1. Philosophy in the Age of Reason
Dr. Matthew’s World History

2. In the 1500s and 1600s the Scientific Revolution introduced the world to reason and the scientific method as the basis of knowledge
Rules discovered by reason, or natural law, were used to study human behavior and solve societal problems (in theory!)
Natural Law led to a revolution in thinking known as the Enlightenment

3. John Locke
Thomas Hobbes

4. Enlightenment Thinkers
Thomas Hobbes
Believed people are brutish by nature and need to be controlled by an absolute monarch
Citizens enter into a social contract with their government in which personal freedoms are given up for organized social order
John Locke
Thought that people are generally reasonable and moral
People have natural rights such as life, liberty, and property
Government should be limited and overthrown if natural rights are taken away

5. Baron de Montesquieu

6. Enlightenment Thinkers
Enlightenment thinkers in France, known as philosophes, felt reason could reform government, society, and law
Baron de Montesquieu proposed checks and balances and separation of powers as protection for liberty
Greatly effected the creators of the United States Constitution

7. Adam Smith
Voltaire

8. Enlightenment Thinkers
Voltaire exposed the abuses of power and defended freedom of speech
Adam Smith applied reason towards economic reform
He rejected government regulation of the economy and urged the policy of laissez faire, which means “ let it be”
Advocate for free trade and opposed tariffs

9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Believed that people in their natural state were basically good.
However, this natural innocence was corrupted by the evils of society.
In The Social Contract he wrote that government should place minimal controls on its people, and this government should be freely elected.
Thomas Paine and Marquis de Lafayette were among the American and French revolutionary leaders who adopted Rousseau’s philosophy.

11. Mary Wollstonecraft
Argued that women should be able to decide what was in her own interest without depending on her husband.
However, she accepted that a woman’s first duty was to be a good mother.