page_title: 18th century
section_title: Philosophers, theologians
hierarchical_section_title: 18th century / Significant people / Philosophers, theologians
context_page_description: The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 to December 31, 1800. During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. The age saw violent slave trading and human trafficking on a global scale. The reactions against monarchical and aristocratic power helped fuel the revolutionary responses against it throughout the century.
  The period is also known as the "century of lights" or the "century of reason". In continental Europe, philosophers dreamed of a brighter age. For some, this dream turned into a reality with the French Revolution of 1789, though this was later compromised by the excesses of the Reign of Terror. At first, many monarchies of Europe embraced Enlightenment ideals, but in the wake of the French Revolution they feared loss of power and formed broad coalitions for counter-revolution. The Ottoman Empire experienced an unprecedented period of peace and economic expansion, taking part in no European wars from 1740 to 1768.
context_section_description: Arai Hakuseki, Japanese scholar, writer and politician
  Baal Shem Tov, Ukrainian rabbi
  Cesare Beccaria, Italian philosopher and politician
  Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher and reformer
  George Berkeley, Irish empiricist philosopher
  Edmund Burke, British statesman and philosopher
  Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French philosopher
  Marquis de Condorcet, French philosopher
  Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Erasmus Darwin, English philosopher, poet and scientist
  Denis Diderot, French writer and philosopher
  Jonathan Edwards, American theologian and philosopher
  William Godwin, English philosopher and novelist
  Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn, German writer, Jewish theologian, translator, and professor
  Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher, writer, and critic
  Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Baron d'Holbach, French-German philosopher and writer
  David Hume, Scottish philosopher
  Matthew Hutton, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Kamo no Mabuchi, Japanese philosopher
  Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
  William Law, English theologian
  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and writer
  Alphonsus Liguori, Italian bishop, founder of Redemptorists, Saint
  Joseph de Maistre, Italian philosopher and diplomat
  Moses Mendelssohn, German philosopher
  Charles de Secondat (Montesquieu), French thinker
  John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Motoori Norinaga, Japanese philosopher and scholar
  Thomas Paine, English philosopher
  Elihu Palmer, American deist
  Thomas Percy, English bishop and editor
  Joseph Perl, German writer, Jewish theologian, and educator
  John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French writer and philosopher
  Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Seraphim of Sarov, Russian theologian
  Sugita Genpaku, Japanese scholar and translator
  Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist, thinker and mystic
  Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury
  Christian Thomasius, German philosopher and jurist
  Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher
  Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, Arab Islamic theologian and founder of Wahhabism
  William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury
  John Wesley, English theologian, founder of Methodism
  Zeynalabdin Shirvani, also known as Tamkin, was an Azerbaijani geographer, philosopher and poet
  Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, German religious writer and bishop
caption: Denis Diderot
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