Major Contributors to the Scientific Revolution & the Enlightenment

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Wrote On The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543); theorized that the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of the universe

Paracelsus (1493-1541)

Swiss physician and alchemist who pioneered the use of chemicals to address illness

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)

Wrote On the Structure of the Human Body (1543)

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

Built observatory and recorded data on planetary motions

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Advocated experimental method, formalizing theory of inductive reasoning known as empiricism

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Used telescopic observation to provide evidence for Copernican hypothesis

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

Used Brahe’s data to provide mathematical support for the Copernican hypothesis; his new laws of planetary motion united for the first time natural philosophy and mathematics; completed the Rudolphine Tables in 1627

William Harvey (1578-1657)

Discovered the circulation of the blood (1628)

René Descartes (1596-1650)

Used deductive reasoning to formulate the theory of Cartesian dualism

Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

Formulated Boyle’s law (1662) governing the pressure of gases

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Published the Principia Mathematica (1687); set forth the law of universal gravitation, synthesizing previous theories of motion and matter

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 Unterstanding (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 philsophe 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 (1751-1766)

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

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 (1738-1994)

On Crimes and Punishments (1764)