Enlightenment and Modern ideas: Major Ideas of Enlightenment: Kant, Rousseau: Spread of Enlightenment in the colonies; Rise of socialist Ideas (up to Marx); spread of Marxian Socialism
PYQs: Enlightenment and Modern ideas [1985-2024]
- What is meant by the ‘rediscovery of ancient civilization’? Show how the ‘New Learning’ was a major element in the beginning of Modem Europe. (1986)
- “Attempts to put mercantilist doctrine into practice characterised the history of most of the nations of Western European in the 16th and 17th centuries.” Comment in about 200 words. (1988)
- ‘The discovery of the new world, coinciding with the swift diffusion of printed books, taught the Europeans that ‘‘Truth’’, in Bacon’s noble phrase, “is the daughter not of authority, but of time.’” Comment in about 200 words. (1989)
- ‘The Renaissance was the discovery of the world and of man’ Comment in about 200 words. (1990)
- ‘His (Martin Luther’s) rebellion was essentially popular & national.’ Comment. (1991)
- ‘The Heavenly Land system was significant in that it greatly expanded the idea of equalizing rich and poor and landowing which the peasant wars had put forward in the past.’ Comment. (1991)
- Assess the intellectual awakening which occurred in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. How did it influence modem society and civilization. (1993)
- “The Renaissance was not a political or religious movement. It was a state of mind.” Comment. (1994)
- “The Renaissance and the Reformation are the two springs of modern history, rival sources of the intellectual and moral freshening of modem life.’’ Comment. (1995)
- “The era of discovery and exploration was but another aspect of the Renaissance interest in the world and man.” Comment. (1996)
- “The Peace of Westphalia ended the reign of theology over the European mind and left the road obstructed but passable for the tentative of reason.” Comment. (1997)
- “Of all forms assumed by the Protestant Reformation, Calvinism has been the most far – reaching in its scope and the most profound in its influence.” Comment. (2000)
- ‘Marxian Communism is primarily the offspring of German Hegelianism and French Socialism.’ Comment. (2001)
- ‘The Renaissance was the discovery of the world and of man.’ Comment. (2002)
- ‘Rousseau’s political philosophy contains the seeds of Socialism, Absolutism and Democracy.’ Comment. (2004)
- “The Renaissance scholars laid the eggs which Luther, the father of the Reformation, later on hatched.” Discuss. (2006)
- Give reasons for the origin of the Renaissance in Italy. (2007)
- “The Enlightenment represented alternative approaches to modernity, alternative habits of mind and heart, of conscience and sensibility.” Discuss. (2008)
- “France was more fertile than Britain in producing new Socialist theories and movements, though they bore less concrete results in France than in Britain”. Comment. (2008)
- Critically evaluate: “… he (Voltaire) was living in the Age of Enlightenment….The age itself was not enlightened.”- E. Kant. (2010)
- “The promptings of the heart are more to be trusted than the logic of the mind.” – Rousseau. Critically evaluate. (2011)
- “The despotic rulers of Europe were influences by the philosophy of Enlightenment and began to follow a benevolent policy towards their subjects.” Critically examine. (2012)
- “For Kant, Enlightenment is mankind’s final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error.” Critically examine. (2013)
- “Rousseau strove to reconcile the liberty of the individual and the institution of Government through a new vision of the Contract-Theory of Government.” Critically examine. (2014)
- “Enlightened despots (Europe) were not necessarily politically liberal.” Critically examine in 150 words. (2014)
- “If we were to define our conception of the State, our answer would be that the State is the banker of the poor.The government would finance and supervise the purchase of productive equipments and the formation of social workshops.” In light of the above statement of Louis Blanc, throw light on the Pre-Marxist Socialist Thought in Europe. (2014)
- Critically examine: “France was even more fertile than Britain in producing new socialist theories and movements, though bore less concrete results in France than Britain.” (2015)
- “The oppressive exploitation of the working class in the wake of Industrial Revolution had jolted the social conscience of England.” Elucidate. (2015)
- Karl Marx applied his critical intelligence to Wealth of Nations… Where Smith had seen only the sunlight, Marx saw only the shadows thrown upon the human scene by the unimpeded exercise of individual liberty…” Elucidate. (2016)
- Critically examine in 150 words: “Kant’s redefinition of reason and his rehabilitation of conscience marked a high point in the intellectual reaction against dominant rationalism of the Enlightenment.” (2017)
- Critically examine: “With the writings of Karl Marx, Socialism assumed the form of Scientific Socialism.” (2018)
- Explain the major ideas of Enlightenment. Discuss the contribution of Rousseau in Enlightenment. (2018)
- Critically examine: How would you explain the nature of pre-Marxian Socialism? (2019)
- “The principles of Enlightenment were in some ways a continuation of the discoveries and theories of the Scientific Revolution.” (2020)
- What was “enlightened” about the Age of Enlightenment? (2021)
- ‘Rousseau kindled a hope which became the spirit of the Enlightenment’. Critically examine. (2022)
- Engels did much more than Marx himself to popularise the ideas of Marxism. Critically examine. (2022)
- Enlightenment was not confined to scientific revolution alone, but humanism and ideas of progress too were its inseparable constituents. Examine. (2023)
- Marxian socialism claims itself to be a scientific socialist theory capable of explaining the history of humankind. Discuss. (2023)
- The ideas raised by Enlightenment thinkers were profoundly unsettling and unknowable to old regime society and political order. (2024)