18th Century Enlightenment Thinkers

The eighteenth century is often referred to as the century of Enlightenment. The ideas of main enlightenment thinkers, the philosophes, made mark on the century. In Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, the philosophe is described as a man who ‘trampling on prejudice, tradition, universal consent, authority, in a word, all that enslaves most minds, dares to think for himself’ . If the movement’s mother country was France, there were philosophes all across Europe. Some of the most famous were Diderot and Voltaire in France, D’Holbach in Germany or Hume in Scotland. The philosophes are well-known for their rejection of the settled order. In fact, for centuries, mystical and religious beliefs lied at the very basis of the society. The Church had the monopoly over educational establishments and also regulated the distribution of information, among other things . Most people’s lives were marked by religious rituals, and directed toward the achievement of a ‘good life’, conform to the creeds of the Church. This reaction of enlightenment thinkers can be seen as the result of the changes that occurred in the seventeenth century, especially regarding
Scientific discoveries of the seventeenth century changed people’s perception of the world. By discovering a universal law of nature, Newton banished mystery from the world, and show every man that the world was far more infinite than what was believed until then, and that every of its aspects could be explained through scientific arguments and universal laws . Aware of this new perspective, men of letters tried to apply the methods used in science to mankind. They developed a new way of thinking, based on human intelligence. The main aim was to make every aspect of the world intelligible to the human mind . For this reason, reason occupied a central position in the Enlightenment: it was both the aim and the method of the philosophes