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Montesquieu was born in Bordeaux, France on January 18, 1689. Both of Montesquieu parents where wealthy in his childhood. Did law at the University of Bordeaux. Married a wealthy protestant woman in 1715 but was never faithful. While studying law he decided to surprise his friends by writing the Persian letters. Went to Paris in 1722 to expand his writings and then after went to Venice and Rome. He continued to write especially about his journeys. He was elected to be part of the Royal Society and had debates and read political journals. Some major works of his are the Persian Letters and the Spirit of Laws. He died February 10, 1755

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He was born in Milan in 1738. He was a part of a middle-class family. He did have a lot of mood swings and was considered bipolar. He was also considered a shy child. When he was 16, he eloped and got married. Later, he formed the academic of fists. Its purpose was to have economic, political, and administrative reform.

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(Ryan + Brendan)

1. She was born in London and lived in the late 18th century, working for Joseph Johnson, a publisher known for radical works.

2. Her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, outlined her desire to reform education. She argued that women were not naturally inferior to men and that they only appeared inferior due to their lack of education. She believed that women should receive education to remove them from domestic spheres and roles. Her ideas caused public tensions and controversy across Britain.

3. We agree with her beliefs that women should receive education.

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Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, Kingdom of Prussia, on 22 April 1724. Konigsberg was the old capital of the East Prussian empire and was very much an intellectual hot spot due to the University of Konigsberg. Kant lectured metaphysics, logic, and ethics at the University of Konigsberg for 15 years (1755-1770) and was later promoted to the position of department chair of logic and metaphysics. Kant taught some mathematics as well, although ethics was his primary focus. Kant died in Konigsberg on 12 February 1804 at the age of 79.

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Origin:

John Locke was born in 1632 in Wrington, United Kingdom.

He worked as a physician for the Earl of Shaftesbury.

He studied at the Christ Church (one of the colleges in Oxford)

What is his main contribution?:

Known for being one of the most influential  enlightenment thinkers. He is considered the father of liberalism through his development of the social contract, calling for the separation of church and state in his Letter Concerning Toleration, and his opposition to authoritarianism.

He is also considered one of the first British empiricists, as he defended British empiricism in his essay An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke explored what the human mind is capable of understanding in this work.

His main contribution was his Two Treatises of Government. The justification for the exclusion of the succession of James after King Charles the Second, this essay advocated for the Glorious Revolution. Additionally, his work stated that humans are reasonable enough to discern God's laws and live a just and happy life. Kings are not divinely chosen and papal hierarchy should be forbidden. He describes political power as a right to enforce laws for the greater good.

Challenges or concerns with what you learned?:

Locke was an individual who advocated for the divine laws of God and that people should obey them. Kant would state that there are certain moral rules placed in society for the public to function. I disagree with Locke’s view and lean more on Kant’s view on morality and its function in the world today. However, I am in contention with the majority of his beliefs about political powers and the government.

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Immanuel Kant's main contribution in the world was his work in the Categorical of Imperative. The Categorical of Imperative is a set of moral laws all people must follow. One major Kant theory was about how the morality of a choice was objective rather than many other philosphers who believed it was subjective. His contributions led to a new way of philosphy called Kantianism which is based off Kant's beliefs.

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1. Lady Montagu is an Englishwoman who first wrote about her experiences in the Ottoman Empire as a woman. During her writings, she evaluates the Muslim world and their differences to British culture. She also challenged and introduced the idea of smallpox inoculation to Britain from the Ottoman empire. Overall, she is known as pushing the female agenda and challenges contemporary social attitudes about women at the time.

2. Lady Montagu advocated for women's rights and studied the society of Istanbul.  She mainly writes about religion, particular deism, and Islamic theology.  She praises Islam for its strict monotheism and its religious tolerance.  Lady Montagu calls Islam and the Qur’an as a form of Enlightenment and compares Islamic ideas and morals to Catholicism.  She was also responsible for the smallpox inoculation to Britain and Western Europe.

3.  She may have been a very controversial figure at the time for two main reasons. First, is her gender. A woman author was probably not as respected as a male author at the time.  The second reason was the comparison of Catholicism to Islam, something that many would find innapropriate in that era.

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Dylan Kuhn
He was born in Switzerland in the 18th century and was raised by his father, who installed in him a strong sense of nationality. After his father was forced to live Geneva, Rousseau went to live with his mothers family until he was 16. Then he left and went to live out his life as an adventurer and Roman Catholic convert in Sardinia and France. He was taken in by the baroness de Warrens, who transformed him from an adventurer into a philosopher, scholar, and musician. She was a woman of taste, intelligence, and energy, who brought out in Rousseau just the talents that were needed to conquer Paris at a time when Voltaire had made radical ideas fashionable.

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Adam Smith was a Scottish man born in June of 1723. He would attend the University of Glasgow where  he learned from Francies Hutcheson, a famous moral philosophy professor. With a scholarship, he traveled to Oxford to attend Balliol College, but he really taught himself during his time there… he thought it was boring. With support from the philosopher Lord Henry Homes Kames, he was able to give a series of public lectures in Edinburgh, lectures about rhetoric to history and economics → imprinted on many people. In 1751 he was a professor of logic at Glasgow and in 1752 transferred to become a professor of moral philosophy. His peers in Glasgow were aristocrats connected to the government, scientists like Joseph black and James Watt, writers like Robert Foulis, and great merchants who traded between Scotland and Britain.

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His capstone achievement was his book the Wealth of Nations

1. In the wealth of nations he catalogs the organization of human societies and how they have evolved over time

1. We started as Hunters and gathers, then we were farmers, and most recently, humans became feudal farmers.

1. Smith then hypothesized what the best evolution from there would be.

2. He argues that a system of markets would be the best way to organize an economy, as it takes a lot of the bias out of it.

3. He called this the system of perfect liberty (now known as laissez-faire capitalism).

4. He stated that markets were self-correcting.

5. He was a critic of both monopolies and government.

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People have been quite critical of the system he proposed. Common objections are the subjugation of the worker, financial inequality, and the moral corruption of many individuals, as some have had the accumulation of wealth dominate themselves.

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Voltaire was born in 1694 as the illegitimate son of a low ranking French noble. His dad wanted him to become a lawyer and sent him to learn the trade; however, Voltaire wanted to be a writer instead.  Voltaire spent most of his younger life in Paris getting in trouble with authorities due to his critiques of the government. Voltaire began his writing career as a playwright. He mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people's rights. He was kicked out of France numerous times for what he said and worked all across Europe spreading his ideas.

Klenk

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He dropped his family name and adopted the nom de plume “Voltaire” upon completing his first play in 1718.

He published numerous works, including books, plays, poems, and polemics.

His most famous works included the fictitious Lettres philosophiques (1734) and the satirical novel Candide (1759).

The letters are a series of essays on English government and society that are considered as a landmark in the history of thought.

Today it is considered one of the great monuments of French literature. Voltaire’s Candide holds similar status.

He was highly controversial: His books and pamphlets contained scores of assaults on church authority and clerical power. They criticized French political institutions too, and many incorporated elaborate defenses of civil liberty.

Voltaire’s ideas were expressed mostly in the French and American revolutions.

Richie

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Born on 5 October 1713 in Langres, Champagne, Kingdom of France, Denis Diderot worked as the chief editor Encyclopédie, which contributed significantly to enlightenment principles.

The Encyclopédie was originally a basic French translation of Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia; or An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences , but it slowly grew into a distinct revolutionary social-political commentary by the Encyclopédistes (those who worked on the text). The goal was to collect all knowledge scattered across the globe, becoming a true “encyclopedia” of everything known to man.Some of the more notable contributors are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt. The text propagated the ideas of the French Enlightenment and contains more than 74,000 articles.

Furthermore, the Encyclopédie displayed hostility towards the French aristocracy, aligning with ideals of the French Revolution, and elevating the working common man. Many of the people Diderot hired to work on the Encyclopedie either left or were put in jail due to the criticism and threatening of the social orders of the French aristocracy. In 1752, the project was suspended by the courts and Diderot was detained and his home was searched.

Fahari And Leo

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2. What is his/her main contribution to the public sphere of Enlightenment? (Jason Chin)

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2. What is his/her main contribution to the public sphere of Enlightenment? (Jason Chin)

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Montesquieu has two works that are considered the most important: Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws.  The Persian Letters were an epistolary novel that documented the journey of Usbek and Rica, two fictional characters, as they explore unknown parts of Europe from 1711-1720.  Through this format, Montesquieu attempted to detail what Europe might appear to be to a non-European traveler.  Most of the letters are scenes of Usbek and Rica observing European customs, which Montesquieu creates humor from, as Usbek and Rica often misinterpret the customs.  Also, Montesquieu compares European and non-European societies, such as government, political authority, and law.  The other major work, The Spirit of the Laws, attempts to explain human laws and other social institutions.  Montesquieu compares physical laws as God's creation, but political laws as a creation of fallible humans who are bound to make error and mistakes.  He believes laws should be made to serve the people and adapted based on factors such as principles and climate.

Montesquieu believes in 3 types of governments: republican governments, monarchies, and despotisms.  In democracies, people are sovereign and govern themselves by electing members to a governing body, such as a senate.  In monarchy, one person governs by laws.  In a despotic state, a single person can do whatever they please, at their own will.

