Sammantha Garcia

Mr. Wisner

World History

Period 2nd t/th

Date 2~23~17
Enlightenment Essay

We have philosophers everywhere these days, but the ones that have stories are from the

late 17th & 18th century. Our philosophers from this time all believed in natural laws and truths

that not all people recognized. Shared confidence was another, they wanted people to have the

ability to use reason to discover truths. In the 17th & 18th century there were four philosophers

that were know. The tales that they tell are to be known by us so that we must understand what

has happened to make it where we are today.

The first on our journey is John locke now this is a man who lived through both the

english civil war and the glorious revolution. But today thats not what we are after, the story for

him is what his ideas were on the state of nature and the dissolution of government. Now what he

wanted or what his ideas were for the state of nature was that he wanted us all to be equal

without the subordination or the subjection , he believed that despite the fact of humans

possessions and persons that they fit within the bounds of the law of nature. From this thinking it

lead him to thoughts about the dissolution of government, now his ideas or thoughts for this was

that we should have our people help or save our government and that we should have the right to

do so for the government.

Speaking of government and equality this leads into our philosopher Voltaire. Now

Voltaire had become a prolific writer in his time was then lead to be very accepting to people he
made conversation with or had any contact with. Now in his time there was allot of trading going

on from the Royal Exchange, his thoughts on this trading was that he believe it would be good to

make it multitude so that if they allowed many religions they would be happy and not have

conflict. From this he had ideas on religions in the society, since he was very accepting to all he

wanted to have freedom of religion in this society. So basicly his main idea on everything that he

thought of was to have freedom, freedom of religion and a democratic government.

Another philosopher interested in society was Adam Smith, and in Adams time there was

mercantilism and that leads to new thoughts and ideas for him. His ideas were mostly on

individual decisions because their government couldnt have enough information for them. What

he felt was happy and right to the people was them being lead by an an invisible hand, this

meaning to have thing go the way they should and having acts of some type of force making

such good thing happen. So Adams main idea in his time was for the people to have an

individual interest and to not have a government.

In the speaking of people being individual this leads to our last philosopher Mary

Wollstonecraft who was also the author and wrote novels of her time in the French Revolution.

What Mary ideas were was on individual freedom so that they could have a better society, and in

the time of the French Revolution this was a good idea to have. Now what her ideas were was

that she wanted women to be able to have the same abilities and education as men did. She

wanted women to be equal to men and not just low desires. So her main idea in her time was for

women to be free from all restraint and her conclusion was for reason and experience with the

men and women in her time.

 Now this is all our 4 philosophers from the late 17th & 18th century, and from all that is

said it seems that they all shared to have equality in different types of ways. Our philosophers

also shared around the same thoughts on government and a lot was it being that they didn't really

want one or if they felt the government was of no use, and that being stated this was the tale our

4 great philosophers in the late 17th & 18th century.