Explain how the enlightenment influenced the founders. Include a definition of the enlightenment, specific ideas, people and how the founders incorporated those ideas into founding documents and or principles of government.

The answers are

1. B
2. B
3. B
4. A
5. C
6. B
7. C
8. C

Thank you so much Nala. Btw 10 is B

a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.

This text is all I have and I don't understand where the answer comes from

During the course of the 1600s, the English began establishing colonies on the eastern coast of North America. At this time, another philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment was gaining strength. The Reformation figures had looked back to the early Christians for their guidance, while the Renaissance emphasized the ancient Greeks and Romans. The philosophers of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, taught that they were discovering truths unknown in the past.

Francis Bacon developed what is now called the scientific method as a way of arriving at truth. Under this method one takes known truths and applies these known truths as possible solutions to new questions. This hypothesis, or suggested answer, is then tested. Conclusions are then drawn from that.

This new way of thinking provided the framework for new political ideas and practices. Where Isaac Newton put forth his law of gravity as a natural law, others applied these ideas of natural law to the political arena.

A philosopher widely read by the founders was Baron de Montesquieu, the author of the Spirit of the Laws. To Americans, the most important of Montesquieu’s ideas was the separation and balance of powers. Montesquieu wrote that, “…experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.”

Therefore, he said, “To prevent this abuse, it is necessary, from the very nature of things, power should be a check to power.” This is the idea that most interested the founders. Montesquieu saw three basic functions of government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. He believed these three branches of government should be separated and independent of each other. He greatly admired the British government as an example of this. The king held the executive power; Parliament held the legislative power, and British judges held the judicial power.

By the very act of separating these powers, each branch would be jealous of the powers of the others. This would provide the check of power against power that Montesquieu praised in Spirit of the Laws. The founders of the United States had this in mind when they separated the U.S. government into a Congress, a presidency, and a federal court system.

All of these influences, from the Greeks to the philosophers of the Enlightenment, impacted the thinking of the English system of government. The English developed these political concepts to an even higher level than before. This, in turn, influenced the founders of the United States, since many political ideas are drawn from the English.

The Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.

Founders of what?

Plus anyone else that was influenced

I'll be glad to critique your answer.

What did you learn from your assigned reading?

Ok, thanks for the help