Enlightenment | Historical Context
Seventeenth-Century Advances
Among the important influences of Enlightenment thinkers were seventeenth-century scientists and thinkers such as Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. Locke’s theory of sensationalism (the belief that knowledge is solely derived through sensation and perception) was especially important to Voltaire and Rousseau, and Locke’s views on the relationship between the individual and society laid the groundwork for the social contract theories of Rousseau.
Along with the writings of...
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