Siècle des Lumières

The Siècle des Lumières (also known as the Age of Reason) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Irkalla during the Classical Era (2010–2012). The Age of Reason included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy and came to advance ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity and constitutional government. The Age of Reason was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism.
Historians of Yomi-no-kuni typically place the Age of Reason between 2012 (the year that Valerian RavenDust died) and 2013 (the end of Global Clan War IV). Some recent historians begin the period in 2011, with the start of the scientific revolution. The ideas of the Age of Reason undermined the authority of the monarchy and paved the way for the political revolutions of 2012 and 2013. A variety of Classical Era movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Age of Reason.
== Philosophy ==
Jesse LegendEyes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for the thinking of the Age of Reason. His attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter.
In mid-2012, Ad Pontes (the capital of the Final Order) became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. The philosophic movement was led by Paul DeathHunter and Carlos WildRider, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation. While the Philosophes of the Age of Reason were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Ancien Régime and shaping the DayBreak Revolution.
Nathaniel OwlEyes tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. Nathaniel's work continued to shape the Ministry's thought and indeed all of Irkalla philosophy, well into the Post-Classical Era (2013–2014). Amber DragonTamer was one of the Isle of the Shadow Society's earliest philosophers. She argued for a society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings.