Enlightened Thinkers

Question 0

Baruch Spinoza

Answer 0

Rationalist thinker
Developed rational pantheism
Denied free will

Question 1

René Descartes

Answer 1

Rationalist thinker
Deductive reasoning
“I think; therefore, I am.”
Proof depends upon logic alone

Question 2

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Answer 2

Rationalist thinker
Symbolic logic and calculus
God as abstraction rather than truth

Question 3

John Locke

Answer 3

Pioneered empiricist approach to knowledge
Denied innate knowledge
“Tabula Rosa”

Question 4

David Hume

Answer 4

Empiricist thinker
Emphasized the limitation of human reason
Dogmatic skeptic

Question 5

Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

Answer 5

Father of the Philosophes
Deist, believed in a limited God
Argued for toleration, reason, and limited government

Question 6

Denis Diderot

Answer 6

Philosophe

“The Encyclopedia” , the compendium of new learning

Question 7

Baron de Montesquieu

Answer 7

Philosophe
“The Spirit of the Laws”
Separation of powers theory

Question 8

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Answer 8

Philosophe
Emphasis on the general will dominating the social contract
“Emile” on education
“The Social Contract”

Question 9

Major assumptions of the Enlightenment

Answer 9

Human progress capable through change of environment
Humans free to use reason to overcome evil
Material improvement leads to moral improvement
Natural science and reason would discover meaning
Human liberty would prevail