Thinkers of the Enlightenment Essay

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that took place in mainly Europe, and mainly in North America during the late 17th century and early 18th century. In my opinion, Benjamin Franklin, Baron de Montesquieu, and John Locke were the most important philosophers.

Enlightenment: The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century movement in Western philosophy. It was an age of optimism; the movement was the idea that believed reason and knowledge could lead to progress and advancements in a society. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals as well as questioning government especially the monarch. The significance of the Enlightenment was that it became the idea and thought that we, the people have all right to question the government and have the right to overthrow the leader if the leader is corrupt. Many people of the Enlightenment were John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Thomas Paine all these men help construct the ideas the United States would construct onto their Constitution. The ideas

Enlightenment thinkers had a huge impact on how we view, and run our government today. They contributed greatly to the influences we have in our world and even the laws we abide by in our world today. These thinkers were extremely influential to our government and how they shaped the country. The reason being, they had amazing ideas that went for the better of the people, and that was exactly the dream that they had for the U.S. We follow what they said, and thought, and put our own twist on it to make sure that it fit exactly what we wanted for our country and what we want for our country now.

The Enlightenment thinkers had many of the ideas in our government that is in use today. The Enlightenment thinkers had a huge impact on both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Both these documents impact America and me greatly.

The enlightenment had some influential thinkers that started to get people to open their eyes and started to get them to think. Montesquieu, he believed in separation of powers which is the government should be split up with equal but different powers to protect the people. John Locke is an good example of an influential thinker that spirited the colonist because John Locke had the idea of natural rights(people had the right to life, liberty, and property). Mary Wollstonecraft, the first woman to call the rights of women. Mary believed that women should have equal opportunities for success, and civil existences. The enlightened thinkers have influenced many citizens in many ways, they began to start thinking and becoming more intelligent and independent for themselves. Those thinkers inspired the citizens to start questioning the british government and start to realize that they were being treated unfairly. They started to see the importance of separation of church and state, and also saw that the British didn’t have the right to rule over

The Enlightenment was an 18th century intellectual and philosophical movement in Europe that eventually spread to Paris and the United States. This movement was a link between the scientific revolution and the cultural and political life. The Enlightenment fostered the belief that one could reform society by discovering rational laws that governed social behavior and were just as scientific as the laws of physics (The Earth and its Peoples, pg. 582). It challenged the traditional notions of truth and authority of the natural world while applying the same methods to the world in regards to human society and behavior. It was free of superstition, ignorance, and gained knowledge by questioning the world and human realm.

The Enlightenment philosophers were some of the smartest thinkers who changed the way people think during the 16th and 17th century. The philosophers changed the way we live and think today. “These discussions helped shape the capitalistic, democratic world in which we live in today.” There were numerous great philosophers during this time period that taught us many different methods of teaching and understanding new observations.

While reading about the enlightenment it was brought to my attentions that many philosophers actually disagreed on many minor issues but all shared the fundamental principles. It was not just the philosophers that started to question the society that they lived but citizens too. With scientific breakthroughs, they started thinking empirically. Which caused a huge change the started to conclude their answers be observation and experience instead of logic. They challenged many of the churches practices. Each one of the philosophers assigned had a unique view on religion, and how it shaped the Enlightenment period. For example, Moses Mendelsohn was the “Jewish Socrates” he argued for religious toleration and religious distinction of Jewish communities. Whereas Voltaire, one of the prominent French Philosopher’s wanted answers to why Roman Catholic Church executed Huguenot Jean Calas. Voltaire questioned the Catholic Church, he did not consider himself to be and atheist but to be a deist. Lastly, Lessing called for religious tolerance of all religions not just Christianity.

One of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment was Thomas Paine who is best known for his famous pamphlet, The Age of Reason. In his pamphlet, he advocated deism which promoted reason and free thought, and argued

Several individuals have been credited and blamed for leading and contributing to the Enlightenment. These thinkers not only changed their views, but also spread revolutionary ideas to others. These philosophes, Evangelists of science, felt that it was their duty to open peoples’ eyes to new thought. (wikipedia.com) They used every media available to them including word of mouth, pamphlets, letters, journals and books. Philosophes were

The Enlightenment is known as a period of time during the eighteenth century in which the most influential thinkers throughout Europe, Britain, and France expressed criticism and mistrust of traditional customs, morals, and institutions. These individuals were known as the Enlightenment Thinkers and consisted primarily of elite writers and intellectuals. The Enlightenment Thinkers, mostly through their writings, were able to spread their ideas of a new European outlook which would ultimately have a profound influence in the minds of the French revolutionaries.

The Enlightenment was the period in history following the scientific revolution. The Enlightenment was a time where views on ideal government, human nature, and overall rights of the people were reevaluated by many philosophers. People believed and wanted economic improvement and political reform and believed both were possible. Rulers who believed in enlightened absolutism wanted to centralize their authority to reform their countries. They put the wellbeing of their country above anything else. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau were all philosophers during the Enlightenment, and they had different but interesting ways of thinking about government, human nature, and rights. Rousseau’s views and ideas were the best and most intelligent of these three philosophers.

Every Enlightenment Philosopher in the 1600’s had different views on how a human being was structured and how it worked, they had different beliefs and opinions that may or may not be true.

The three most important philosophers in the “Enlightenment Age” are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Baron de Montesquieu. These three philosophers has impacted state, church, and the lives of people. Thomas Hobbes theorized that all humans are inherently selfish and evil. John Locke made a social contract for the rights and lives of every living person. Those naturals rights were (Life, Liberty, and Property). Baron de Montesquieu expanded John Locke’s theory on the natural rights.

The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual and scientific movement which is characterized by its rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues. Enlightenment ideals challenged the way people were taught to think and let them express their criticism of the church, the monarchy or whatever system they saw as unjust. The impact of the enlightenment movement was first seen in 18th century Europe and soon spread to different parts of the world. People who believed in these ideals were called enlightenment thinkers. Enlightenment thinkers were a voice for the masses who felt they were being manipulated by people holding all the power. It also helped the masses realize that they did not need the church or monarchy, and enlightenment thinkers were able to assemble a following to stop people of power taking advantage of those who were not quite as powerful. Enlightenment thinkers gave an outlet to the common citizen who were seeing injustices in their government system.