The Contribution of the Jesuit Order to the propagation of the enlightenment ideas in Lithuania

ENThe Enlightenment came to Lithuania in the second half of the XVIII century, at the time of economical and political disorder. The Lithuanian establishment treated the ideas of Enlightenment as the means against the degradation of the country. The Jesuit Order responded to the influence of the Enlightenment reshaping its educational programmes, first of all in the Vilnius University, which they had established a century ago. The studies of philosophy lasted for three years. The degree of the Doctor of Philosophy was established instead of the degree of the master of the liberal arts and philosophy. They opened the departments of the modern philosophy and natural sciences. As a result the pro-scholastic and anti-scholastic factions arose. The latter wanted to get rid of scholastics completely, the former demanded to adjust the modern disciplines to the scholastics. In the studies of philosophy a kind of compromise was reached. Philosophy was taught in Latin; its division into the logic, physics, metaphysics, and ethics remained; but the content of studies was significantly modified. The logic was followed not by physics, as earlier, but by metaphysics, which was divided into the ontology, psychology, and natural theology. The physics consisted of the general and the special parts and of the cosmology. [p. 53].

• Filosofija / Philosophy
• Istorija / History