School · 39 thinkers
Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
39 thinkers of Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism on the Agora star map, from Francis Bacon to Harald Høffding, in chronological order.
- 1561–1626Francis Bacon
Knowledge is power: science should start from careful observation and build up general laws, clearing away the prejudices that cloud the mind.
- 1588–1679Thomas Hobbes
Without a state, life would be a war of all against all, so people agree to submit to a powerful ruler who keeps the peace.
- 1592–1655Pierre Gassendi
Everything we know begins with the senses, and we know how things appear, not what they are in themselves; Epicurus’ atoms explain nature best, provided God creates and governs them.
- 1632–1704John Locke
For Locke, all our ideas come from experience, and government exists only to protect people’s natural rights to life, liberty and property.
- 1647–1706Pierre Bayle
No religious or philosophical dogma can be proven, so everyone, even an atheist, deserves tolerance and the freedom to follow their conscience.
- 1659–1708Damaris Masham
Loving the people and things around us is the path to loving God, religion must be guided by reason, and women need real education.
- 1666–1731Mary Astell
If all men are born free, why are all women born slaves? Women deserve education and should think twice before marrying.
- 1668–1744Giambattista Vico
We can truly understand only what we ourselves have made – so human history and culture, not nature, is what we can really know.
- 1670–1733Bernard Mandeville
Commercial societies thrive on the passions moralists condemn – pride, vanity, envy, love of luxury; virtue is largely an invention of clever politicians who flatter pride to tame self-love, and a nation that became truly honest and frugal would lose its trade and power.
- 1670–1722John Toland
Nothing contrary to reason or above it belongs to true religion; the mysteries of Christianity were added by priests for the sake of power; matter is active in itself, since motion is essential to it, and the universe as a whole may be called God.
- 1671–1713Shaftesbury
People have a natural moral sense that responds to goodness as the eye responds to beauty – virtue and beauty are close relatives.
- 1685–1753George Berkeley
There is no material world outside minds; things exist only as they are perceived, and God perceives everything always.
- 1689–1755Montesquieu
Freedom survives only when power is divided – lawmaking, government and courts must be separate so they can check one another.
- 1694–1746Francis Hutcheson
A moral sense lets us approve of benevolence directly, without regard to our own interest, just as an inner sense perceives beauty as unity amidst variety; virtue cannot be reduced to self-love, and the best action procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.
- 1694–1778Voltaire
For Voltaire, fanaticism and superstition must be fought with reason and tolerance – and no one should pretend this is the best of all possible worlds.
- 1706–1749Émilie du Châtelet
Physics needs both Newton’s precise laws and Leibniz’s deeper principles – and hypotheses are legitimate tools of science, not something to avoid.
- 1710–1796Thomas Reid
Some basic beliefs, like that the outside world exists, are simply common sense – we cannot prove them, but we cannot live without them.
- 1711–1776David Hume
For Hume, we never see one thing cause another, only one following another; the self is just a bundle of experiences; and reason serves our feelings.
- 1712–1778Jean-Jacques Rousseau
People are naturally good but society corrupts them, and a just state follows the general will – what the citizens will together for the common good, not the sum of their private wishes.
- 1713–1784Denis Diderot
All knowledge, including the knowledge of craftspeople, should be collected and open to everyone – and matter itself, suitably organised, can feel and think.
- 1723–1816Adam Ferguson
Humans have always lived in groups, so there never was a state of nature; institutions result from human action, not from human design, and conflict binds societies as much as cooperation does; yet commerce and the division of labour can corrode civic virtue.
- 1723–1790Adam Smith
Morality grows from our ability to feel with others, and in a free market people pursuing their own interests often promote the good of society without intending it.
- 1729–1797Edmund Burke
For Burke, society is a partnership of the living, the dead and the unborn; institutions grown over generations hold more wisdom than one person’s reason, so a state should reform in order to preserve, not tear down in the name of abstract rights.
- 1729–1786Moses Mendelssohn
Judaism reveals laws, not doctrines – its truths are those of reason, open to all; the state has no business in matters of belief, and everyone must be free to follow their conscience.
- 1731–1791Catharine Macaulay
Macaulay held that moral truths are eternal and knowable by reason, so political rights rest on universal principles, not on custom or inherited institutions; the people may resist misrule, and since differences of character between the sexes come from education, girls and boys should be educated alike.
- 1735–1801John Millar
Millar saw a natural progress from rude to civilised manners: as societies move from hunting through herding and farming to commerce, property reshapes relations of authority – husbands over wives, fathers over children, masters over servants – and commerce tends to free women and labourers.
- 1738–1794Cesare Beccaria
Punishment is justified only by the need to protect society: it must be certain, prompt and proportionate to the harm done, never crueller than necessary, and torture and the death penalty serve neither justice nor deterrence.
- c. 1739–1811Dositej Obradović
Reason and virtue can be learned, and they make people happy; so books must be written in the language the people speak, and no church rule or custom should stand in the way of learning.
- 1748–1832Jeremy Bentham
The right action is the one that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number – and pleasure and pain can be measured and compared.
- 1748–1793Olympe de Gouges
The rights of man apply to women too: if a woman can be sent to the scaffold, she must also be allowed to speak in parliament.
- 1759–1797Mary Wollstonecraft
Women seem less rational only because they are denied education; give them the same schooling and rights as men.
- 1764–1822Sophie de Grouchy
Morality grows from our natural ability to feel with others, but it only ripens into justice under equality and fair laws.
- 1777–1847Mary Shepherd
Reason, not habit, tells us that nothing can begin to exist without a cause – and we really do know an outside world exists.
- 1805–1872Giuseppe Mazzini
A doctrine of rights alone breeds selfishness; each person owes duties to humanity, country and family, and each nation has a mission within humanity that it can fulfil only as a free, united republic among free peoples.
- 1805–1859Alexis de Tocqueville
For Tocqueville, democracy makes people equal, but equality can endanger freedom: without local self-government and free associations, the majority becomes a tyrant and the state a gentle guardian that keeps citizens in childhood.
- 1806–1873John Stuart Mill
For Mill, people should be free to do anything that does not harm others – and the best actions increase happiness, with higher pleasures counting more.
- 1807–1858Harriet Taylor Mill
Women must have the vote, education and access to every profession, because without economic independence equality is only a word.
- 1838–1900Henry Sidgwick
Seen from the point of view of the universe, everyone’s happiness counts equally – but reason cannot prove that self-interest should give way to it.
- 1843–1931Harald Høffding
The mind should be studied through experience, as a unity of knowing, feeling and willing; the measure of morality is the welfare of all; and religion, at its core, is the faith that what has value is not lost in the course of the world.