In what ways did the Renaissance, the Reformation, the scientific
revolution or the Enlightenment help create the "modern world"?
Kettler:
The movements inquired about here are hallmarks of Western
civilization from @ 1300 to 1850 AD, and their collective effect in
helping to create the modern world can be assessed in the sense that
modern Western civilization is part of the modern world. The passage
of some 350 years of history necessarily contributes to the type of
world that emerges from them. However, between 1300 and 1850 there
were key changes to the way Western people lived, interacted, and
thought that remain part of, and indeed characterize, life in the
modern Western world now. The following overview explores those
general characteristics and their roots in the movements that
dominated the given time frame, reflecting thorough consideration if
not exhaustive treatment.
The Renaissance spread across Europe roughly up from Italy to England
@ 1300 to 1600. It was certainly a reclaiming of the knowledge and
concepts associated with the Greco-Roman phase of Western
civilization. However, the Renaissance also marked an emergence of
Western Europe. There were initial developments in perspective,
government, economics, and knowledge during the Renaissance that
remain familiar today. In matters of perspective, The Renaissance
first gave Western civilization it's self-image of being modern, as in
beyond the Classical Age of the Greeks and Romans. Two major aspects
of Renaissance thought, humanism and individualism, followed up on the
Classical attachments to the human form and human activity. Humanism
emphasized the necessity of living life in the physical world, and
suggested that physical existence compared in importance to the
spiritual existence one prepared for after death. A consideration for
the value and needs of physical existence naturally invited a greater
appreciation for the value and needs represented in an individual
human life. Individualism was secondary to humanism during the
Renaissance, but the status of the individual in relation to Western
society would continue to grow over time. The dual prongs of humanism
and individualism began prodding Renaissance society toward
secularism, the idea that religious belief need not determine the
daily course of human affairs. Politically, The Renaissance generally
saw the rise of nation-states under strong monarchies in Western
Europe, particularly in England, France, and Spain. Economically, The
feudal concentration of wealth gave way to commercial economics and
trade, with the development of a middle class. Advances in Renaissance
knowledge were dominated by the sciences, especially anatomy,
astronomy, and mathematics. Importantly, the invention of movable type
in vernacular languages ensured a relatively wide audience for both
the scientific advances and the intellectual concepts of the
Renaissance. The commercial trading interest, the desire for national
influence, and the application of science combined to make the modern
European contact with the New World possible before the close of the
Renaissance.
The Protestant Reformation was the denominational division of
Christian faith from the authority and teachings of the Roman Catholic
Church, @ 1517 to 1547. The Reformation certainly began within the
scope of the Renaissance's larger time frame, benefiting and
reinforcing Renaissance concepts that weakened Catholic authority.
Yet, Protestantism also uniquely contributed to a modern Western
perspective. The challenge to and defiance of the Church's authority
suggested that even divinely sanctioned authority could and should be
contested for the right reasons. Though strong monarchs would take up
the mantle of Divine Right, realistic legitimacy of secular authority
had to rely on more visible standards than religious sanction,
promoting a stronger distinction between religious identity and
secular power. Also, once religious authority became subject to
justified challenge it became that much easier to challenge other
authority as well. Protestantism also advanced individualism. The
Reformation carried an egalitarian validation of any individual's
ability to interpret Scripture and relate to God. Some Protestant
denominations vested democratic authority in separate congregations.
The presence of conflicting denominations led some secular authorities
to enforce religious toleration as a policy of domestic stability. A
Protestant "work ethic" instilled a sense of good in commercial
economics. Many Protestant clergy married and were not vowed to
celibacy, suggesting that the Reformation demystified male religious
figures and improved the relative position of women in Western
society.
The Scientific Revolution, like the Protestant Reformation, rippled
off of the Renaissance before coming into its own. The great European
turn toward science, between the late 1500s and the late 1700s
contributed to the focus on life as a human experience. In doing so
the Scientific Revolution also uniquely impacted on the modern Western
world view. Advancements in astronomy, mathematics, physics, and
anatomy/physiology over the course of time were applied to
cartography, navigation, medicine and mechanics. These applications
reinforced a sense of a Western emergence into a modern time that had
precise, technological knowledge of the world. Science offered the
scientific method as a general approach to living. The idea of
overcoming a difficulty by experimentation and application of the most
successful results of experimentation further demystified life in
general and inspired a confident approach to it. These important
concepts bridged Western civilization logically from the Renaissance
to the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment, dating @ 1750 to 1850, did more than reinforce the
concepts introduced earlier. It established the great concepts like
human secularism, individualism, scientific reasoning, progress, and
being modern as the values to which modern Western civilization should
aspire. The Enlightenment encouraged the application of these concepts
as the proper foundations for human society. Nation-states remained,
but the Enlightenment proposed that governments were civic
constructions for the protection of society rather than divine rights
flowing from religion and family. The Enlightenment's political
philosophy also saw government's authority extending over an
individual's civic rights enjoyed as a member of the society, but not
over natural rights any individual enjoyed as a human being. The
Enlightenment fostered public awareness of and civic applications for
the general concepts of Reason, Natural Law, toleration and progress.
The idea of change was modernized too. Change was no longer an
uncontrolled reaction to events, but was something positive society
could intentionally do for self-improvement.
Western society changed greatly between 1300 and 1850 AD. Over that
time, Western civilization was effected by concepts and forms that
shaped its image of what a modern world was. General characteristics
of the world today demonstrate that much of the world view adopted
from the West's experience of the Renaissance through the
Enlightenment still holds firm. For better or worse, the modern
Western world is secular and humanistic, its dynamics are driven by
human realities centered upon the needs of physical existence. The
Western world still features the nation-state as its basic political
form, though it has modernized over time to largely reflect Western
attachments to individual civic liberty and popular will. Commercial
economics remains as the modern Western medium for the exchange of
goods. Modern Western society relies on a demystified view of the
human and natural world, and continues to promote the values of
reason, science, and technology. Western society still views positive
change for self-improvement as a way of continually being part of the
modern world. Be aware that the Western sense of change can be
teleological. That means a sense of progressing from one point to
another as if on a line. For example, it would be tempting to present
the scenario: the Renaissance to the Reformation to the Scientific
Revolution to the Enlightenment, resulting in the modern world. The
chronologies, similarities, and unique contributions of these
movements reveal that progress in history is more complex than that.
Complexities and similarities in mind, the Renaissance, the Protestant
Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment clearly
contributed to the Western understanding of a modern world was, an
understanding that remains broadly identifiable.
I hope this helps,
Brettquest
Sources and Links:
The Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:E9B83YgsQ_AC:www.ahs.cqu.edu.au/humanities/history/52140/PDF/topic6.pdf++%22Renaissance%22+%22contribution%22+%22the+modern+world%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Effects of Protestantism Concerning the Transition to the Modern World
http://www.wpunj.edu/~history/study/edelciv15.htm
The Scientific Revolution: Copernicus to Newton/Shaping of the Modern
World
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/core4-4.htm
The Enlightenment/Shaping of the Modern World
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/core4-5.htm
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