During this enlightenment period, the most commonly heard French philosophers were John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, Baron Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, and others. ... A few American leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison also greatly inspired people's thinking as well as making it known that their beliefs differentiated from the European philosopher's beliefs. ... The American enlightenment thinkers applied scientific reasoning to politics, religion, science, etc. ... The Enlightenment was a crucial part in forming today'...

• Word Count: 769
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Denis Diderot was a French encyclopedist and philosopher, who also composed plays, novels, essays, and art. ... It displays the release of traditional religion and the movement to worldly learning and the rise of protests against the controlled way of expressing one's self. ... The writers of the Enlightenment or, better put, die Aufklarung conveyed the ideas of freedom, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from oppression, and the intellectual freedom that every man has a right to whether it be oppressed by political or religious issues which were, at the time, basic...

• Word Count: 804
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The ideas put into romanticism came from two well-known people, a French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and a Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. ... The Enlightenment can be defined as the period of time when reason and science became the driving forces of life. ... Religion also evolved, and Deism, the belief that the universe is run by an intelligent and benevolent God, came into play. ... The first hint of the American Enlightenment can best be exemplified by John Wise and Jonathan Edwards and their attempts to reform the Church. ... Another vital man of the Enlightenment was Benjamin Franklin....

• Word Count: 750
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate