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Major Political Theorists of the
the Enlightenment
John Locke
Francis Hutcheson & David Hume
Montesquieu
Voltaire
Francis Hutcheson ws an english philosopher born in 1694. He went to the University of Glasgow and studied philosophy. Hutcheson opposed Thomas Hobbes's old thesis (later taken up by David Hume) that human conceptions of "right" and "wrong", "virtue" and "vice", were rooted not in any theological or natural conceptions but purely in hedonic pleasure and pain calculations. Hutcheson accepted that virtue is often associated with pleasure and vice with pain, but tried to avoid Hobbes's conclusion that it all boils down to self-interest. As his fame spread, Hutcheson was invited back to Scotland to take a Chair of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow in 1729. He would remain there until his death in 1746. It was Hutcheson, more than anybody, that made Glasgow one of the principal seats of activity during the Scottish Enlightenment, counting Adam Smith and Thomas Reid among his students. He was one of the first academics to lecture in English rather than Latin.
Franois-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778). He was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosopher known for his wit and his defense of civil liberties, including both freedom of religion and free trade. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Catholic Church dogma and the French institutions of his day. Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (hose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.
John Locke (August 29, 1632 - October 28, 1704) was an Enlightenment philosopher whose notions of government with the consent of the governed and the natural rights[?] of man (life, liberty, and property) had an enormous influence on colonial Americans, allowing them to justify revolution and shape a new government.
A Scottish philosopher and historian and the most important figure in the Scottish enlightenment Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist.[1] During Hume's lifetime, he was more famous as a historian; his six-volume History of England[2] was a bestseller well into the nineteenth century and the standard work on English history for many years, while his works in philosophy to which he owes his current reputation were mostly unknown during his day. Hume was heavily influenced by empiricists John Locke and George Berkeley, along with various French-speaking writers such as Pierre Bayle, and various figures on the English-speaking intellectual landscape such as Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, Francis Hutcheson (his teacher), and Joseph Butler (to whom he sent his first work for feedback).[
Montesquieu was a French political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment and articulated the theory of separation of powers, implemented in many constitutions the world over.
