Important+Philosophers

There were many influencial philosophers in the Enlightenment era aka The Age of Reason. These free thinking minds helped create the encyclopedia, create a declaration of independence, and helped out the evolution of linguistics. (The science of languages, or of the origin, signification, and application of words; glossology.)

Jean le Rond d'Alembert (November 16, 1717 – October 29, 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Diderot of the Encyclopédie, the original French encyclopedia. D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him.

James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (October 25, 1714 - May 26, 1799) was a Scottish judge, scholar of language evolution and philosopher. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics (Hobbs,1992). In 1767 he became a judge in the Court of Session, effectively the supreme court of Scotland. Thence Burnett adopted a title based on his father's estate, Monboddo House. Monboddo was one of a number of scholars involved at the time in development of early concepts of evolution, and some credit him with anticipating in principle the idea of natural selection that was developed into a scientific theory by Charles Darwin.

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 N.S. – July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and an influential founder of the United States. With James Madison he founded the Democratic-Republican Party in 1792. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Embargo Act of 1807, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806).

Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an English intellectual, scholar, revolutionary, deist and political and religious thinker, who spent much of his time in America and France. A radical pamphleteer, Paine anticipated and helped foment the American Revolution through his powerful writings, most notably Common Sense. Paine was also noteworthy for his support of deism, taking its form in his treatise on religion The Age of Reason, as well as for his eye-witness accounts of both the French and American Revolutions.

There were many other important philosophers during this time period:

Thomas Abbt Pierre Bayle James Burnett Lord Monboddo Edmund Burke Denis Diderot Ignacy Krasicki Benjamin Franklin Edward Gibbon David Hume Adam Weishaupt Hugo Kołłątaj Gotthold Ephraim Lessing John Locke Montesquieu Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos