Enlightenment is a term used to describe an important ideological and cultural movement in the18th century. This movement is characterized by a firm belief that human knowledge can solve existing basic problems. "Enlightenment" is the English translation of French lumieres, which means "light". "lumieres" often appears in the discussion of18th century. It refers to both an idea and the person who expounds it. Everyone has the right to have light. This is a symbol borrowed from ancient philosophy by intellectuals in the17th century. Refers to wisdom.

The connotation of the Enlightenment is very rich. Therefore, since18th century, there have been many different interpretations of the Enlightenment in academic circles. Nowadays, scholars first emphasize the international scale of the Enlightenment. In addition, various definitions of the Enlightenment advocate rationality, and at the same time, the Enlightenment is often called the "rational era". This statement will cause two misunderstandings. First of all, it seems to imply that the advocates of the Enlightenment are imaginative thinkers who are keen on utopian ideas and disdain down-to-earth plans. Second, this statement implies that rational activities are respected to the extreme, and everything else is obedient. In fact, both of these conjectures are wrong. The Enlightenment not only criticized abstract reasoning and utopian schemes, but also laid the foundation for rediscovering the hidden aspects of human nature-desire and emotion. For example, in the17th century, people defined rationality as the basic feature of human beings, thus asserting the superiority of human rationality. The most outstanding performance is Descartes' famous assertion "I think, therefore I am". However, this assertion was quickly refuted, and feelings and emotions gained rationality and became the basis of all human cognition and activities. From Locke, Hume and Rousseau, and finally to Kant's critique of pure reason, however, the Enlightenment did not pay attention to abstract reason, but devoted itself to critical analysis. With the help of observation and images, it constantly questions the facts determined by traditional empirical data. This method is called criticality method.

As for the Enlightenment, it is generally believed that it began at the end of 17, usually marked by 1688, because there were two landmark events in this year: the glorious revolution in Britain and the publication of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. These two events have an important influence on the future ideological development. The climax of the Enlightenment is marked by the activities of the great men of the French Enlightenment, mainly Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Hume and Lessing. The time was about 1730 ~ 1780, and the later enlightenment was in the last 30 years of18th century, usually ending with the French Revolution. In terms of thinking about human beings, the Enlightenment still has a universal spiritual connotation, that is, people can live better and make real progress in the world through introspection, free play of their abilities and active responsibility, but human progress will never happen automatically or be taken for granted. Only driven by the will to improve the world around us can we gain freedom through hard work. As Kant declared in his paper What is Enlightenment: "Enlightenment means that human beings get rid of their own immature state. Immature state means that they are unable to use their own reason without the guidance of others. When the reason is not lack of rationality, but lack of courage and determination to use rationality without the guidance of others, then this immature state is imposed on yourself. " This is the motto of Kant's Enlightenment.