List of intellectuals of the Enlightenment

This is a list of intellectuals from the Age of Enlightenment.

Person Dates Nationality Notes
Thomas Abbt1738–1766GermanAuthor of "Vom Tode für das Vaterland" (On dying for one's nation).
Jean le Rond d'Alembert1717–1783FrenchMathematician and physicist, one of the editors of the Encyclopédie.[1]
Francis Bacon1561–1626EnglishPhilosopher who started the revolution in empirical thought that characterized much of the Enlightenment.[2]
Pierre Bayle1647–1706FrenchLiterary critic known for his newsletter "Nouvelles de la république des lettres" and his powerful Dictionnaire historique et critique, and one of the earliest influences on the Enlightenment thinkers to advocate tolerance between the different religious beliefs.
James Beattie1735–1803ScottishPoet, moralist, and philosopher.
Cesare Beccaria1738–1794ItalianCriminal law reformer, best known for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764).
Balthasar Bekker1634–1698DutchA key figure in the early Enlightenment. In his book De Philosophia Cartesiana (1668) Bekker argued that theology and philosophy each had their separate terrains and that Nature can no more be explained from Scripture than can theological truth be deduced from Nature.
George Berkeley1685–1753IrishPhilosopher and mathematician famous for developing the theory of subjective idealism.[3]
Justus Henning Boehmer1674–1749GermanEcclesiastical jurist, one of the first reformers of the church law and the civil law which was the basis for further reforms and maintained until the 20th century.
Ruđer Josip Bošković (Roger Joseph Boscovich)1711–1787Ragusan (Croatian)A physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia), who studied and lived in Italy and France where he also published many of his works. He produced a precursor of atomic theory and made many contributions to astronomy, including the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position. In 1753 he also discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon.
James Boswell1740–1795ScottishBiographer of Samuel Johnson, helped established the norms for writing biography in general.
G.L. Buffon1707–1788FrenchBiologist, author of L'Histoire Naturelle considered Natural Selection and the similarities between humans and apes.
Edmund Burke1729–1797IrishParliamentarian and political philosopher, best known for pragmatism, considered important to both Enlightenment and conservative thinking.
Dimitrie Cantemir1673–1723MoldavianPhilosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer.
Émilie du Châtelet1706–1749FrenchMathematician, physicist, and author. Translated Newton's Principia with commentary.
Anders Chydenius1729–1803Finnish-SwedishPriest and an ecclesiastical member of the Riksdag, contemporary known as the leading classical liberal of Nordic history.
Francisco Javier Clavijero1731–1787MexicanHistorian, best known for his Antique History of Mexico.
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac1714–1780FrenchPhilosopher.
Marquis de Condorcet1743–1794FrenchPhilosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist who devised the concept of a Condorcet method.
Mihály Csokonai Vitéz1773-1805HungarianHungarian poet, main person in the Hungarian literary revival of the Enlightenment.
Ekaterina Dashkova1743–1810RussianDirector of the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences (known now as the Russian Academy of Sciences).
Denis Diderot1713–1784FrenchFounder of the Encyclopédie, speculated on free will and attachment to material objects, art critic, contributed to the theory of literature.
Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro1676–1764SpanishThe most prominent promoter of the critical empiricist attitude at the dawn of the Spanish Enlightenment. See also the Spanish Martín Sarmiento (1695–1772)
1700sFrenchEncyclopédistes
Adam Ferguson1723-1816ScottishPhilosopher and historian.
Gaetano Filangieri1753–1788ItalianPhilosopher and jurist.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle1657–1757FrenchAuthor.
Denis Fonvizin1744–1792RussianWriter and playwright.
José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia1766–1840ParaguayanFirst president of Paraguay. Introduced radical political ideas never-before seen in South America to Paraguay, making his country prosperous and more secure than any other in South-America.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790AmericanStatesman, scientist, political philosopher, author. As a philosopher known for his writings on nationality, economic matters, aphorisms published in Poor Richard's Almanac and polemics in favor of American Independence. Involved with writing the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of 1787.
Ferdinando Galiani1728-1787ItalianEconomist.
Luigi Galvani1737–1798ItalianPhysician, physicist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the studies of Bioelectricity.[4]
Antonio Genovesi1712–1769ItalianWriter on philosophy and political economy.
