6.2 the enlightenment in europe

10th grade high school world history lecture on important philosophes and their key concepts.

1. Ch. 6.2 The Enlightenment in Europe

2. Age of Reason Enlightenment thinkers and writers set the stage for revolution by their encouragement of people to judge for themselves what was right or wrong in society and to rely on human reason to solve social problems.

3. Enlightenment thinkers Voltaire was the pen name of Francois Marie Arouet who published more than 70 pieces of work in which he would often use satire against his opponents. Candide  is the illegitimate nephew of a German baron. He grows up in the baron's castle under the tutelage of the scholar Pangloss , who teaches him that this world is “the best of all possible worlds.”  Candide  falls in love with the baron's young daughter, Cunégonde .

4. He believed in tolerance, reason and freedom of thought , expression and religious belief . He fought against prejudice and superstition.

5. Montesquieu The Baron de Montesquieu was a French aristocrat, writer and lawyer who devoted himself to the study of political liberty. He advocated the separation of powers in government. He also believed that in order to keep any individual or group from gaining complete control of the government, a system of checks and balances must be established.

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born poor and worked as an engraver, music teacher, tutor and secretary before moving to Paris and winning fame as a writer of essays. Rousseau was deeply committed to individual freedom.

7. He viewed government as an agreement among free individuals to create a society guided by the “ general will .” Unlike other Enlightenment thinkers, he believed that civilization corrupted people’s natural goodness and destroyed freedom and equality.

8. Cesare Bonesana Beccaria was an Italian philosophe who focused on criminal justice. He believed that laws existed to preserve social order and he advocated a criminal justice system based on fairness and reason. He argued that a person accused of a crime should receive a speedy trial . He also worked to abolish torture .  

9. Mary Wollstonecraft was self-taught and ran a school with her sisters before joining a London publisher and writing. She believed that women, like men, need education to become virtuous and useful. She argued for women’s rights to become educated and to participate in politics . Her essay called a Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written in 1792 and disagreed with Rousseau’s assertment that women’s education should be secondary to men’s.

10. Thomas Hobbes was an English thinker who wrote Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes’s view, all humans were naturally selfish and wicked and would act in their own self-interest. It is because of this selfishness that he believed that people needed a social contract (or government) to keep the order. He believed that the best form of government would be an absolute monarchy that could impose order and demand obedience.  

11. John Locke was an English philosopher who wrote Two Treatises on Government which served to justify the overthrow of James II and the Glorious Revolution. Locke believed that people were reasonable beings with the natural ability to govern themselves. He believed that people could learn from their experiences and improve themselves.

12. Moreover, Locke believed that all people were born free and equal, endowed with 3 natural rights : life, liberty and property. He believed that government’s responsibility was to protect these rights for its citizens. He felt that if a government failed to do this, then the people had the right to replace the government.