List of intellectuals of the Enlightenment

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Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. This is a list of intellectuals from the Age of Enlightenment.

Person Dates Nationality Notes
Thomas Abbt 1738–1766 German Author of "Vom Tode für das Vaterland" (On dying for one's nation). 80px
Jean le Rond d'Alembert 1717–1783 French Mathematician and physicist, one of the editors of Encyclopédie.[1] Alembert.jpg
Francis Bacon 1561–1626 English Philosopher who started the revolution in empirical thought that characterized much of the Enlightenment.[2] Francis Bacon.jpg
Pierre Bayle 1647–1706 French Literary critic known for his newsletter "Nouvelles de la république des lettres" and his powerful Dictionnaire historique et critique, and one of the earliest influences on the Enlightenment thinkers to advocate tolerance between the different religious beliefs. Pierre Bayle.jpg
Cesare Beccaria 1738–1794 Italian Criminal law reformer, best known for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764). Cesare Beccaria in Dei delitti crop.jpg
Balthasar Bekker 1634–1698 Dutch A key figure in the early Enlightenment. In his book De Philosophia Cartesiana (1668) Bekker argued that theology and philosophy each had their separate terrains and that Nature can no more be explained from Scripture than can theological truth be deduced from Nature. 80px
George Berkeley 1685–1753 Irish Philosopher and mathematician famous for developing the theory of subjective idealism.[3] John Smibert - Bishop George Berkeley - Google Art Project.jpg
Justus Henning Boehmer 1674–1749 German Ecclesiastical jurist, one of the first reformers of the church law and the civil law which was the basis for further reforms and maintained until the 20th century. 80px
Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich (Roger Joseph Boscovich) 1711–1787 Ragusan (Italian) A physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia), who studied and lived in Italy and France where he also published many of his works. He produced a precursor of atomic theory and made many contributions to astronomy, including the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position. In 1753 he also discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon. 80px
James Boswell 1740–1795 Scottish Biographer of Samuel Johnson, helped established the norms for writing biography in general. 80px
G.L. Buffon 1707–1788 French Biologist, author of L'Histoire Naturelle considered Natural Selection and the similarities between humans and apes. Buffon 1707-1788.jpg
Edmund Burke 1729–1797 Irish Parliamentarian and political philosopher, best known for pragmatism, considered important to both Enlightenment and conservative thinking. 80px
Dimitrie Cantemir 1673–1723 Moldavian Philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer. Dimitrie Cantemir - Foto01.jpg
Émilie du Châtelet 1706–1749 French Mathematician, physicist, and author. Translated Newton's Principia with commentary. 80px
Anders Chydenius 1729–1803 Finnish-Swedish Priest and an ecclesiastical member of the Riksdag, contemporary known as the leading classical liberal of Nordic history. 80px
Francisco Javier Clavijero 1731–1787 Mexican Historian, best known for his Antique History of Mexico. Francisco Xavier Clavijero,.jpg
Marquis de Condorcet 1743–1794 French Philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist who devised the concept of a Condorcet method. 80px
Mihály Csokonai Vitéz 1773-1805 Hungarian Hungarian poet, main person in the Hungarian literary revival of the Enlightenment. 80px
Ekaterina Dashkova 1743–1810 Russian Director of the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences (known now as the Russian Academy of Sciences). 80px
Denis Diderot 1713–1784 French Founder of the Encyclopédie, speculated on free will and attachment to material objects, contributed to the theory of literature. Didier Diderot.jpg
Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro 1676–1764 Spanish The most prominent promoter of the critical empiricist attitude at the dawn of the Spanish Enlightenment. See also the Spanish Martín Sarmiento (1695–1772) 80px
Christlieb Feldstrauch 1734–1799 Russian and German Educator and philosopher. Author of[4] Beobachtungen über den Geist des Menschen und dessen Verhältniß zur Welt.