Montesquieu elaborates on that true liberty is freedom of the mind to create and form one's own opinion and is not, in fact, the ability to do whatever we want, as that often infringes upon others' freedoms and safeties.

Lastly, Montesquieu detailed the effects of climate and geography on one's behavior and customs.  For example, heat expands our fibers while the cold restricts them.  This leads to different emotions, such as fear, boldness, suspicion, etc. or combinations of emotions.  The quality of a country's soil might dictate how fruitful a state will be in agriculture, which determines how wealthy or poor that state might be.  Of course, the success of the state determines whether or not it can grow, quality of life, etc.

SOURCE: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montesquieu/#2

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Beccaria is known mainly for his essay called "On Crimes and Punishment". This essay was one of the first to call into question the prison and justice system throughout Europe, and his main point of opposition was the death penalty. Some other points that Beccaria makes in this essay are that it is un-ethical to obtain confessions through beatings and torture, paying off judges, and framing the accused in order to get a conviction. After the essay was published it began to be translated into English and French, and it became further known that Beccaria's main theories in this essay were social contract and utility relating to the justice system.

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After reading "On Crimes and Punishment" I have come to agree with Beccaria on many of the points he makes about reform in the justice system, but I also think that some of the changes are brought to an extreme. I do believe that if someone insights violence then they may be met with violence, but Beccaria believes in peace within the justice system and is against things like brutality from police and the prisons. Now I do also believe that many of the changes that Beccaria suggests are valid and were much needed during this period in time.

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Spencer Foote and Mateo Wu

Descartes was born in 1596 La Haye en Tourrene, France, which is now called Descartes and is in Indre-Loire department

During his life he pioneered mathematics and philosophy

Published works about reasoning

Descartes main contributes was the introduction of skepticism to the publish sphere. One of his most published and read works was “Discourse on The Method”, in it Descartes writes of how he attempts to problem solve using his reasoning skills; he proposed new ways of thinking which combined intuition with mathematics. Descartes additionally pivoted focus and authority from god to humanity -- spreading ideas of a more human centric earth. He is often considered to be on of the first pioneers of rationalism and helped bring forth modern philosophy.

Descartes was objected to most likely by church officials as his works dealt directly with shifting focus away from god’s authority  and to humans, even though descartes himself was religious.

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Immanuel Kant was an extremly contriversial philospher. The whole topic of morality was a giant war where everybody had their own ideas. A critique I would have of Kant is how his belief system is very vague in that we are supposed to follow his guidelines yet they are not specific to an instance. Many people thought his rules could be in conflict with each other because of the differenence in motivation. An opposing view to Kant was utiltariansim, which had morality based on if a decision benefits the majority of people. Immanuel Kant had a major Kant had major conflict with this topic.

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2) His thoughts marked the end of the European Enlightenment. He propelled political and ethical thinking into new avenues. He believed that the general wants/ needs of the people cannot be determined by elected representatives. He believed that people should have a democracy where people vote for the general will and laws of the land. He is often regarded as the most influential person of the enlightenment.

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2) His thoughts marked the end of the European Enlightenment. He propelled political and ethical thinking into new avenues. He believed that the general wants/ needs of the people cannot be determined by elected representatives. He believed that people should have a democracy where people vote for the general will and laws of the land. He is often regarded as the most influential person of the enlightenment.

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Montesquieu was a person who made a lot of people upset and wasn't the best natured person in the world. First off, he was constantly cheating with his spouses in different countries. Next, one of his philosophies that was highly disagreed upon at the time was the idea that everyone was equal and the only reason people listened to anyone was because of fear. Now this might be true in some peoples eyes but at the time there was a caste system and this angered a lot of nobles and the higher classes. Lastly, Montesquieu was very against the king and government which angered a lot of people. Montesquieu wanted to separate the government into different parts. He believed that the judicial, legislative, and executive branches should all be separated and that they should all put some kind of fear over each other so one of the branches would not gain more power in the others. This was written in his most famous work The Spirit of Laws.

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3. He had the idea of a small democracy where the people govern on a small scale. My problem with this is that as time goes on and populations get bigger, this idea of a democracy becomes less and less effective. This is just micromanagement on a societal level. The ability for this form of government to withstand larger populations is limited.

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3. He had the idea of a small democracy where the people govern on a small scale. My problem with this is that as time goes on and populations get bigger, this idea of a democracy becomes less and less effective. This is just micromanagement on a societal level. The ability for this form of government to withstand larger populations is limited.

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Voltaires ideas on the separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression laid the groundwork for the predominant system of government we have today in the western world. Without his influence on the French during the 17th century and preservation of his works we may live in a very different world.