AP World Enlightenment

Galileo

Improved the telescope; proved heliocentrism (Sun-centered system)

Galileo

“And yet it moves.”

Galileo

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Isaac Newton

Laws of motion and universal gravitation

Isaac Newton

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton

Principia Mathematica

Rene Descartes

Founder of modern philosophy; Cartesian coordinate system

Rene Descartes

“I think, therefore I am.”

Rene Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy

John Locke

Ideas of natural rights and government by consent

John Locke

“life, liberty, and property”

John Locke

Two Treatises of Government

Montesquieu

Theory of separation of powers

Montesquieu

“Power should be a check to power.”

Montesquieu

The Spirit of the Laws

Adam Smith

Founder of modern economics; free-market theory; Father of Capitalism

Adam Smith

 “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher…”

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations

Mary Wollstonecraft

Early feminist philosophy; women’s rights

Mary Wollstonecraft

“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”

Mary Wollstonecraft

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mozart

Classical music composer; symphonies, operas

Mozart

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”

Mozart

The Magic Flute (opera)

Copernicus

Proposed idea of heliocentric model of the universe

Copernicus

“To know that we know what we know…”

Copernicus

On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

Voltaire

Enlightenment writer; religious freedom and free speech

Voltaire

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Voltaire

Candide

Thomas Hobbes

Early social contract theorist; argued for strong government to maintain order

Thomas Hobbes

“Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Philosopher of popular sovereignty and democracy; social contract theory

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract

Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence; democracy

Thomas Jefferson

“All men are created equal.” “life, liberty, pursuit of happiness”

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia

Immanuel Kant

Major Enlightenment philosopher; developed moral philosophy and reason-based ethics

Immanuel Kant

“Sapere aude! (Dare to know!)”

Immanuel Kant

Critique of Pure Reason

Denis Diderot

Co-founder and editor of the Encyclopédie; spread Enlightenment ideas

Denis Diderot

“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

Denis Diderot

Encyclopédie