Philosophy

1632-1704 Locke, John English philosopher whose works lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism. He was an inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United States.

1642-1726 Newton, Isaac English physicist and mathematician, who was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. In optics, his investigations of light laid the foundation for modern physical optics. In mechanics, his three laws of motion resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he (with Leibniz)

1646-1716 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus.

1685-1753 Berkeley, George Anglo-Irish Anglican bishop, philosopher, and scientist best known for his empiricist and idealist philosophy, which holds that reality consists only of minds and their ideas; everything save the spiritual exists only insofar as it is perceived by the senses.

1694-1778 Voltaire Pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet, one of the greatest of all French writers, he continues to be held in worldwide repute as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. His critical capacity, wit, and satire vigorously propagated an ideal of progress to which people of many nations have remained responsive. His works and

1710-1796 Reid, Thomas Scottish philosopher who rejected the skeptical Empiricism of David Hume in favor of a “philosophy of common sense,” later espoused by the Scottish School.

1711-1776 Hume, David Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. For many philosophers and historians his importance lies in the fact that Immanuel Kant conceived his critical philosophy in direct reaction to Hume. Hume was one of the influences that led Auguste Comte, the 19th-century French mathematician and

1712-1778 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation.

1724-1804 Kant, Immanuel German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the various schools of Kantianism and idealism. The Kantian movement comprises a loose assemblage of rather diverse philosophies that share Kant’s concern with exploring the nature, and especially the limits, of human knowledge in

1729-1797 Burke, Edmund British statesman, parliamentary orator, and political thinker prominent in public life from 1765 to about 1795 and important in the history of political theory. He championed conservatism in opposition to Jacobinism in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).