The philosophy of the eighteenth century is the philosophy of the mind, reason, scientific thought. The human mind tries to understand the world around it with the help of scientific knowledge, considerations, observations and logical conclusions, as opposed to medieval scholasticism and blindly following church dogmas. The 18th century is often identified with the Enlightenment . The development of philosophy in this period is gaining new momentum. Although the concept of Enlightenment covers a slightly longer time period, the main development of this movement falls precisely on the XVIII century .
Content
Background
The 18th century saw a special period in the development of Western European philosophical thought — the so-called Enlightenment. The main ideas of the era - reason, science, progress - originated in the XVII century . In particular, they sound in the compositions of F. Bacon , T. Hobbes , R. Descartes , J. Locke . Further, J. Locke in his writings and his followers in England formulated the basic concepts of the Enlightenment: “common good”, “ natural man ”, “ natural law ”, “ natural religion ”, “ social contract ”. Among prominent figures such thinkers as G. Bolingbroke , D. Addison , E. E. Shaftesbury , F. Hutcheson should be noted.
In the XVIII century, the center of Enlightenment moves to continental Europe - to France . “... In France of the eighteenth century ... the philosophical revolution served as an introduction to a political revolution ... The French are waging an open war with all official science, with the church, often even with the state” ( Engels ).
18th Century Philosopher List
- John Locke (1632–1704), England, philosopher and politician.
- Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Germany, mathematician, philosopher and lawyer.
- Christian von Wolf (1679-1754), Germany, philosopher, lawyer and mathematician.
- George Berkeley (1685-1753), England, philosopher and church figure.
- Charles Louis Montesquieu (1689-1755), France, philosopher and lawyer, one of the authors of the theory of separation of powers.
- Voltaire (1694-1778), France, writer and philosopher, critic of the state religion.
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), USA, scientist and philosopher, one of the founding fathers of the United States and authors of the Declaration of Independence .
- Thomas Reed (1710–1796), Scotland, church figure and philosopher.
- David Hume (1711-1776), Scotland, philosopher, economist.
- Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov (1711-1765), the first Russian scientist-naturalist of world significance, an encyclopedist, chemist and physicist
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Switzerland, writer and political philosopher, author of the idea of a "social contract . "
- Denis Diderot (1713-1784), France, writer and philosopher, founder of the Encyclopedia .
- James Burnet (1714-1799), Scotland, lawyer and philosopher, one of the founders of linguistics .
- Claude Adrian Helvetius (1715-1771), France, philosopher and writer.
- Jean le Ron d'Alembert (1717-1783), France, mathematician and physician, one of the editors of the French Encyclopedia.
- Frying pan Grigory Savvich (1722-1794), Russian and Ukrainian philosopher, poet, teacher. The pan is called "the first philosopher of the Russian Empire."
- Adam Smith (1723-1790), Scotland, economist and philosopher, author of the famous book Research on the nature and causes of the wealth of peoples .
- Paul Henri Holbach (1723-1789), France, an encyclopedic philosopher, was one of the first to declare himself an atheist.
- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Germany, philosopher and naturalist.
- Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Ireland, politician and philosopher, one of the early founders of pragmatism .
- Gotthold Efraim Lessing (1729-1781), Germany, playwright, critic and philosopher, creator of the German theater.
- Thomas Abbt (1738-1766), Germany, philosopher and mathematician.
- Dositey Obradovic (1742-1811), Serbia, writer, philosopher and linguist.
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), USA, philosopher and politician, one of the founding fathers of the United States and authors of the Declaration of Independence , defender of the "right to revolution."
- Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), France, mathematician and philosopher.
- Nikolai Novikov (1744-1818), Russia, writer and philanthropist.
- Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), Germany, philosopher, theologian and linguist.
- Victor D'Jupai (1746-1818), France, writer and philosopher, author of the term communism .
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Germany, poet, philosopher and naturalist.
- Alexander Radishchev (1749-1802), Russia, writer and philosopher.
- Hugo Kollontai (1750-1812), Poland, theologian and philosopher, one of the authors of the Polish constitution of 1791
- Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), England, writer, philosopher and feminist.
- French Encyclopedists - philosophers, naturalists, writers and engineers who participated in the writing of the French Encyclopedia
Literature
- Narsky I. S. Western European Philosophy of the 18th Century. Tutorial. - M.: Higher School , 1973. - 302 p.
See also
- Age of Enlightenment