Abstract:

It is really difficult to make a full definition of the Enlightenment. This difficulty arises from the fact that the Enlightenment has penetrated into not only many but all aspects of life. The most common thing that will be spoken regarding the Enlightenment is that it is a mental activity. The roots of this mental activity sprang up in the West. This intellectual movement in the West formed different traditions of thought in diverse geographies of Europe. The Enlightenment was shaped in a “rationalistic” quality in France and “empiricist” character in Britain The distinction between the French Enlightenment and the British Enlightenment concurrently gave rise to the division between social structures. In this context, the British empiricism led to a “peaceful revolution” whereas the French rationalization resulted in a “bloody revolution”. In this article, my aim is to deal with the distinctions between the French rationalization and the British empiricism, and to display how these differences influenced on social change.

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