Climax of Intellectual Revolution in philosophy was called Enlightenment.

It began in England
about 1680, but the supreme manifestation was in France on the 18 th Century.
This philosophy was built around significant concepts:

 Reason is the only infallible guide to wisdom

 The universe is a machine governed by inflexible laws which man cannot override
 The simplest and most natural structure of society is the best
 There is no such thing as original sin
The inspiration came from the rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza and Hobbes, but the real
founders of the movement were Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke.
The Newtonian Philosophy did not rule out the idea of a GOD, but it deprived Him of His
power to guide everything.
John Locke was the father of a new theory of knowledge, that said that it (the knowledge)
originates from perception.
This theory is known as sensationalism. He insisted that human mind at birth is a blank tablet, a
“white paper”. When we begin to have experiences to perceive the external world with our
senses, that it when we registered something in our minds.
This was merely the foundations of knowledge, but no human being was able to live
intelligently on the basis of them alone. This simple idea must be integrated with more complex
ones.
Sensation and reason are both indispensable, the combination of them both, sensationalism and
rationalism became one of the basic elements of the enlightenment.
The glory days of the movement where under the leadership of Voltaire or Francois Marie
Arouet.
Voltaire born in 1694 was known for his satiric writing and ridicule of noblemen. He was sent
to the Bastille and afterwards exiled to England. Here, he wrote his first philosophical work the
Philosophic Dictionary, Candide.
He is best known as a champion of individual freedom. He defended the liberty of speech and
opinion. He also hated the repression or tyranny of organized religion. Church in torturing and
hurting those who would question its dogmas.
Other philosophers in France where Denis Diderot, Jean d’ Alembert, Claude Helvetius and
Baron d’ Holbach.
Diderot and d’ Alembert were the chief members of a group known as the Encyclopedist,
contributors of the Grand Encyclopedia, which was a complete summation of the philosophic
and scientific knowledge of the age.
The agreed with the rationalism and liberalism of Voltaire.
D’ Alembert differed from most of his associates in advocating a diffusion of the new doctrines
among all the people. Voltaire sustained to despise the common man from these new ideas. D’
Alembert maintained that the truths of reason and science should be taught to the masses in
hope that eventually the whole world might be freed from darkness and tyranny.
Helvetius and Holbach held that all our mental faculties, including memory and judgment, are
rooted in sense perception. Nothing but physical substance exists, man differs from the lower
animals solely in being more complex. They minimized the importance of religion. With this
view, the punishments after death mean no purpose.
Helvetius said that the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain was an ample foundation
for morality. Men’s evil intentions would be curbed by the fear of retaliation, and that the
feeling of pleasure resulting from an unselfish act would outweigh any element of pain
Holbach did the theory of mechanism, the universe is nothing but matter perpetually in motion;
it never had a beginning and it will never have and end. This was like the ancient Greek
conception of an eternal universe in constant process of evolution.