1700s French Encyclopédistes
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 1657–1757 French Author. Fontenelle 2.jpg
Denis Fonvizin 1744–1792 Russian Writer and playwright. 80px
José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia 1766–1840 Paraguayan First president of Paraguay. Introduced radical political ideas never-before seen in South America to Paraguay, making his country prosperous and more secure than any other in South-America. 80px
Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790 American Statesman, scientist, political philosopher, author. As a philosopher known for his writings on nationality, economic matters, aphorisms published in Poor Richard's Almanac and polemics in favor of American Independence. Involved with writing the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of 1787. Benjamin Franklin 1767.jpg
Luigi Galvani 1737–1798 Italian Physician, physicist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the studies of Bioelectricity.[5] Luigi Galvani, oil-painting.jpg
Antonio Genovesi 1712–1769 Italian Writer on philosophy and political economy. 80px
Edward Gibbon 1737–1794 English Historian best known for his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton cleaned.jpg
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832 German Closely identified with Enlightenment values, progressing from Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress"); leader in Weimar Classicism. Goethe (Stieler 1828).jpg
Olympe de Gouges 1748–1793 French Playwright and activist who championed feminist politics. Marie-Olympe-de-Gouges.jpg
Alexander Hamilton 1755–1804 American Economist, political theorist and politician. A major protagonist for the Constitution of the United States, and the single greatest contributor to The Federalist Papers, advocating for the constitution's ratification through detailed examinations of its construction, philosophical and moral basis, and intent. Alexander Hamilton portrait by John Trumbull 1806.jpg
Joseph Haydn 1732–1809 Austrian Composer who revolutionized the symphonic form. 80px
Claude Adrien Helvétius 1715–1771 French Philosopher and writer. Famous for De l'esprit (On Mind). 80px
Johann Gottfried von Herder 1744–1803 German Theologian and linguist. Proposed that language determines thought, introduced concepts of ethnic study and nationalism, influential on later Romantic thinkers. Early supporter of democracy and republican self-rule. Herder by Kügelgen.jpg
Thomas Hobbes 1588–1679 English Philosopher who wrote Leviathan, a key text in political philosophy. While Hobbes justifies absolute monarchy, this work is the first to posit that the temporal power of a monarch comes about, not because God has ordained that he be monarch, but because his subjects have freely yielded their own power and freedom to him – in other words, Hobbes replaces the divine right of kings with an early formulation of the social contract. Hobbes' work was condemned by reformers for its defense of absolutism, and by traditionalists for its claim that the power of government derives from the power of its subjects rather than the will of God. Thomas Hobbes (portrait).jpg
Baron d'Holbach 1723–1789 French Author, encyclopaedist and Europe's first outspoken atheist. Roused much controversy over his criticism of religion as a whole in his work The System of Nature. Paul Heinrich Dietrich Baron d'Holbach Roslin.jpg
Ludvig Holberg 1684–1754 Norwegian Writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright. 80px
Henry Home, Lord Kames 1696–1782 Scottish Lawyer and philosopher. Patron of Adam Smith and David Hume. See Scottish Enlightenment. Henry Home, Lord Kames by David Martin.jpg
Robert Hooke 1635–1703 English Probably the leading experimenter of his age, Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society. Performed the work which quantified such concepts as Boyle's Law and the inverse-square nature of gravitation, father of the science of microscopy. 13 Portrait of Robert Hooke.JPG
Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767–1835 German Linguist, founder of the modern educational system, philosopher, diplomat. W.v.Humboldt.jpg
David Hume 1711–1776 Scottish Historian, philosopher and economist. Best known for his empiricism and rational skepticism, advanced doctrines of naturalism and material causes. Influenced Kant and Adam Smith.[6] Painting of David Hume.jpg
Thomas Jefferson 1743–1826 American Statesman, political philosopher, educator. As a philosopher best known for the United States Declaration of Independence (1776), especially "All men are created equal", and his support of democracy in theory and practice. A polymath, he promoted higher education as a way to uplift the entire nation . Aa jefferson subj e.jpg
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos 1744–1811 Spanish Main figure of the Spanish Enlightenment. Preeminent statesman. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos.jpg
