The Age of Reason is a name for the period usually called the Enlightenment, especially the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe and the Atlantic world. Writers debated how people acquire knowledge, what political authorities may demand and how religious claims should be assessed. Thomas Paine also used The Age of Reason as the title of a particular work on religion. The period and the book are related, and the book expresses one writer’s position within a wider set of debates. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II · Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment? (1784) · Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part I
Locke on experience and religious toleration
In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke compares the mind before it has ideas to an unmarked sheet of paper. He argues that the materials of knowledge come through experience. One source is sensation, such as seeing a colour. Another is reflection on what the mind does, such as remembering or doubting. The distinction makes observation of one’s own thinking part of an account of how knowledge begins. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II
In his 1689 Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke separates the civil magistrate’s responsibility for people’s worldly interests from the care of their souls. He also sets limits on toleration. He excludes atheists on the grounds that he thinks promises and oaths require belief in God. His letter shows how a case for limiting government power could coexist with exclusions in the same argument. John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) · John Locke, Toleration, on its limits
Kant and the public use of reason
In 1784 Immanuel Kant argued that enlightenment requires people to be free to address a reading public in their own voice. He illustrates the point with a clergyman. In an official role the clergyman teaches the doctrine of the church he serves. When writing as a scholar for the public, he should be free to criticize that doctrine and suggest changes. Kant uses the example to distinguish performing an institutional duty from participating in an open argument about the institution. Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment? (1784)
What Paine meant by The Age of Reason
In The Age of Reason, Paine affirms belief in one God. He then asks what it means for another person to claim that God has spoken to them. For that person the experience might count as revelation. For everyone who hears the account it reaches them as testimony. Paine uses this distinction to question the authority of revealed religion while defending belief in a creator. His argument shows how a writer could challenge churches and scriptures while maintaining a religious conviction of his own. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part I
Wollstonecraft and who gets to reason independently
In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft challenged Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s account of education for women. She argued for education that gives women the capacity to exercise judgment and govern themselves. Her response brings a question about equal standing into the debate about reason. If education trains some people for dependence, their limited opportunities cannot establish a natural lack of capacity. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Conclusion
The Age of Reason is best understood through specific debates. Locke asks where ideas come from and what authority a government should have over belief. Kant considers the freedom to criticize institutions, Paine examines the authority of testimony and Wollstonecraft asks who receives an education for independent judgment. Their different answers show what was at stake when reason became a public question.
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