenment, Western Enlightenment; (in German contexts) Aufklärung

   • 1997, Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, page 36 (Totem Books, Icon Books; →ISBN

     He first presented a complementary thesis on the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), in which he used the term “archaeology” for the first time, and which indicated the period of history to which he was constantly to return.
     The Enlightenment: the intellectual, philosophical, cultural and scientific spirit of the 18th century. A belief in reason, progress, man’s “maturity” and a general rejection of tradition, religion and authority.

   • 2026 May 9, Scott Baldauf, Colette Davidson, Whitney Eulich, “America at 250: A declaration of ideals reset the world – and still resonates today”, in The Christian Science Monitor‎^[1], Boston, Massachusetts: Christian Science Publishing Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 9 May 2026:

     Perhaps it helped that many of the Founding Fathers – think of it as a powdered-wig book club – were reading some of the same 17th and 18th century European philosophers of the Enlightenment, writers such as John Locke, Voltaire, and Montesquieu, who praised scientific advances, and preached that human beings had “natural rights” of life, liberty, and property, ideas that were already rippling through intellectual circles around the globe.

2. Synonym of Age of Enlightenment.
   • 2018, Steven Pinker, “Chapter 1: Dare to Understand!”, in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Penguin, →ISBN:

     What is enlightenment? In a 1784 essay with that question as its title, Immanuel Kant answered that it consists of “humankind’s emergence from its self-incurred immaturity,” its “lazy and cowardly” submission to the “dogmas and formulas” of religious or political authority.¹ Enlightenment’s motto, he proclaimed, is “Dare to understand!” and its foundational demand is freedom of thought and speech. […] What is the Enlightenment?⁴ There is no official answer, because the era named by Kant’s essay was never demarcated by opening and closing ceremonies like the Olympics, nor are its tenets stipulated in an oath or creed. The Enlightenment is conventionally placed in the last two-thirds of the 18th century, though it flowed out of the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason in the 17th century and spilled into the heyday of classical liberalism of the first half of the 19th.