The Philosophes

Voltaire

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Denis Diderot

John Locke

Adam Smith








This philosophe lived from 1694-1778. In his 84 years Voltaire was historian and essayist, playwright and storyteller, poet and philosopher, wit and pamphleteer, wealthy businessman and practical economic reformer. Yet he is remembered best as an advocate of human rights. True to the spirit of the Enlightenment, he denounced organized religion and established himself as a proponent of rationality.
Voltaire was born Francois-Marie Arouet on Nov. 21, 1694, in Paris. At 16 he became a writer. He wrote witty verse mocking the royal authorities. For this he was imprisoned in the Bastille for 11 months. About this time he began calling himself Voltaire. Another dispute in 1726 led to exile in England for two years. On his return to Paris he staged several unsuccessful dramas and the enormously popular 'Zaire'. He wrote a life of Swedish king Charles XII, and in 1734 he published 'Philosophical Letters', a landmark in the history of thought. The letters, denouncing religion and government, caused a scandal that forced him to flee Paris. He took up residence in the palace of Madame du Chatelet, with whom he lived and traveled until her death in 1749. In 1750 Voltaire went to Berlin at the invitation of Prussia's Frederick the Great. Three years later, after a quarrel with the king, he left and settled in Geneva, Switzerland. After five years his strong opinions forced another move, and he bought an estate at Ferney, France, on the Swiss border. By this time he was a celebrity, renowned throughout Europe. Visitors of note came from everywhere to see him and to discuss his work with him. Voltaire returned to Paris on Feb. 10, 1778, to direct his play 'Irene'. His health suddenly failed, and he died on May 30.






Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived from 1712-78. The famous French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau gave better advice and followed it less than perhaps any other great man. Although he wrote glowingly about nature, he spent much time in crowded Paris. He praised married life and wrote wisely about the education of children, but he lived with his servant, marrying her only after 23 years, and gave up their babies. He taught hygiene, yet he lived in a stuffy garret. He preached virtue, but he was far from virtuous. Rousseau himself was unable to guide his behavior to follow his beliefs. Yet his writings on politics, literature, and education have had a profound influence on modern thought. Of French Huguenot descent, Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 28, 1712. His father was a watchmaker. Young Rousseau grew up undisciplined, and at about the age of 16 he became a vagabond. In Chambery, France, he met and lived with Madame de Warens, a woman who was to influence his intellectual evolution. For a while he roamed through Switzerland, Italy, and France, earning his way as secretary, tutor, and music teacher. When he went to Paris in 1741, he was impressed by the fact that society was artificial and unfair in its organization. The society that Rousseau viewed lived by rules made by the aristocracy and had little interest in the welfare of the common man.

This unknown wanderer upset that whole elaborate society. After years of thought Rousseau wrote a book on the origins of government, 'The Social Contract', stating that no laws are binding unless agreed upon by the people. This idea deeply affected French thinking, and it became one of the chief forces that brought on the French Revolution about 30 years later. Rousseau helped bring about another revolution in education. In his novel 'Emile' he assailed the way parents and teachers brought up and taught children. Rousseau urged that young people be given freedom to enjoy sunlight, exercise, and play. He recognized that there are definite periods of development in a child's life, and he argued that children's learning should be scheduled to coincide with them. A child allowed to grow up in this fashion will achieve the best possible development. Education should begin in the home. Parents should not preach to their children but should set a good example. Rousseau believed that children should make their own decisions. In literature, too, Rousseau inspired a profound change. He stirred writers to realize that the beauties of nature have a rightful place in literature. The Romantic movement in Germany, France, and England owes much to Rousseau's influence and example. He dared to write of his most intimate emotions. His autobiographical 'Confessions' is considered a masterpiece of self-revelation.

Rousseau was persecuted for his innovative ideas and fled France in 1762. For a time he lived in Switzerland and then with the historian David Hume in England. He later returned to France. He died in Ermenonville, near Paris, on July 2, 1778. Careful readers of Rousseau find many flaws in his logic, especially in his greatest book, 'The Social Contract'. Rousseau was broad-minded enough to realize that his was not the final word on government. Rousseau's chief works are 'The New Heloise', published in 1761; 'The Social Contract' (1762); and 'Emile' (1762). His 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality', published in 1755, was nearly as influential as 'The Social Contract'. The 'Confessions', written in his later years, was published in 1782.







The essayist and philosopher Denis Diderot was one of the originators and interpreters of the Age of Enlightenment. This 18th-century movement was based on the belief that right reason, or rationalism, could find true knowledge and lead mankind to progress and happiness. He was the chief editor of its leading testament, the 'Encyclopedie'.

