- John Locke
John Locke was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, … - Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 - 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book "Leviathan" established the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy. Although Hobbes is today best remembered for his work on political philosophy, he contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, geometry, theology, ethics, general philosophy, and what would now be called political science. - René Descartes
René Descartes (March 31, 1596 - February 11, 1650), also known as "Renatus Cartesius" (latinized form), was a highly influential French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer. Dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and the "Father of Modern Mathematics", much of subsequent western philosophy is a reaction to his writings, which have been closely studied from his time down to the present day. - David Hume
David Hume (April 26, 1711 - August 25, 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. He is considered one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Although in recent years interest in Hume's work has centred on his philosophical writing, it was as a historian that he first gained recognition and respect. - Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban was an English philosopher, statesman, and essayist, but is best known as a philosophical advocate and defender of the scientific revolution. Indeed, his dedication brought him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments. His works established and popularized an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry, often called the "Baconian method" or simply, the scientific method. - Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza (lived November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death. Today, he is considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy, laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. - George Berkeley
George Berkeley (12 March 1685 - 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory, summed up in his dictum, "Esse est percipi" ("To be is to be perceived"), contends that individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas of objects, … - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (June 28, 1712 - July 2, 1778) was a Genevan philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. Rousseau also made important contributions to music both as a theorist and as a composer. - Thomas More
Thomas More Thomas More Thomas More had an education suited to a son of a gentleman, and seemed destined for the legal career mapped out by his father. Although the future held much promise for him, More was unsure of the direction he wanted his life to take. He considered becoming a priest but decided not to enter the Church because of his burning desire to have a family. - Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 - July 9, 1797) was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Great Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. - Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne-Delecroix (February 28 1533-September 13 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography - and his massive volume "Essais" (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, … - Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory ("The Prince") on the one hand and republicanism ("Discourses on Livy") on the other. - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (also "Leibnitz" or "von Leibniz" (July 1 (June 21 Old Style) 1646 – November 14 1716) was a German polymath who wrote mostly in Latin and French. Educated in law and philosophy, and serving as factotum to two major German noble houses (one becoming the British royal family while he served it), Leibniz played a major role in the European politics and diplomacy of his day. - Jean Bodin
Jean Bodin (1530-1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement (not to be confused with the English "Parliament") of Paris and professor of Law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty. Bodin lived during the Reformation, writing against the background of religious and civil conflict-particularly that, in his native France, between the (Calvinist) Huguenots and the state-supported Catholic Church. - Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (January 22, 1592 - October 24, 1655) was a French philosopher, scientist, astronomer/astrologer, and mathematician, best known for attempting to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity and for publishing the first official observations of the Transit of Mercury in 1631. The Moon's Gassendi crater is named after him. - Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche (August 6, 1638 - October 13, 1715) was a rationalist French Philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world. Malebranche is most famous for his doctrines of vision in God and occasionalism. - Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius (Huig de Groot, or Hugo de Groot; Delft, 10 April 1583 - Rostock, 28 August 1645) worked as a jurist in the Dutch Republic and laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet. - Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, inventor, and early gentleman scientist, noted for his work in physics and chemistry. He is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law. Although his research and personal philosophy clearly has its roots in the alchemical tradition, he is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist. He is very famous in the science world for being the first scientist that kept accurate experiment logs. - Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid (April 26, 1710 - October 7, 1796), Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment. The early part of his life was spent in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he created the" 'Wise Club' "(a literary-philosophical association) and graduated from the University of Aberdeen. He was given a professorship at King's College Aberdeen in 1752, … - Francis Hutcheson
Francis Hutcheson (August 8, 1694 - August 8, 1746) was a philosopher born in Northern Ireland to a family of Scottish Presbyterians who became one of the founding fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment. - Samuel Clarke
