Enlightenment Figures

Overview of all figures

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)- Early Enlightenment thinker excommunicated from the Jewish religion for his concept of a deterministic universe John Locke (1632-1704)- Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)- German philosopher and mathematician known for his optimistic view of the universe Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)- Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) Montesquieu (1689-1755)- The Persian Letters (1721); The Spirit of Laws (1748) Voltaire (1694-1778)- Renowned French philosophe and author of more than seventy works David Hume (1711-1776)- Central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment; Of Natural Characters (1748) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)- The Social Contract (1762) Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783)- Editors of Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts (1751-1772) Adam Smith (1723-1790)- The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759); An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)- What Is Enlightenment? (1784); On the Different Races of Man (1775) Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)- Major philosopher of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)- On Crimes and Punishments (1764)

Isaac Newton

But the new findings failed to explain what forces controlled the movement of the planets and objects on earth. That challenge was taken up by English scientist Isaac Newton (1642-1727), a genius who spectacularly united the experimental and theoretical-mathematical sides of modern science. Newton was born into the lower English gentry, and he enrolled at Cambridge University in 1661. He arrived at some of his most basic ideas about physics in 1666 at age twenty-four, but was unable to prove them mathematically. In 1684, after years of studying optics, Newton returned to physics for eighteen intensive months. The result was his towering accomplishment, a single explanatory system that could integrate the astronomy of Copernicus, as corrected by Kepler's laws, with the physics of Galileo and his predecessors. Newton did this through a set of mathematical laws that explain motion and mechanics. These laws were published in 1687 in Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (also known as the Principia). Because of their complexity, it took scientists and engineers two hundred years to work out all their implications. The key feature of the Newtonian synthesis was the law of universal gravitation. According to this law, every body in the universe attracts every other body in the universe in a precise mathematical relationship, whereby the force of attraction is proportional to the quantity of matter of the objects and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The whole universe — from Kepler's elliptical orbits to Galileo's rolling balls — was unified in one majestic system. Newton's synthesis of mathematics with physics and astronomy prevailed until the twentieth century and established him as one of the most important figures in the history of science.

Baron de Montesquieu

To appeal to the public and get around the censors, the philosophes wrote novels and plays, histories and philosophies, and dictionaries and encyclopedias, all filled with satire and double meanings to spread their message. One of the greatest philosophes, the baron de Montesquieu (mahn-tuhs-KYOO) (1689-1755), pioneered this approach in The Persian Letters, an extremely influential social satire published in 1721 and considered the first major work of the French Enlightenment. It consisted of amusing letters supposedly written by two Persian travelers who as outsiders saw European customs in unique ways, thereby allowing Montesquieu a vantage point for criticizing existing practices and beliefs. Disturbed by the growth in absolutism under Louis XIV and inspired by the example of the physical sciences, he set out to apply the critical method to the problem of government in The Spirit of Laws (1748). Arguing that forms of government were shaped by history and geography, Montesquieu identified three main types: monarchies, republics, and despotisms. A great admirer of the English parliamentary system, Montesquieu argued for a separation of powers, with political power divided among different classes and legal estates holding unequal rights and privileges. Montesquieu was no democrat; he was apprehensive about the uneducated poor and he did not question the sovereignty of the French monarchy. But he was concerned that absolutism in France was drifting into tyranny and believed that strengthening the influence of intermediary powers was the best way to prevent it. Decades later, his theory of separation of powers had a great impact on the constitutions of the young United States in 1789 and of France in 1791.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

After about 1770 a number of thinkers and writers began to attack the philosophes' faith in reason and progress. The most famous of these was Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The son of a poor Swiss watchmaker, Rousseau made his way into the Parisian Enlightenment through his brilliant intellect. Rousseau was both one of the most influential voices of the Enlightenment and, in his ultimate rejection of rationalism and civilized sociability, a harbinger of reaction against Enlightenment ideals. Like other Enlightenment thinkers, Rousseau was passionately committed to individual freedom. Unlike them, however, he attacked rationalism and civilization as destroying, rather than liberating, the individual. Moreover, he asserted, the basic goodness of the individual and the unspoiled child had to be protected from the cruel refinements of civilization. Rousseau's ideals greatly influenced the early Romantic movement, which rebelled against the culture of the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century. Rousseau's contribution to political theory in The Social Contract (1762) was based on two fundamental concepts: the general will and popular sovereignty. According to Rousseau, the general will is sacred and absolute, reflecting the common interests of all the people, who have displaced the monarch as the holder of sovereign power. The general will is not necessarily the will of the majority, however. At times the general will may be the authentic, long-term needs of the people as correctly interpreted by a farsighted minority. Little noticed before the French Revolution, Rousseau's concept of the general will appealed greatly to democrats and nationalists after 1789.

