Enlightenment: Did you mean...?

A c. 1710 portrait painting by Nicolas de Largillière of Madame Anne Thérèse de Marganat de Courcelles, Marquise de Lambert (1647-1733), a pioneer of the Parisian salon. (Musée Carnavalet, Paris)

Last time we learned about the Enlightenment, and the philosophers and thinkers whose ideas would shape governance for hundred of years. This week, we're learning how monarchs across Europe were influenced by those...

Ulrich Lehner’s The Inner Life of Catholic Reform: From the Council of Trent to the Enlightenment came into fruition after Lehner published several works on the Catholic Enlightenment...

Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world, originating in Central Asia and the Indus Valley, still practiced in the present day. The term Hinduism is what is known as an exonym (a name given by others to a people, place, or concept...

A mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”) is an artistic representation of higher thought and deeper meaning given as a geometric symbol used in spiritual, emotional, or psychological work to focus one's attention. The image first appears in...

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher, best known by the phrase 'Cogito ergo sum' ('I think therefore I am'). He published works on optics, coordinate geometry, physiology, and...

The faravahar is the best-known symbol from ancient Persia of the winged sun disk with a seated male figure in the center. It is thought to represent Ahura Mazda, the god of Zoroastrianism, but has also been interpreted to signify...

Krishna (Krsna or Hari Krishna) is a major god of the Hindu pantheon and considered the eighth incarnation of Vishnu. He is perhaps the most popular of all the heroes of Hindu mythology. Krishna's adventures appear in the Mahabharata...

Magadha was an ancient kingdom located on the Indo-Gangetic plains in eastern India and spread over what is today the modern state of Bihar. At the height of its power, it claimed suzerainty over the entire eastern part of the...

Ancient Greek astronomy was the study of the universe to understand how it functioned and why apart from the established theistic model that claimed all things were ordered and maintained by the gods. Ancient Greek astronomers...