Samuel Clarke was an English philosopher. The son of Edward Clarke, an alderman who represented the city of Norwich in parliament, was educated at the free school of Norwich and at Caius College, Cambridge. The philosophy of René Descartes was the reigning system at the university; Clarke, however, mastered the new system of Isaac Newton, … - Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle (November 18, 1647 - December 28, 1706) was a French philosopher and writer. - Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist. Bruno is known for his system of mnemonics based upon organized knowledge and as an early proponent of the idea of an infinite and homogeneous universe. Burned at the stake as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition, Bruno is often seen as the first "martyr for science." - Franciscus van den Enden
Franciscus van den Enden (Antwerp ca. 5 February 1602 - Paris, 27 November 1674) is mainly known as the teacher of Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677). His name is also written as 'Van den Ende', 'Van den Eijnde', 'Van den Eijnden', etc. At the end of his life he was also known as 'Affinius' (latinized form of 'Van den Enden'). - Henry More
Henry More (October 12 1614 - September 1, 1687) was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school. - Anne Conway Viscountess Conway
Anne (nee: Finch) Conway, Countess Conway and Viscountess Conway and Killultagh (14 December 1631-1679) was an English philosopher whose work, in the tradition of the Cambridge Platonists, was an influence on Leibniz. - Richard Cumberland
Richard Cumberland (1631-1718) was an English philosopher, and bishop of Peterborough from 1691. In 1672, he published his major work, "De legibus naturae" ("On natural laws"), propounding utilitarianism and opposing the egoistic ethics of Thomas Hobbes. Cumberland was a member of the latitudinarian movement, along with his friend Hezekiah Burton of Magdalene College, Cambridge. - Joseph Butler
Joseph Butler (May 18, 1692 O.S. - June 16, 1752) was an English bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher. He was born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). The son of a presbyterian linen-draper, he was destined for the ministry of that church, but in 1714 he decided to enter the Church of England, and went to Oxford. After holding various other preferments, he became rector of the rich living of Stanhope. - Pieter de la Court
Pieter de la Court (1618 - May 28, 1685) was a Dutch economist and businessman. He pioneered modern thinking about the economic importance of free competition and was an uncompromising advocate of the republican form of government. - Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict censorship laws in France and harsh penalties for those who broke them. - Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, more commonly known as Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. - Jean Le Rond D'Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the "Encyclopédie". D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him. - Christian Thomasius
Christian Thomasius (January 1, 1655-September 23, 1728), was a German jurist and philosopher - Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (born Emanuel Swedberg; January 29, 1688 - March 29, 1772) was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian. Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At the age of fifty-six he entered into a spiritual phase, in which he experienced dreams and visions. This culminated in a spiritual awakening, where he claimed he was appointed by the Lord to write a heavenly doctrine to reform Christianity. - Richard Price
Richard Price (February 23, 1723 - April 19, 1791), was a Welsh moral and political philosopher. He was born at Tynton, Glamorgan, the son of a dissenting minister. Educated privately and at a dissenting academy in London, he became chaplain and companion to a Mr Streatfield at Stoke Newington. Streatfield's death and that of an uncle in 1756 improved his circumstances, and on June 16, 1757 he married Sarah Blundell, originally of Belgrave in Leicestershire. - Giambattista Vico
Giambattista Vico or Giovanni Battista Vico (June 23, 1668 - January 23, 1744) was a Neapolitan philosopher, historian, and jurist. Born to a bookseller and the daughter of a carriage maker in Naples, Italy, Vico attended a series of grammar schools, but ill-health and dissatisfaction with Jesuit scholasticism led to home schooling. - Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, 1466/1469 - July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. Desiderius Erasmus was a classical scholar who wrote in a "pure" Latin style. Although he remained a Roman Catholic throughout his lifetime, he was critical of what he considered the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church. - John Mair
John Mair or John Major (also known in Latin as "Joannes Majoris" and "Haddingtonus Scotus") (1467-1550) was a Scottish philosopher, much admired in his day and an acknowledged influence on all the great thinkers of the time. He was a very renowned teacher and his works much collected and frequently republished across Europe. His "sane conservatism" and his sceptical, logical approach to the study of texts such Aristotle or the Bible, … - Richard Payne Knight
Richard Payne Knight (15 February 1750 - 23 April 1824) was a classical scholar and connoisseur best known for his theories of picturesque beauty and for his interest in ancient phallic imagery. He was born at Wormesley Grange in Herefordshire, UK, the grandson and heir to Richard Knight, a wealthy Shropshire ironmaster. He was educated at home, but toured Italy and the European continent from 1767 for several years. He was a collector of ancient bronzes and coins, … - Jean-Pierre de Crousaz
Jean-Pierre de Crousaz was a Swiss theologian and philosopher. He is now remembered more for his letters of commentary than his formal works. De Crousaz was born in Lausanne. He was a many-sided man, whose numerous works on many subjects had a great vogue in their day, but are now forgotten. He has been described as an "initiateur plutôt qu'un créateur" (an initiator rather than a creator), …
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