Adam Smith

Hume's emphasis on human experience, rather than abstract principle, had a formative influence on another major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith (1723-1790). Smith argued that social interaction produced feelings of mutual sympathy that led people to behave in ethical ways, despite inherent tendencies toward self-interest. By observing others and witnessing their feelings, individuals imaginatively experienced such feelings and learned to act in ways that would elicit positive sentiments and avoid negative ones. Smith believed that the thriving commercial life of the eighteenth century was likely to produce civic virtue through the values of competition, fair play, and individual autonomy. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith attacked the laws and regulations created by mercantilist governments that, he argued, prevented commerce from reaching its full capacity

Cesare Beccaria

In northern Italy a central figure was Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), a nobleman educated at Jesuit schools and the University of Pavia. His On Crimes and Punishments (1764) was a passionate plea for reform of the penal system that decried the use of torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and capital punishment, and advocated the prevention of crime over the reliance on punishment. The text was quickly translated into French and English and made an impact throughout Europe and its colonies.

John Locke

Out of this period of intellectual turmoil came John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). In this work Locke (1632-1704), a physician and member of the Royal Society, brilliantly set forth a new theory about how human beings learn and form their ideas. Whereas Descartes based his deductive logic on the conviction that certain first principles, or innate ideas, are imbued in humans by God, Locke insisted that all ideas are derived from experience. The human mind at birth is like a blank tablet, or tabula rasa, on which understanding and beliefs are inscribed by experience. Human development is therefore determined by external forces, like education and social institutions, not innate characteristics. Locke's essay contributed to the theory of sensationalism, the idea that all human ideas and thoughts are produced as a result of sensory impressions.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Some women eagerly accepted Rousseau's idealized view of their domestic role, but others — such as the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft — vigorously rejected his notion of women's limitations.

Voltaire

The most famous philosophe was François Marie Arouet, known by the pen name Voltaire (vohl-TAIR) (1694-1778). In his long career, Voltaire wrote more than seventy witty volumes, hobnobbed with royalty, and died a millionaire through shrewd speculations. Passionate about science, she studied physics and mathematics and published scientific articles and translations, including the first translation of Newton's Principia into French, still in use today. Excluded from the Royal Academy of Sciences because she was a woman, Madame du Châtelet had no doubt that women's limited role in science was due to their unequal education. Voltaire wrote works praising England and popularizing English science. Yet, like almost all of the philosophes, Voltaire was a reformer, not a revolutionary, in politics. He pessimistically concluded that the best one could hope for in the way of government was a good monarch, since human beings "are very rarely worthy to govern themselves." Nor did Voltaire believe in social and economic equality. Voltaire's philosophical and religious positions were much more radical. Voltaire believed in God, but he rejected Catholicism in favor of deism, belief in a distant noninterventionist deity. Drawing on mechanistic philosophy, he envisioned a universe in which God acted like a great clockmaker who built an orderly system and then stepped aside to let it run. Above all, Voltaire and most of the philosophes hated all forms of religious intolerance, which they believed led to fanaticism and cruelty.

Denis Diderot

The strength of the philosophes lay in their dedication and organization. Their greatest achievement was a group effort — the seventeen-volume Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts, edited by Denis Diderot (DEE-duh-roh) (1713-1784) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (dah-luhm-BEHR) (1717-1783). The two men set out in 1751 to find coauthors who would examine the rapidly expanding whole of human knowledge and teach people how to think critically and objectively about all matters. As Diderot said, he wanted the Encyclopedia to "change the general way of thinking." Denis Diderot was born in a provincial town in eastern France and educated in Paris. Rejecting careers in the church and the law, he devoted himself to literature and philosophy. Diderot was jailed by Parisian authorities for publishing an essay questioning God's role in creation and suggesting the autonomous evolution of species. Following these difficult beginnings, Diderot's editorial work and writing on the Encyclopedia were the crowning intellectual achievements of his life and, according to some, of the Enlightenment itself.