The document discusses Enlightenment thinkers and their beliefs. It states that Enlightenment thinkers believed in using their own intellectual reasoning to determine what to believe and how to act, competing with traditional authorities. They supported ideas even if they went against customs, viewing independent reasoning as a path to a better human existence. It then lists some of the most well-known Enlightenment writers such as John Locke, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and Denis Diderot, and provides brief biographies of each.

1. Enlightenment thinkers
Enlightenment thinkers share a lot of things but the only thing
they truly believe in, is to believe in their own thinking .The
most common thing they believe in was intellectual powers of
man in capacities in determining what to believe and the way to
act. The Enlightenment thinkers were able to compete with the
authority of one’s own reason and skill. They support their own
idea and it could be described as a religion because they support
whatever the idea was even if it was against customs and
traditions. They believe the Enlightenment is for awakening of
one’s intellectual powers, which ultimately leads to a far better,
more fulfilled human existence.

2. Best-known
enlightenment
writers

3. Most Known Writers of the
Enlightenment
• William Congreve (1670-1729)
• Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
• Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
• David Hume (1711-1776)
• Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
• John Locke (1632-1704)
• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
• Voltaire (1694-1778)

4. John Locke
(1632-1704)

5. John Locke
He is a great philosopher in the age of Enlightenment. His ideas had
enormous influence on the event of Epistemology and Political Philosophy,
and he's widely thought to be one among the foremost influential early
Enlightenment thinkers. He is usually considered the primary of land
Empiricists, the movement including bishop and Hume, which provided the
most opposition to the 17th Century Continental Rationalists. He argued that
‘every one of our ideas are ultimately derived from experience, and therefore
the knowledge of which we are capable is therefore severely limited in its
scope and certainty’. His Philosophy of Mind is commonly cited because the
origin for contemporary conceptions of identity and "the self". He also
postulated, contrary to Cartesian and Christian philosophy, that the mind
was a "tabula rasa" (or "blank slate") which people are born without innate
ideas.

6. William Congreve
(1670-1729)

7. William Congreve
Congreve was born into an old family of wealth in Bardsey, West
Yorkshire, his curriculum specializing in theology moreover as
Greek and Latin classics. Congreve often visited Dublin theatres
and was exposed to the foremost celebrated dramas of the time,
including Ben Jonson's ‘Volpone’ and Thomas Dufay's The
Boarding House. However, during the reign of James II, these
performances were banned. A reader of dramatic theory,
Congreve was possibly more at home with stage than most
young men of his era by the time he moved to London around
1689.

8. Denis Diderot
(1713-1784)

9. Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was the most prominent author of the French
Encyclopédistes, which was a group of French philosophers
and critics of literature and art. He was taught by the
Jesuits, and when he declined to enter one among the most
known professions, he went to Paris, where he lived for a
while but he hardly had enough food or money to live on.
Over time, he became one of the most recognized and
powerful writers of his day.

10. Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790)

11. Benjamin Franklin
Franklin was a true Enlightenment man who supported s
cience, rationality, natural human rights, free thought an
d morality. His ‘Contributions to the U.S. Constitution’
reflected Franklin’s Enlightenment principles of
philosophy, morality, science, matters of health, civil
affairs and politics. He founded a reading and writing
club called the Junto and therefore the American
Philosophical Society. He also founded the University of
Pennsylvania.

12. Samuel Johnson
(1709-1784)

13. Voltaire
Voltaire has a distinguished place in the world because he was a
great symbol in the age of Enlightenment. A very prolific writer,
Voltaire achieved fame for his polemic satires and acerbic wit
(although he originally wanted to be a tragedian). He publicly
argued for freedom of faith and expression, the separation of
church and state, and wrote formidable attacks on the Christian
church and powerful French establishments. As his name
instantly evokes the battle against religious fanaticism yet the
love of tolerance and freedom of thinking.