Editing Age of Enlightenment (section)

===Time span===
There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, though several historians and philosophers argue that it was marked by Descartes' 1637 philosophy of ''[[Cogito, ergo sum]]'' ("I think, therefore I am"), which shifted the [[epistemology|epistemological]] basis from external authority to internal certainty.<ref name="Heidegger1938emancipated">Martin Heidegger [1938] (2002) ''The Age of the World Picture'' quotation:{{blockquote|For up to Descartes ... a particular ''sub-iectum'' ... lies at the foundation of its own fixed qualities and changing circumstances. The superiority of a ''sub-iectum'' ... arises out of the claim of man to a ... self-supported, unshakeable foundation of truth, in the sense of certainty. Why and how does this claim acquire its decisive authority? The claim originates in that emancipation of man in which he frees himself from obligation to Christian revelational truth and Church doctrine to a legislating for himself that takes its stand upon itself.}}</ref><ref name="Ingraffia95p126">Ingraffia, Brian D. (1995) [https://books.google.com/books?id=LHjZYbOLG8cC&pg=PA126 ''Postmodern theory and biblical theology: vanquishing God's shadow''] p. 126</ref><ref>Norman K. Swazo (2002) [https://books.google.com/books?id=INP_cy6Mu7EC&pg=PA97 ''Crisis theory and world order: Heideggerian reflections''] pp.&nbsp;97–99</ref> In France, many cited the publication of Newton's ''[[Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica|Principia Mathematica]]'' (1687),<ref>Shank, J. B. ''The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment'' (2008), "Introduction"{{Page needed|date=July 2020}}</ref> which built upon the work of earlier scientists and formulated the [[Newton's laws of motion|laws of motion]] and [[Newton's law of universal gravitation|universal gravitation]].<ref>{{cite web |title=PHYS 200 – Lecture 3 – Newton's Laws of Motion – Open Yale Courses |url=http://oyc.yale.edu/physics/phys-200/lecture-3 |website=oyc.yale.edu}}</ref> French historians usually place the ''Siècle des Lumières'' ("Century of Enlightenments") between 1715 and 1789: from the beginning of the reign of [[Louis XV]] until the French Revolution.<ref>[[Matthew Smith Anderson|Anderson, M. S.]] ''Historians and eighteenth-century Europe, 1715–1789'' (Oxford UP, 1979); Jean de Viguerie, ''Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières (1715–1789)'' (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995).</ref> Most scholars use the last years of the century, often choosing the French Revolution or the beginning of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] (1804) as a convenient point in time with which to date the end of the Enlightenment.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/enlightenment_age.html |title=The age of Enlightenment |last=Frost |first=Martin |year=2008 |access-date=18 January 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071010041056/http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/enlightenment_age.html |archive-date=10 October 2007}}</ref>

In recent years, scholars have expanded the time span and global perspective of the Enlightenment by examining: (1) how European intellectuals did not work alone and other people helped spread and adapt Enlightenment ideas, (2) how Enlightenment ideas were "a response to cross-border interaction and [[globalization|global integration]]," and (3) how the Enlightenment "continued throughout the nineteenth century and beyond."<ref name=":0"/> The Enlightenment "was not merely a history of [[diffusion of innovations|diffusion]]" and "was the work of historical actors around the world... who invoked the term... for their own specific purposes."<ref name=":0"/>