Foundations of Enlightenment: Reason, Natural Rights, and Social Contract Theory

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

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Explore how Enlightenment thinkers applied scientific rationality to human behavior, introducing concepts of natural law and social contract theory.

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The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

9th Grade · Social Studies · US-NY-SS

9 lessons

Goal

Analyze how new empirical methods and rationalist thought during the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment transformed understandings of nature, human society, and political authority.

9 lessons

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Challenging Ancient Authority: Geocentrism to Heliocentrism with Copernicus and GalileoUp next
The Scientific Method: Bacon's Empiricism and Descartes' RationalismNot started yet
Isaac Newton: Universal Gravitation, Mathematics, and the Mechanistic UniverseNot started yet
The Scientific Revolution's Impact on Traditional Institutions and ReligionNot started yet
Foundations of Enlightenment: Reason, Natural Rights, and Social Contract TheoryYou are here
Political Thinkers of the Enlightenment: Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and VoltaireNot started yet
Women and the Enlightenment: Salons, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Rights DebatesNot started yet
Enlightened Despotism: Reforming Monarchs and Limits of ChangeNot started yet
The Global Spread of Enlightenment Ideas and Seeds of Political RevolutionNot started yet

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Learning standards covered

9.9eNew York Social Studies Standards · 10th Grade

The Enlightenment challenged views of political authority and how power and authority were conceptualized.