Edward Gibbon1737–1794EnglishHistorian best known for his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe1749–1832GermanClosely identified with Enlightenment values, progressing from Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress"); leader in Weimar Classicism.
Olympe de Gouges1748–1793FrenchPlaywright and activist who championed feminist politics.
Hugo Grotius1583–1645DutchPhilosopher of law and jurist who laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. Wrote De jure belli ac pacis.
Alexander Hamilton1755–1804AmericanEconomist, political theorist and politician. A major protagonist for the Constitution of the United States, and the single greatest contributor to The Federalist Papers, advocating for the constitution's ratification through detailed examinations of its construction, philosophical and moral basis, and intent.
Joseph Haydn1732–1809AustrianA leading composer of the era; revolutionized i.a. the symphonic form.
Claude Adrien Helvétius1715–1771FrenchPhilosopher and writer. Famous for De l'esprit (On Mind).
Johann Gottfried Herder1744–1803GermanTheologian and linguist. Proposed that language determines thought, introduced concepts of ethnic study and nationalism, influential on later Romantic thinkers. Early supporter of democracy and republican self-rule.
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679EnglishPhilosopher who wrote Leviathan, a key text in political philosophy. While Hobbes justifies absolute monarchy, this work is the first to posit that the temporal power of a monarch comes about, not because God has ordained that he be monarch, but because his subjects have freely yielded their own power and freedom to him – in other words, Hobbes replaces the divine right of kings with an early formulation of the social contract. Hobbes' work was condemned by reformers for its defense of absolutism, and by traditionalists for its claim that the power of government derives from the power of its subjects rather than the will of God.
Baron d'Holbach1723–1789FrenchAuthor, Encyclopédist and Europe's first outspoken atheist. Roused much controversy over his criticism of religion as a whole in his work The System of Nature.
Ludvig Holberg1684–1754NorwegianWriter, essayist, historian and playwright.
Henry Home, Lord Kames1696–1782ScottishLawyer and philosopher. Patron of Adam Smith and David Hume. See Scottish Enlightenment.
Robert Hooke1635–1703EnglishProbably the leading experimenter of his age, Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society. Performed the work which quantified such concepts as Boyle's Law and the inverse-square nature of gravitation, father of the science of microscopy.
Wilhelm von Humboldt1767–1835GermanLinguist, diplomat, founder of the modern educational system, philosopher.
David Hume1711–1776ScottishPhilosopher, historian and essayist. Best known for his empiricism and rational skepticism, advanced doctrines of naturalism and material causes. Influenced Kant and Adam Smith.[5]
Francis Hutcheson1694–1746ScottishPhilosopher.
Christiaan Huygens1629–1695DutchPhysicist and mathematician who made groundbreaking contributions in optics and mechanics and is responsible for the mathematization of physics. Author of Horologium Oscillatorium and Treatise on Light.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826AmericanStatesman, political philosopher, educator. As a philosopher best known for the United States Declaration of Independence (1776), especially "All men are created equal", and his support of democracy in theory and practice. A polymath, he promoted higher education as a way to uplift the entire nation .
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos1744–1811SpanishMain figure of the Spanish Enlightenment. Preeminent statesman.
Immanuel Kant1724–1804GermanPhilosopher and physicist. Established critical philosophy on a systematic basis, proposed a material theory for the origin of the solar system, wrote on ethics and morals. Prescribed a politics of Enlightenment in What is Enlightenment? (1784). Influenced by Hume and Rousseau. Important figure in German Idealism, and important to the work of Fichte and Hegel.
Vasyl Karazin1773–1842Russian and UkrainianEnlightenment figure, intellectual, inventor, founder of The Ministry of National Education in Russian Empire and scientific publisher in Ukraine. Founder of Kharkiv University, which now bears his name. Also known for opposing to what he saw as colonial exploitation of Ukraine by the Russian Empire, even though he himself was ethnically Serbian.
Adriaan Koerbagh1633–1669DutchOne of the most radical figures of the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting and reviling the church and state as unreliable institutions and exposing theologians' and lawyers' language as vague and opaque tools to blind the people in order to maintain their own power. He wrote Een Bloemhof in 1668.
