[Booky Things] Enlightenment Notes

Who were the leading figures of the Enlightenment, and what were their main contributions?

Philosophes
-intellectuals of the Enlightenment

Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat)
-1689-1755
-The Spirit of Laws
>published in 1748
>Comparative study of governments
>applied the scientific method to the social and political arena
>3 basic types of government: republics, monarchy, despotism
>Checks and balances through separation of power

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet)
-1694-1778
-Prolific and successful author
>wrote plays, pamphlets, novels, letters, philosophical essays, histories
-critized traditional religion and promoted religious toleration
-Deism
>a religious outlook based on the Newtonian world-machine
>the universe was like a clock and God was the clockmaker

Denis Diderot
-1713-1784
-Classified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades (aka the Encyclopedia)
>28 volumes
>sold to doctors, clergymen, teachers, lawyers, military officers
>spread the ideas of the Enlightenment

Adam Smith
-1723-1790
-The Wealth of Nations
>supported laissez-faire ("leave it alone" in French; meaning the government should not get involved with the economy)
>government has 3 purposes: 1) protection from invasion, 2) defense against injustice, 3) maintain public works

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-1712-1778
-Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Mankind
>argued that people had adopted laws and governors in order to preserve their private property
>in the process, they had become enslaved by government
-Emile
>education should foster, not restrict, children's natural instincts
>balance between emotion and reason

Mary Wollstonecraft
-1759-1797
-womens' rights advocate
-Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
>the subjection of women to men was equivalent to slaves and slave owners, both equally wrong
>women have reason and are therefore also entitled to the same rights as men