Immanuel Kant 1724–1804 German Philosopher and physicist. Established critical philosophy on a systematic basis, proposed a material theory for the origin of the solar system, wrote on ethics and morals. Prescribed a politics of Enlightenment in What is Enlightenment? (1784). Influenced by Hume and Isaac Newton. Important figure in German Idealism, and important to the work of Fichte and Hegel. 80px
Vasyl Karazin 1773–1842 Russian and Ukrainian Enlightenment figure, intellectual, inventor, founder of The Ministry of National Education in Russian Empire and scientific publisher in Ukraine. Founder of Kharkiv University, which now bears his name. Also known for opposing to what he saw as colonial exploitation of Ukraine by the Russian Empire, even though he himself was ethnically Serbian. 80px
Hugo Kołłątaj 1750–1812 Polish Active in the Commission for National Education and the Society for Elementary Textbooks, and reformed the Kraków Academy, of which he was rector in 1783–86. Co-authored the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's Constitution of May 3, 1791, and founded the Assembly of Friends of the Government Constitution to assist in the document's implementation. 80px
Ignacy Krasicki 1735–1801 Polish Leading poet of the Polish Enlightenment. Ignacy Krasicki 111.PNG
Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736–1813 Italian-French Major mathematician, famous for his contributions to analysis, number theory, and mechanics. 80px
Antoine Lavoisier 1743–1794 French Founder of modern chemistry; executed in the French Revolution for his politics Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (by Louis Jean Desire Delaistre)RENEW.jpg
Gottfried Leibniz 1646–1716 German Philosopher & mathematician; rival of Newton. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.jpg
Giacomo Leopardi 1798–1837 Italian Poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist. Leopardi, Giacomo (1798-1837) - ritr. A Ferrazzi, Recanati, casa Leopardi.jpg
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729–1781 German Dramatist, critic, political philosopher. Created theatre in the German language. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.PNG
Carl von Linné Carl Linnaeus 1707–1778 Swedish Botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. Known as the father of modern taxonomy. Linæus.jpg
John Locke 1632–1704 English Philosopher. Important empiricist who expanded and extended the work of Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes. Seminal thinker in the realm of the relationship between the state and the individual, the contractual basis of the state and the rule of law. Argued for personal liberty emphasizing the rights of property. JohnLocke.png
Mikhail Lomonosov 1711–1765 Russian Polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. M.V. Lomonosov by L.Miropolskiy after G.C.Prenner (1787, RAN).jpg
James Madison 1751–1836 American Statesman and political philosopher. Played a key role in the writing of the United States Constitution and providing a theoretical justification for it in his contributions to The Federalist Papers; author of the American Bill of Rights. JamesMadison.jpg
George Mason 1725–1792 American Statesman, authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights; along with Madison called the "Father of the United States Bill of Rights". George Mason portrait.jpg
Moses Mendelssohn 1729–1786 Jewish German Philosopher of Jewish Enlightenment in Prussia (Haskalah), honoured by his friend Lessing in his drama as Nathan the Wise. 80px
Jean Meslier 1664–1729 French Roman Catholic priest, philosopher and first atheist writer since ancient times. Author of Testament, a book length essay, which supplied arguments and rhetoric used by other enlightenment authors such as Denis Diderot, Baron d'Holbach and Voltaire. Meslier.jpg
La Mettrie 1709–1751 French Physician and early French materialist philosopher. Best known as author of L'homme Machine (Man a Machine). Julien Offray de La Mettrie.jpg
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo 1714–1799 Scottish Philosopher, jurist, pre-evolutionary thinker and contributor to linguistic evolution. See Scottish Enlightenment Lord Monboddo01.jpg
Josef Vratislav Monse 1733–1793 Czech Professor of Law at University of Olomouc, leading figure of Enlightenment in the Habsburg Monarchy
Montesquieu 1689–1755 French Political thinker. Famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions all over the world. Political scientist, Donald Lutz, found that Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government in colonial America.[7] Montesquieu 1.png
Leandro Fernández de Moratín 1760–1828 Spanish Dramatist and translator, support of republicanism and free thinking. Transitional figure to Romanticism. 80px
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791 Austrian A leading composer of the era. MozartVeronadallaRosa.jpg
José Celestino Mutis 1755–1808 Spanish Botanist; lead the first botanic expeditions to South America, and built a major collection of plants. 80px
Isaac Newton 1642–1727 English Lucasian professor of mathematics, Cambridge University; author, 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'. Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727).jpg