Hugo Kołłątaj1750–1812PolishActive in the Commission for National Education and the Society for Elementary Textbooks, and reformed the Kraków Academy, of which he was rector in 1783–86. Co-authored the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's Constitution of May 3, 1791, and founded the Assembly of Friends of the Government Constitution to assist in the document's implementation.
Ignacy Krasicki1735–1801PolishLeading poet of the Polish Enlightenment.
Joseph-Louis Lagrange1736–1813Italian-FrenchMajor mathematician, famous for his contributions to analysis, number theory, and mechanics.
Antoine Lavoisier1743–1794FrenchFounder of modern chemistry; executed in the French Revolution for his politics
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek1632–1723DutchThe father of microbiology and known for his pioneering work in microscopy and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology as a scientific discipline. Van Leeuwenhoek was the first to discover living cells, bacteria, spermatozoa and red blood cells.
Gottfried Leibniz1646–1716GermanPolymath-philosopher, mathematician, diplomat, jurist, historian; rival of Newton.
Giacomo Leopardi1798–1837ItalianPoet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing1729–1781GermanDramatist, critic, political philosopher. Created theatre in the German language.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg1742–1799GermanPhysicist, satirist, and aphorist.
Carl von Linné (Carl Linnaeus)1707–1778SwedishBotanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. Known as the father of modern taxonomy.
John Locke1632–1704EnglishPhilosopher. Important empiricist who expanded and extended the work of Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes. Seminal thinker in the realm of the relationship between the state and the individual, the contractual basis of the state and the rule of law. Argued for personal liberty emphasizing the rights of property.
Mikhail Lomonosov1711–1765RussianPolymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science.
Gabriel Bonnot de Mably1709-1785FrenchPhilosopher and historian.
James Madison1751–1836AmericanStatesman and political philosopher. Played a key role in the writing of the United States Constitution and providing a theoretical justification for it in his contributions to The Federalist Papers; author of the American Bill of Rights.
Sylvain Maréchal1750–1803FrenchEssayist, poet, and philosopher.
George Mason1725–1792AmericanStatesman, authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights; along with Madison called the "Father of the United States Bill of Rights".
Moses Mendelssohn1729–1786Jewish GermanPhilosopher of Jewish Enlightenment in Prussia (Haskalah), honoured by his friend Lessing in his drama as Nathan the Wise.
Jean Meslier1664–1729FrenchRoman Catholic priest, philosopher and first atheist writer since ancient times. Author of Testament, a book length essay, which supplied arguments and rhetoric used by other enlightenment authors such as Denis Diderot, Baron d'Holbach and Voltaire.
La Mettrie1709–1751FrenchPhysician and early French materialist philosopher. Best known as author of L'homme machine (Man a Machine).
John Millar1735–1801ScottishPhilosopher and historian.
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo1714–1799ScottishPhilosopher, jurist, pre-evolutionary thinker and contributor to linguistic evolution. See Scottish Enlightenment
Josef Vratislav Monse1733–1793CzechProfessor of Law at University of Olomouc, leading figure of Enlightenment in the Habsburg Monarchy
Montesquieu1689–1755FrenchPolitical thinker. Famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions all over the world. Political scientist, Donald Lutz, found that Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government in colonial America.[6]
Leandro Fernández de Moratín1760–1828SpanishDramatist and translator, support of republicanism and free thinking. Transitional figure to Romanticism.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart1756–1791AustrianA leading composer of the era. Influenced by Haydn , he was a child prodigy born in Salzburg He was quite popular throughout Europe in his lifetime. He died at the age of 35.
José Celestino Mutis1755–1808SpanishBotanist; lead the first botanic expeditions to South America, and built a major collection of plants.
Isaac Newton1642–1727EnglishLucasian professor of mathematics, Cambridge University; author of 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' and 'Opticks'.
Nikolay Novikov1744–1818RussianPhilanthropist and journalist who sought to raise the culture of Russian readers and publicly argued with the Empress. See Russian Enlightenment.
Dositej Obradović1739–1811SerbianWriter, linguist, educator, influential proponent of Serbian cultural nationalism, and founder of The Ministry of National Education in Karađorđe's Serbia, and founder of the University of Belgrade.
