Key Figures

Question 1

Niccoló Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Answer 1

1. Renaissance political philosopher who wrote The Prince.
2. Believed that people are ungrateful and untrustworthy.
3. Urged rulers to start a war, avoid unnecessary kindness, and always best policy upon the principle that the ends justify the means.

Question 2

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

Answer 2

1. Northern humanist who wrote In Praise of Folly.
2. Wrote in the Latin almost humanist wrote in the vernacular.
3. Wanted to reform the Catholic Church, not destroy it.

Question 3

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Answer 3

1. Protestant reformers who is criticism of indulgences hope sparked the Reformation.
2. Advocated salvation by faith, the authority of the Bible, and the priesthood of all believers.
3. Believed that Christian women should strive to become models of wifely obedience and Christian charity.

Question 4

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Answer 4

1. Protestant reformers who wrote The Institutes of the Christian Religion.
2. Believed in the absolute omnipotent of God, the weakness of humanity, and the doctrine of predestination.
3. Establish Geneva as a model Christian community
4. Influenced followers who were known as Huguenots in France, Presbyterians in Scotland, and Puritans in England and the New England colonies.
5. Advocated that each local congregation have a ruling body composed of both ministers and laymen who carefully supervised the moral conduct of the faithful.

Question 5

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Answer 5

1. French renaissance writer who developed the essay as a literary genre
2. Known for skeptical attitude and willingness to look at all sides of an issue

Question 6

Nicolaus Copernicus (1474-1543)

Answer 6

1. Polish clergyman and astronomer who wrote On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres
2. Helped launch the scientific revolution by challenging the widespread believe in the geocentric theory that the earth is the center of the
3. Offered a new heliocentric universe in which the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun

Question 7

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

Answer 7

1. Began his career as an assistant to the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe
2. Formulated three laws of planetary motion
3. Prove the planetary orbits or elliptical rather than circular

Question 8

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Answer 8

1. Italian scientist who contributed to the scientific method by conducting controlled experiments
2. Major accomplishments included using the telescope for astronomical observation, formulating laws of motion, and popularizing the new scientific ideas
3. Condemned by the Inquisition for publicly advocating Copernicus’s heliocentric theory

Question 9

Isaac newton (1642–1727)

Answer 9

1. English scientist and mathematician who wrote the Principia
2. View the universe as a vast machine governed by the universal laws of gravity and inertia
3. Mechanist view of the universe strongly influenced deism

Question 10

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Answer 10

1. English politician and writer

2. For me lysed the empirical method into a general theory of inductive reasoning known as empiricism

Question 11

René Descartes (1596-1650)

Answer 11

1. French philosopher and mathematician

2. Use deductive reasoning from self evident principles to reach scientific laws

Question 12

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Answer 12

1. English political philosopher who wrote leviathan
2. Viewed human beings as naturally self-centered and prone to violence
3. Feared the dangers of anarchy more than the dangers of tyranny
4. Argued that monarchs have absolute an unlimited political authority

Question 13

John Locke (1632-1704)

Answer 13

1. English philosopher who wrote The Second Treatie of Government
2. Beauty humans as basically rational beings who learn from experience
3. Formulated the theory of natural rights, arguing that people are born with basic rights to “life, liberty, and property”
4. Insisted that governments are formed to protect natural rights
5. Stated that the governed have a right to rebel against rulers who violate natural rights

Question 14

Voltaire (1694-1778)

Answer 14

1. French philosophe and voluminous author of essays and letters
2. Champion the Enlightenment principles of reason, progress, toleration, an individual liberty
3. Superstition, intolerance, and ignorance
4. Criticized organized religion for perpetuating superstition and intolerance

Question 15

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Answer 15

1. Enlightened thinkers are best known for writing The Social Contract and Emile
2. Believe that since “law is the expression of the general well,” the state is based on a social contract
3. Emphasize the education of the whole person for citizenship
4. Rejected excessive rationalism and stressed emotions, thus anticipating the Romantic movement

Question 16

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Answer 16

1. Scottish economist who wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
2. Opposed mercantilist policies
3. Advocated free trade in “the Invisible Hand of competition”

Question 17

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Answer 17

1. British writer, philosopher, and feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
2. Argued that women are not naturally inferior to men.
3. Maintained that women deserve the same fundamental rights as men.

Question 18

Edmund Burke (1739-1797)

Answer 18

1. English conservative leader who wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France
2. Denounced the radicalism and violence of the French Revolution
3. Favored gradual and orderly change

Question 19

John Stuart mill (1806-1873)

Answer 19

1. English utilitarian and essayist best known for writing On Liberty and the Subjection of Women
2. Advocated women’s rights and endorsed universal suffrage

Question 20

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Answer 20

1. Scientific socialist who co-authored the Communist Manifesto
2. Believe that the history of class conflict is best understood through the dialectical process of this is, anti-thesis, and synthesis.
3. Contended that a class struggle between the Bourgeoise would lead “to the dictatorship of the proletariat,” Which in turn would be a transitional phase reading to a classless society

Question 21

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Answer 21

1. British biologist who wrote The Origin of Species
2. Challenge the idea of special creation by proposing a revolutionary theory of biological evolution
3. Concluded that every living plant and animal takes part in a constant struggle for existence” in which only the “fittest” survive
4. Argued that the fittest are determined by a process of natural selection

Question 22

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Answer 22

1. Austrian psychologist who formulated groundbreaking theories of human personality
2. Theorized that the human psyche contains three distinct parts: the ID, which is the center of the unconscious sexual and aggressive drives; the super ego, which is the center of moral values; and three the ego, which is the center of pragmatic reason
3. Argued that human behavior is often irrational

Question 23

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Answer 23

1. German physicist whose theory of special relativity undermined Newtonian physics
2. Challenge traditional concept of time, space, and motion.
3. Contributed to the view that humans live in the universe with uncertainties
4. Added to the feeling of uncertainty in the postwar world

Question 24

Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900)

Answer 24

1. German philosopher who is writing his influence existentialism
2. Express contempt for middle-class Perelli, saying it led to a false and shallow existence3. Rejected reason and embraced the irrational
3. Believe that the “will to power” of a few heroic “Superman” could successfully re-order the world

Question 25

Albert Camus (1913-1960) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Answer 25

1. French existentialist philosophers and writers
2. Question the efficiency of reason and science to understand the human situation
3. Believe that God, reason, and progress or miss, and that humans lived in a hostile world, alone and isolated