The Enlightenment
"Dare to use your own reason": reason, liberty and progress
Key ideas
- Reason and science instead of authority and prejudice
- Natural rights and the social contract
- Religious tolerance and freedom of speech
- Separation of powers
- The Encyclopédie as a compendium of knowledge
Key thinkers
- Voltaire — French Enlightenment writer, 1694–1778
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau — philosopher and writer, 1712–1778
- Immanuel Kant — German philosopher, 1724–1804
- Adam Smith — Scottish economist and philosopher, 1723–1790
- Mary Wollstonecraft — English writer and philosopher, 1759–1797
- Benjamin Franklin — American scientist and statesman, 1706–1790
Grew out of
- Continental rationalism c. 1637 – 1750 · Europe
- British empiricism c. 1620 – 1780 · Europe
What grew out of it
- Utilitarianism c. since 1789 · Europe
- Positivism c. 1830 – 1900 · Europe
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Confucianism Asia
- Buddhist philosophy Asia
- Taoism Asia
- Nyaya Asia
- Madhyamaka Asia
- Yogachara Asia
- Chan and Zen Asia
- Advaita Vedanta Asia
- Kalam Middle East
- Neo-Confucianism Asia