Nikolay Novikov 1744–1818 Russian Philanthropist and journalist who sought to raise the culture of Russian readers and publicly argued with the Empress. See Russian Enlightenment. Dmitry Grigorievich Levitzky - Portrait of Nikolai Novikov - WGA12915.jpg
Dositej Obradović 1739–1811 Serbian Writer, linguist, educator, influential proponent of Serbian cultural nationalism, and founder of The Ministry of National Education in Karađorđe's Serbia, and founder of the University of Belgrade. DositejObradović.jpg
Zaharije Orfelin 1726–1785 Serbian Polymath-poet, writer, historian, translator, engraver, editor, publisher, etc. Zaharije Orfelin.jpg
Francesco Mario Pagano 1748–1799 Italian Jurist and philosopher, one of the pioneers of the modern criminal law. Mario Pagano.jpg
Thomas Paine 1737–1809 English/American Pamphleteer, most famous for Common Sense (1776) calling for American independence as the most rational solution. Thomas Paine.jpg
Marquis of Pombal 1699–1782 Portuguese Statesman notable for his swift and competent leadership in the aftermath of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. He also implemented sweeping economic policies to regulate commercial activity and standardize quality throughout the country. 80px
Stanisław August Poniatowski 1732–1798 Polish Last king of independent Poland, a leading light of the Enlightenment in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and co-author of one of the world's first modern constitutions, the Constitution of May 3, 1791. Stanislas August Poniatowski.PNG
François Quesnay 1694–1774 French Economist of the Physiocratic school. 80px
Alexander Radishchev 1749–1802 Russian Writer and philosopher. Brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence. Radishchev color.jpg
Jovan Rajić 1726–1801 Serbian Writer, historian, traveller, and pedagogue, considered to be one of the greatest Serbian academics of the 18th century. 80px
Thomas Reid 1710–1796 Scottish Philosopher who developed Common Sense Realism. ThomasReid.jpg
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778 Swiss political philosopher; influenced many Enlightenment figures but did not himself believe in primacy of reason and is closer to Romanticism. Allan Ramsay - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) - Google Art Project.jpg
Adam Smith 1723–1790 Scottish Economist and philosopher. Wrote The Wealth of Nations, in which he argued that wealth was not money in itself, but wealth was derived from the added value in manufactured items produced by both invested capital and labour. Sometimes considered to be the founding father of the laissez-faire economic theory, but in fact argues for some degree of government control in order to maintain equity. Just prior to this he wrote Theory of Moral Sentiments, explaining how it is humans function and interact through what he calls sympathy, setting up important context for The Wealth of Nations. AdamSmith.jpg
Jan Śniadecki 1756–1830 Polish Mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer. 80px
Jędrzej Śniadecki 1768–1838 Polish Writer, physician, chemist, and biologist. Jędrzej Śniadecki.PNG
Baruch Spinoza 1632–1677 Jewish Dutch Philosopher who helped lay the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment. Spinoza.jpg
Alexander Sumarokov 1717–1777 Russian Poet and playwright who created classical theatre in Russia. 80px
Emanuel Swedenborg 1688–1772 Swedish Natural philosopher and theologian whose search for the operation of the soul in the body led him to construct a detailed metaphysical model for spiritual-natural causation. Emanuel Swedenborg full portrait.jpg
Giambattista Vico 1668–1744 Italian Political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist. GiambattistaVico.jpg
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet 1694–1778 French Highly influential writer, historian and philosopher. He promoted Newtonian ism and denounced organized religion as pernicious. Voltaire dictionary.jpg
Adam Weishaupt 1748–1830 German Founded the Order of the Illuminati. Johann Adam Weishaupt.jpg
Christian Wolff 1679–1754 German Philosopher. 80px
Mary Wollstonecraft 1759–1797 British Writer, and pioneer feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797).jpg

See also

References

  1. "The Encyclopedia of Diderot & D'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & D'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. Downing, Lisa. "George Berkeley." Stanford University. Stanford University, 10 Sept. 2004. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
  4. http://philpapers.org/archive/VASPPT.3.pdf
  5. Sabbatini, Renato. "The Discovery of Bioelectricity. Galvani and Volta." Sabbatini, R.M.E.: The Discovery of Bioelectricity. Galvani and Volta. The State University of Campinas, 1998. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
  6. Fieser, James. "David Hume." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
  7. "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought", American Political Science Review 78,1 (March 1984), 189–197.