AP European History Unit 4 Cheatsheet: Scientific, Philosophical, and Political Developments

Core shift: Observation, experimentation, and mathematics replaced reliance on classical authority alone.

• Views of cosmos, nature, human body challenged by empirical evidence
• Existing traditions persisted alongside new ideas—not a clean break
• Ancient Greek and Roman works reinterpreted through new methods

Key distinction: Revolutionary method (observation) vs. revolutionary conclusions (which took time to dominate).

Five pillars:

• Empiricism—knowledge from sensory experience
• Skepticism—questioning received wisdom
• Human reason—rational analysis as tool
• Rationalism—logic and mathematics as guides
• Classical sources—ancient texts reinterpreted

These challenged social order, government institutions, and faith's public role.

Critical point: Enlightenment applied Scientific Revolution methods to society and politics, not just nature.

John Locke:

• Society = self-interested individuals
• State originates in consent of the governed, not divine right
• Government is a contract, revocable

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

• Also used social contract framework
• Argued for exclusion of women from political life
• Challenged by Wollstonecraft and Condorcet

Economic challenge to absolutism:

• Old: Mercantilism—state control, bullion accumulation, monopolies
• New: Adam Smith, Physiocrats (Quesnay, Turgot)—free trade, free markets, self-interest drives efficiency

Religious rationalization:

• Deism—belief in a creator known through reason rather than revelation (Voltaire, Paine)
• Skepticism & atheism (Hume, Baron d'Holbach)
• Natural religion—universal morals from reason
• Religion viewed as private, not state mandate

By 1800: Most western/central European governments extended toleration to Christian minorities; some granted civil equality to Jews.