Important People for MME quote IDs

Made with AI, from my readings

St. Thomas Aquinas

A medieval philosopher who reconciled faith and reason, arguing that both are two paths to the same truth (God).

Petrarch

The "father of humanism" who revived classical texts, championing Humanism and the intellectual and moral value of studying classical antiquity.

Erasmus

A Northern (Christian) Humanist who criticized the Church, promoting a "Philosophy of Christ" (a simple, ethical life) and seeking to reform the Church from within, leading to the saying that 'Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.'

Martin Luther

A German monk who started the Protestant Reformation based on the ideas of Sola Fide (salvation by faith alone), Sola Scriptura (the Bible is the only authority), and the "priesthood of believers."

John Calvin

A second-generation reformer who founded Calvinism, based on the concepts of Predestination (God has already chosen who is saved), the absolute sovereignty of God, and who created a theocracy in Geneva.

Ignatius of Loyola

The Spanish founder of the Jesuits who led the Counter-Reformation, stressing absolute obedience to the Pope, education, and missionary work.

Bacon

An English philosopher of the Scientific Revolution who championed the Inductive Method (Empiricism), arguing that knowledge must come from observation and experimentation.

Descartes

The French "father of modern philosophy" who advocated for the Deductive Method (Rationalism), famously stating "I think, therefore I am" to emphasize starting with what can be proven by pure reason.

Hobbes

An English philosopher and author of Leviathan who argued that man's "state of nature" is "nasty, brutish, and short," and that people must surrender all rights to an absolute sovereign for security.

Locke

An English philosopher who argued that people have natural rights to Life, Liberty, and Property, and that government is a contract to protect these rights, and that the people have the right to rebel if the government fails to do so.

Voltaire

The most famous Enlightenment philosophe who championed freedom of speech, religious toleration, and Deism (a "watchmaker" God), while famously opposing the Church with the call to 'Crush the infamous thing!'

Montesquieu

A French philosophe and author of The Spirit of the Laws who argued for the Separation of Powers (Legislative, Executive, Judicial) to prevent tyranny.

Rousseau

A radical philosophe who, in The Social Contract, argued 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,' positing that society corrupts the "noble savage" and promoting the concept of the "General Will" (the common good).

Adam Smith

A Scottish economist and "father of capitalism" who, in Wealth of Nations, advocated for Laissez-faire economics and the "invisible hand" of the free market as the best regulator.

Mary Wollstonecraft

An English writer, early feminist, and author of Vindication of the Rights of Women, who argued that women are rational beings who lack only education, not natural ability.

Philip IV

A medieval French king who clashed with the Pope by asserting the power of the secular state over the authority of the Church.

Machiavelli

Author of The Prince, a Renaissance political theorist who argued that a ruler must be secular and amoral, doing what is effective, not moral, because "the ends justify the means."

Henry VIII

The King of England who created the Anglican Church through the Act of Supremacy, breaking with the Pope for political reasons (to secure a divorce) rather than theological ones.

Elizabeth I

The Protestant Queen of England who defeated the Spanish Armada and prioritized political stability over religious extremism through the "Elizabethan Settlement," a religious compromise.

Philip II

The "Most Catholic King" of Spain who used his nation's power to try and crush Protestantism across Europe, notably by sending the Spanish Armada against England.

Louis XIV

The "Sun King" of France and ultimate absolute monarch who embodied the Divine Right of Kings, famously said "L'état, c'est moi" ("I am the state"), and used Versailles as a 'gilded cage' to control the nobility.

Charles I

The English King beheaded during the English Civil War, whose belief in the Divine Right of Kings and attempts to rule without Parliament led to the conflict.

Oliver Cromwell

The Puritan leader of the Puritan Republic who ruled England as a military dictator (Lord Protector) and enforced strict Puritan morality.

Frederick the Great

An "Enlightened Despot" who ruled Prussia, calling himself the "first servant of the state" and using his absolute power to enact Enlightenment reforms like religious toleration and legal reform.

Copernicus

An astronomer who proposed the heliocentric (sun-centered) universe, arguing that the Earth is not the center of the universe but simply another planet revolving around the sun.

Galileo

An astronomer who used the telescope to make observations (like the moons of Jupiter) that proved Copernicus's heliocentric theory, directly challenging Church authority.

Newton

An English scientist who defined the laws of motion and gravity, uniting the universe under a single set of mathematical laws and viewing it as a vast, orderly "machine."

Leonardo da Vinci

The ultimate "Renaissance Man" who embodied the ideal of the "universal man" by combining art (Mona Lisa, The Last Supper) and science.

Michelangelo

A master Renaissance sculptor and painter who embodied the ideal of Renaissance "genius" with works like the marble statue of David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling.