Enlightenment Thinkers - AP EURO

John Locke (1632-1704)

• Natural rights → Life, liberty and property

• Government by consensus of the governed and separation of power

• Father of Modern liberalism

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• Transcendental Idealism →

• Rationalism

• Empiricism

• Deontology (always do your work and follow the rules)

Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

• Freedom of speech 

• Religious tolerance 

• Human rights and freedom

Montesquieu (1689-1755)

• Separation of powers

• Three government system

• Checks and balance

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

• Criminal-law

• Against torture

• Free will

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

• Believed in benefit of trade

• Gov should have limited control in society

• Human nature

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

• Social contract 

• Individual freedom

• Humans are good but corrupted by society 

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Women’s rights

• Equality in education

Enlightened Despotism

• Absolutist government who used enlightenment ideas to rule

• Catherine the Great, Fredrick the Great and Jacob II

Catherine the Great

• Russian empress

• Promoted literature 

• Educational reforms

Fredrick the Great

• Prussian King

• Mercantilism

• Focus on arts

• Agriculture

Jacob II

• HRE

• Civil reform

• Promoted music

• focus on arts and agriculture

American Enlightenment

• Revolution for a democratic society

• Looked at John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau

• Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson

Slavery and Race

• Human rights and Equality

• Justified slavery was needed - Inferior

Travel Literature 

• Inform the public about distant lands 

• The Grand Tours → a group of wealthy men traveling across Europe

Where do Salon’s originate

French

Where do Coffeehouses originate?

England

• People of all classes

Masonic Lounges 

• privately talk about ideas and opinions 

• educated men (philosophers)

Deism 

• Natural Region 

• based off the idea of a clockmaker 

• God created the world then stepped back to let it run and move on 

• God does not interfere in human life or have strong control 

• Voltair and Jefferson

Physiocrats

• French economists

• Advocated for lassiez faire