Explain how Enlightenment figures John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Mary Wollstonecraft took part in the Enlightenment by challenging the dominant ideas of the “old regime,” and how their ideas prefigured the emergence of sociology

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

1. The old regime was represented by the rule of the monarchy and hereditary aristocracy, and the ideas that justified it, like the “divine right of kings.”
2. The Enlightenment, or “Age of Reason,” was a period of collective and intellectual challenge to the ideas of the old regime, spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
3. John Locke believed that the basis of society was the rational decisions of free individuals, and that government’s role was to resolve conflicts and preserve order among them. This represented a “social contract.”
4. Rousseau believed that human beings were essentially good but were corrupted by inequality. He thought that, liberated from inequality, society would be guided by a collective spirit or “general will.”
5. Mary Wollstonecraft is sometimes regarded as the first feminist. She argued that society could not progress if women were held in a position of subjugation. She also argued that women’s subjugation was the result of cultural norms rather than nature.
6. The ideas of these writers prefigured sociology because they dealt with issues that are central to sociology today, including identity, inequality, interaction, institutions, and intersections.