Thomas Paine (by Matthew Pratt, about 1790) In the late 1700s AD, around the same time that Voltaire, du Chatelet, and Rousseau were writing philosophy in France, and Hume was writing in England, Thomas Paine was [...]
René Descartes - Enlightenment philosopher How do we know what is true? All this fighting about religion and new ideas coming from Africa and the Americas, China and India meant that [...]
Mary Wollstonecraft - European philosophy Who was Mary Wollstonecraft? Mary Wollstonecraft was the most famous woman among the Enlightenment philosophers of the 1700s AD. Damaris Masham Mary Astell Enlightenment philosophy All our [...]
Voltaire - a French philosopher Voltaire took ideas about religion, science, and human rights that were just getting started in the 1700s AD, and encouraged new ways of thinking about [...]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a European philosopher Rousseau was born in 1712 AD into a Protestant family living in Geneva, and his mother died of an infection she caught while he was being born. Like the [...]
Georg Hegel, a European philosopher What did Georg Hegel work on? Georg Hegel was twenty years younger than Wollstonecraft. He wasn't interested in political or economic equality for either men [...]
Napoleon in 1806 Right after the French Revolution, a lot of people in France were wondering, what sort of government did they really want? People wanted democracy, but on the other hand [...]
Philippe II d'Orleans, regent for Louis XV Philippe d'Orleans rules France When Louis XIV died in 1715 AD, his great-grandson Louis was only five years old. First his uncle Philippe, then his teacher [...]
Vasco da Gama and Columbus used ships like these During the 1500s AD, the people of Europe got much richer than they had been in the Middle Ages. With the collapse of [...]
French Revolution: French women revolutionaries march on the king's palace at Versailles Why did France want a revolution? All through the 1700s, Enlightenment philosophers in France had been figuring out new ways [...]
