AP Euro: People of the Enlightenment

Pierre Bayle

skepticism, Dictionary

Baruch Spinoza

mind and body are united in one substance, good and evil are relative values, actions shaped by circumstances not free will

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

infinite number of "monads" from which all matter is composed, our world is the best because it was created by God

John Locke

all ideas are derived from sensation, sovereignty of the elected Parliament against the authority of the Crown

Baron de Montesquieu

separation of powers, checks and balances, constitutional monarchy

Voltaire

intellectual freedom, attacked religious fanaticism and hypocrisy along with slavery/serfdom, praised England and wanted an enlightened monarch like Frederick the Great

Denis Diderot

one of the first outspoken atheists, Encyclopédie (17 vol. work, controversial for criticisms about organized religion & revealing guild trade secrets)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Anti-Philosophe, individual freedom, civilization corrupted people's goodness, "general will" but only some people know it, Social Contract (agreement among free individuals)

David Hume

civic morality, reason cannot tell us anything about questions that cannot be verified by sensory experience (i.e. the existence of God) [somehow undermines faith in reason???]

Adam Smith

economic natural laws, laissez faire

Immanuel Kent

Sapere Aude! (dare to know!), rejected Hume's moral-sense approach, ethics are tested by universality

Cesare Beccaria

On Crimes and Punishments - no torture, arbitrary imprisonment, or capital punishment