The Enlightenment And The Role Of The Philosophes

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work of the
great 17th century pioneers--Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Leibnitz,
Isaac Newton, and John Locke--who had developed fruitful methods of
rational and empirical inquiry and had demonstrated the possibility of a
world remade by the application of knowledge for human benefit. The
philosophes believed that science could reveal nature as it truly is and
show how it could be controlled and manipulated. This belief provided an
incentive to extend scientific methods into every field of inquiry, thus
laying the groundwork for the development of the modern social sciences.

The enlightened understanding of human nature was one that emphasized
the right to self-expression and human fulfillment, the right to think
freely and express one's views publicly without censorship or fear of
repression. Voltaire admired the freedom he found in England and fostered
the spread of English ideas on the Continent. He and his followers opposed
the intolerance of the established ...

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