ENLIGHTENMENT, a term used as the equivalent of the German Au f klarung to designate a period of great intellectual ac tivity in the cause of general education and culture, including the preparatory self-emancipation from mere prejudice, convention and tradition. The name is applied primarily to the movement in 18th century Germany which was inspired by the so-called popular philosophy of Lessing, Mendelssohn, Reimarus and others. It is sometimes extended so as to include the England of Locke and Newton and the France of Condillac, Diderot and Voltaire. Oc casionally the term is also applied to the Greece of the Sophists (q.v.) and the study of the Renaissance.
See the Histories of Philosophy by W. Windelband, by J. E. Erd mann and by F. I7berweg.