In this episode of History 102, 'WhatIfAltHist' creator Rudyard Lynch and co-host Austin Padgett examine the Enlightenment's philosophical transformation from medieval religious to modern mechanistic worldviews, analyzing French rationalist, British empirical, and German romantic traditions that fundamentally shaped contemporary Western civilization and thought.

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FOLLOW ON X:

@whatifalthist (Rudyard)

@LudwigNverMises (Austin)

@TurpentineMedia

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Intro

(00:15) The Enlightenment

(00:50) Defining the Enlightenment - 18th Century Philosophic Breakthrough

(01:06) Why the Enlightenment is Hard to Comprehend Today

(01:30) Living Off Systems Created by Smarter Earlier Eras

(02:37) Living in a World Created by the Enlightenment

(03:19) The Enlightenment as an Open Source Toolkit

(04:00) Spenglerian Analysis of the Enlightenment

(04:30) Ancient World Parallels - Greece and Rome

(05:00) Life-Affirming and Life-Denying Phases of Civilization

(05:48) The Axial Age - India, China, and Islam

(06:52) Every Civilization Doubts Its Old Religion

(07:30) Disintegration Since the Enlightenment

(17:35) Sponsors Zcash | Shopify

(20:18) 17th Century Context & 30 Years War

(56:00) British, German & French Enlightenment Discussion

(02:05:20) Tolstoy and the Limits of Rationalism

(02:06:27) 19th Century Balance - Technology vs Romantic Subjectivism

(02:07:15) Transition from French to German Enlightenment

(02:08:00) Eastern Europe and Enlightened Despots

(02:08:30) Next Video Preview - 18th Century Regime Europe

(02:09:00) The Rational Elite Problem

(02:10:29) Intelligence vs Character

(02:11:00) The Bell Curve and Overproduction of Mids

(02:12:18) Wrap

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