The Enlightenment was a time to question and understand new meanings and values of life.  People who supported the Enlightenment period were thought to be vivid thinkers, questioning “why” things happen and the science behind them instead of relying on the church to give you these understandings. This period of thinking led to all different changes amongst society and classes. Literacy rates improved, health improved, even some women were writing instead of childbearing and house work, which is what they had done for years and years. The Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas states “If God had given all human beings reason, then women were just as entailed to develop and exercise their minds as their male counterparts” which proves a very good point, if God had given this “reason” to all men, he must have given it to women as well. The questioning of things also lead to children being involved within literature and other things of that nature, something that was unheard of doing until you became an adult. Enlightenment thinkers had many people who did not believe in their ways, these people preferred the more traditional way, the way that it had always been.

Rene Descartes was a famous philosopher of this time, and his quote “Cogito ergo sum” meaning I think, therefore I am became very famous. I believe what he means by this is, people exist because we think and reason everything going on around us. Descartes way of thinking may be different from other philosophers, Descartes believes that God has his plan for you and there is no changing that, while other philosophers say you don’t really know anything. Although they may have thought