Diderot was born in Langres, France, on Oct. 5, 1713. He studied in Paris from 1729 to 1732, showing an interest in a wide variety of subjects, including languages, theater, law, literature, philosophy, and mathematics. In his early adult life he turned away from Christianity and embraced rationalism.

In 1745 Diderot was hired by publisher Andre Le Breton to translate an English encyclopedia. When he and his co-editor, mathematician Jean d'Alembert, undertook the task, they created a virtually new work, the 'Encyclopedie'. Published in 28 volumes from 1751 to 1772, it was a literary and philosophic work that was to have profound social and intellectual effects. Its publication was troubled by strong reactions against it by both church and state.

The atheism and materialism apparent in some articles enraged many readers. Some of Diderot's writings foreshadowed the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. He also formulated the first modern notion of the cellular structure of matter. Besides his work on the 'Encyclopedie', Diderot also wrote novels, short stories, and plays in which he frequently criticized society and argued for political revolution. He died in Paris on July 30, 1784, only five years before the outbreak of the French Revolution.







John Locke was one of the pioneers in modern thinking was the English philosopher. He made great contributions in studies of politics, government, and psychology.

John Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, on Aug. 29, 1632. He was the son of a well-to-do Puritan lawyer who fought for Cromwell in the English Civil War. The father, also named John Locke, was a devout, even-tempered man.

The boy was educated at Westminster School and Oxford and later became a tutor at the university. His friends urged him to enter the Church of England, but he decided that he was not fitted for the calling. He had long been interested in meteorology and the experimental sciences, especially chemistry. He turned to medicine and became known as one of the most skilled practitioners of his day.

In 1667 Locke became confidential secretary and personal physician to Anthony Ashley Cooper, later lord chancellor and the first earl of Shaftesbury. Locke's association with Shaftesbury enabled him to meet many of the great men of England, but it also caused him a great deal of trouble. Shaftesbury was indicted for high treason. He was acquitted, but Locke was suspected of disloyalty. In 1683 he left England for Holland and returned only after the revolution of 1688.

Locke is remembered today largely as a political philosopher. He preached the doctrine that men naturally possess certain large rights, the chief being life, liberty, and property. Rulers, he said, derived their power only from the consent of the people. He thought that government should be like a contract between the rulers and his subjects: The people give up certain of their rights in return for just rule, and the ruler should hold his power only so long as he uses it justly. These ideas had a tremendous effect on all future political thinking. The American Declaration of Independence clearly reflects Locke's teachings. Locke was always very interested in psychology. About 1670, friends urged him to write a paper on the limitations of human judgment. He started to write a few paragraphs, but 20 years passed before he finished. The result was his great and famous 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'. In this work he stressed the theory that the human mind starts as a tabula rasa (smoothed tablet)--that is, a waxed tablet ready to be used for writing. The mind has no inborn ideas, as most men of the time believed. Throughout life it forms its ideas only from impressions (sense experiences) that are made upon its surface.

In discussing education Locke urged the view that character formation is far more important than information and that learning should be pleasant. During his later years he turned more and more to writing about religion.

The principal works by Locke are letters--'On Toleration' (1689, 1690, 1692); 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding' (1690); two treatises--'On Civil Government' (1690), and 'Some Thoughts Concerning Education' (1693); and 'The Reasonableness of Christianity' (1695). He died in Oates, Essex, on Oct. 28, 1704.






The publication in 1776 of his book 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' established Adam Smith as the single most influential figure in the development of modern economic theory. With exceptional clarity he described the workings of a market economy, the division of labor in production, the nature of wealth in relation to money, the inability of governments to manage economies, and the difference between productive and nonproductive labor.

Smith was probably born early in 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, since his baptismal date was June 5 of that year. In 1737 he entered the University of Glasgow and became a student of moral philosophy. Three years later he transferred to Balliol College, Oxford, and remained there until 1746. In 1748 he began delivering a series of public lectures in Edinburgh on wealth and its increase, or as he described it, "the progress of opulence." In 1751 Smith was appointed professor of logic at Glasgow, and the next year he became professor of moral philosophy. His subject matter included ethics, law, rhetoric, and political economy (now called economics). His first book, 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments', was published in 1759. After this book he began to turn his attention toward law and economics. This is evident from student notes taken at his lectures about 1763. In that year he left Glasgow to become tutor to the duke of Buccleuch, with whom he traveled for two years on the Continent. There he met some of the more prominent theorists in politics and economics, including Jacques Turgot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Francois Quesnay. Smith then returned home to England and spent most of the next ten years writing his book 'The Wealth of Nations'. In 1778, two years after its publication, he was appointed commissioner of customs and went to live in Edinburgh. He remained there until his death on July 17, 1790.

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