8 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Scottish moral philosopher and economist — author of The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments — founder of modern economics — whose invisible hand metaphor and division of labor analysis are the foundational concepts of market economics.
Voltaire's 1759 philosophical satire — following the naive Candide through disasters and absurdities as he tests and abandons Leibnizian optimism — the definitive Enlightenment satirical novella and the most widely read 18th-century French prose work.
German-born Empress of Russia (1762–1796) — who seized power from her incompetent husband Peter III, expanded Russia's borders by 200,000 square miles, corresponded with Voltaire, Diderot, and d'Alembert, founded the Hermitage Museum, and made Russia a European power — the most successful female ruler in European history.
French mathematician and Enlightenment philosopher — who invented the Condorcet method of voting and the Condorcet paradox — predicted the French Revolution's going wrong in his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind — died in prison during the Terror.
Montesquieu's 1721 epistolary novel following Persian visitors Rica and Usbek who report their observations of French society — through their 'outsider' perspective exposing French religious intolerance, political absolutism, and social customs as just as irrational as anything in Persia.
German-American historian at Yale and Columbia — born Peter Fröhlich in Berlin, fled Nazism — who wrote the definitive two-volume history of the Enlightenment (The Enlightenment: An Interpretation) and major biographies of Freud and the bourgeoisie.
Peter Gay's 1964 collection of essays on the Enlightenment — arguing that the philosophes constituted a coherent 'party of humanity' committed to reason, toleration, and humanity against superstition and tyranny — a prelude to his two-volume Enlightenment history.
French Enlightenment philosopher, satirist, and historian — author of Candide, Philosophical Dictionary, and Letters on the English — who championed reason, religious tolerance, and civil liberties — the defining figure of the French Enlightenment.