During the Enlightenment period in Europe, influential thinkers used reason and their writings to challenge the status quo and advocate for political and social change. Some of the major Enlightenment thinkers discussed include Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Beccaria, Wollstonecraft, Hobbes, and Locke. They addressed issues like separation of powers, individual rights, criminal justice reform, women's rights, forms of government, and the social contract between governments and citizens.

1. Ch. 6.2
The Enlightenment in Europe

2. Age of Reason
• Enlightenment thinkers and
writers set the stage for
revolution by their
encouragement of people to
judge for themselves what
was right or wrong in society
and to rely on human reason
to solve social problems.

3. Enlightenment thinkers
•Voltaire was the pen
name of Francois
Marie Arouet who
published more than
70 pieces of work in
which he would often
use satire against his
opponents.
Candide is the
illegitimate nephew of a
German baron. He grows
up in the baron's castle
under the tutelage of the
scholar Pangloss, who
teaches him that this
world is “the best of all
possible
worlds.” Candide falls in
love with the baron's
young daughter,
Cunégonde.

4. • He believed in
tolerance, reason and
freedom of thought,
expression and
religious belief. He
fought against
prejudice and
superstition.

5. Montesquieu
• The Baron de Montesquieu was a
French aristocrat, writer and
lawyer who devoted himself to
the study of political liberty. He
advocated the separation of
powers in government. He also
believed that in order to keep any
individual or group from gaining
complete control of the
government, a system of checks
and balances must be established.

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
was born poor and
worked as an engraver,
music teacher, tutor and
secretary before moving
to Paris and winning
fame as a writer of
essays. Rousseau was
deeply committed to
individual freedom.

7. • He viewed government as an
agreement among free
individuals to create a
society guided by the
“general will.” Unlike other
Enlightenment thinkers, he
believed that civilization
corrupted people’s natural
goodness and destroyed
freedom and equality.

9. Cesare Bonesana Beccaria
•was an Italian philosophe who focused on
criminal justice. He believed that laws
existed to preserve social order and he
advocated a criminal justice system based on
fairness and reason. He argued that a person
accused of a crime should receive a speedy
trial. He also worked to abolish torture.
•

10. Mary Wollstonecraft
was self-taught and ran a school with her sisters
before joining a London publisher and writing.
She believed that women, like men, need
education to become virtuous and useful. She
argued for women’s rights to become educated
and to participate in politics. Her essay called a
Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written
in 1792 and disagreed with Rousseau’s
assertment that women’s education should be
secondary to men’s.

11. Thomas Hobbes
• was an English thinker who wrote
Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes’s view, all
humans were naturally selfish and
wicked and would act in their own
self-interest. It is because of this
selfishness that he believed that
people needed a social contract (or
government) to keep the order. He
believed that the best form of
government would be an absolute
monarchy that could impose order
and demand obedience.
•

12. John Locke
• was an English philosopher who
wrote Two Treatises on
Government which served to
justify the overthrow of James
II and the Glorious Revolution.
Locke believed that people
were reasonable beings with
the natural ability to govern
themselves. He believed that
people could learn from their
experiences and improve
themselves.

13. • Moreover, Locke believed that all
people were born free and
equal, endowed with 3 natural
rights: life, liberty and property.
He believed that government’s
responsibility was to protect
these rights for its citizens. He
felt that if a government failed
to do this, then the people had
the right to replace the
government.