Zaharije Orfelin1726–1785SerbianPolymath-poet, writer, historian, translator, engraver, editor, publisher, etc.
Francesco Mario Pagano1748–1799ItalianJurist and philosopher, one of the pioneers of modern criminal law.
Thomas Paine1737–1809English/AmericanPamphleteer, most famous for Common Sense (1776), calling for American independence as the most rational solution.
Marquis of Pombal1699–1782PortugueseStatesman notable for his swift and competent leadership in the aftermath of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. He also implemented sweeping economic policies to regulate commercial activity and standardize quality throughout the country.
Stanisław August Poniatowski1732–1798PolishLast king of independent Poland, a leading light of the Enlightenment in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and co-author of one of the world's first modern constitutions, the Constitution of May 3, 1791.
Richard Price1723–1791EnglishPhilosopher, preacher, and mathematician.
Joseph Priestley1733–1804EnglishPhilosopher, theologian, and chemist.
François Quesnay1694–1774FrenchEconomist of the Physiocratic school.
Alexander Radishchev1749–1802RussianWriter and philosopher. Brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence.
Jovan Rajić1726–1801SerbianWriter, historian, traveller, and pedagogue, considered to be one of the greatest Serbian academics of the 18th century.
Guillaume Thomas François Raynal1713–1796FrenchHistorian and abolitionist.
Thomas Reid1710–1796ScottishPhilosopher who developed Common Sense Realism.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778SwissPolitical philosopher, educational reformer, composer; Encyclopédist who influenced many Enlightenment figures but did not himself believe in the primacy of reason and was a forerunner of Romanticism.
Giovanni Salvemini1708-1791ItalianMathematician and astronomer.
Friedrich Schiller1759–1805GermanPhilosopher, poet, and playwright.
Adam Smith1723–1790ScottishEconomist and philosopher. Wrote The Wealth of Nations, in which he argued that wealth was not money in itself, but wealth was derived from the added value in manufactured items produced by both invested capital and labour. Sometimes considered to be the founding father of the laissez-faire economic theory, but in fact argues for some degree of government control in order to maintain equity. Just prior to this he wrote Theory of Moral Sentiments, explaining how it is humans function and interact through what he calls sympathy, setting up important context for The Wealth of Nations.
Jan Śniadecki1756–1830PolishMathematician, philosopher, and astronomer.
Jędrzej Śniadecki1768–1838PolishWriter, physician, chemist, and biologist.
Baruch Spinoza1632–1677DutchPhilosopher and author of the Ethics, in which he denied the transcendence of God and compared the existence of God to nature ('deus sive natura').
Alexander Sumarokov1717–1777RussianPoet and playwright who created classical theatre in Russia.
Emanuel Swedenborg1688–1772SwedishNatural philosopher and theologian whose search for the operation of the soul in the body led him to construct a detailed metaphysical model for spiritual-natural causation.
John Toland1670–1722IrishPhilosopher and satirist.
Pietro Verri1728-1797ItalianPhilosopher, economist, and historian.
Giambattista Vico1668–1744ItalianPolitical philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist.
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)1694–1778FrenchHighly influential writer, historian and philosopher. He promoted Newtonianism and denounced organized religion as pernicious.
Adam Weishaupt1748–1830GermanFounded the Order of the Illuminati.
Christoph Martin Wieland1733–1813GermanPhilosopher and poet.
Christian Wolff1679–1754GermanPhilosopher and mathematician.
Mary Wollstonecraft1759–1797EnglishWriter, and pioneer feminist.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Encyclopedia of Diderot & D'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & D'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
  2. ↑ Enlightenment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Plato.stanford.edu, 2010-08-20, retrieved 2012-02-17
  3. ↑ Downing, Lisa. "George Berkeley." Stanford University. Stanford University, 10 Sept. 2004. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
  4. ↑ Sabbatini, Renato. "The Discovery of Bioelectricity. Galvani and Volta." Sabbatini, R.M.E.: The Discovery of Bioelectricity. Galvani and Volta. The State University of Campinas, 1998. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
  5. ↑ Fieser, James. "David Hume." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
  6. ↑ "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought", American Political Science Review 78,1 (March 1984), 189–197.
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