The Age of Enlightenment was the intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries. The Enlightenment featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government and the formal separation of church and state.
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, known as d'Holbach, was a Franco-German philosopher, encyclopedist and writer, who was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon. He helped in the dissemination of "Protestant and especially German thought", particularly in the field of the sciences, but was best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) and The Universal Morality (1776).
Johann Georg Hamann was a German Lutheran philosopher from Königsberg known as "the Wizard of the North" who was one of the leading figures of post-Kantian philosophy. His work was used by his student J. G. Herder as the main support of the Sturm und Drang movement, and is associated with the Counter-Enlightenment and Romanticism.
Summis desiderantes affectibus, sometimes abbreviated to Summis desiderantes, was a papal bull regarding witchcraft issued by Pope Innocent VIII on 5 December 1484.
Early modern philosophy The early modern era of philosophy was a progressive movement of Western thought, exploring through theories and discourse such topics as mind and matter, is a period in the history of philosophy that overlaps with the beginning of the period known as modern philosophy. It succeeded in the medieval era of philosophy. Early modern philosophy is usually thought to have occurred between the 16th and 18th centuries, though some philosophers and historians may put this period slightly earlier. During this time, influential philosophers included Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant, all of whom contributed to the current understanding of philosophy.
Owen Davies is a British historian who specialises in the history of magic, witchcraft, ghosts, and popular medicine. He is currently Professor in History at the University of Hertfordshire and has been described as Britain's "foremost academic expert on the history of magic".
A speech code is any rule or regulation that limits, restricts, or bans speech beyond the strict legal limitations upon freedom of speech or press found in the legal definitions of harassment, slander, libel, and fighting words. Such codes are common in the workplace, in universities, and in private organizations. The term may be applied to regulations that do not explicitly prohibit particular words or sentences. Speech codes are often applied for the purpose of suppressing hate speech or forms of social discourse thought to be disagreeable to the implementers.
The Treatise of the Three Impostors was a long-rumored book denying all three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, with the "impostors" of the title being Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad. Hearsay concerning such a book surfaces by the 13th century and circulates through the 17th century. Authorship of the hoax book was variously ascribed to Jewish, Muslim, and Christian writers. Fabrications of the text eventually begin clandestine circulation, with a notable French underground edition Traité sur les trois imposteurs first appearing in 1719.
The Formicarius, written 1436–1438 by Johannes Nider during the Council of Florence and first printed in 1475, is the second book ever printed to discuss witchcraft. Nider dealt specifically with witchcraft in the fifth section of the book. Unlike his successors, he did not emphasize the idea of the Witches' Sabbath and was skeptical of the claim that witches could fly by night. With over 25 manuscript copies from fifteenth and early sixteenth century editions from the 1470s to 1692, the Formicarius is an important work for the study of the origins of the witch trials in Early Modern Europe, as it sheds light on their earliest phase during the first half of the 15th century.
Jonathan Irvine Israel is a British historian specialising in Dutch history, the Age of Enlightenment, Spinoza's Philosophy and European Jews. Israel was appointed as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, in January 2001 and retired in July 2016. He was previously Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at the University College London.
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition is a 1964 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book delves into the history of Hermeticism and its influence upon Renaissance philosophy and Giordano Bruno.
Harvey Allen Silverglate is an American attorney, journalist, writer, and the co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
The Modern Greek Enlightenment was the Greek expression of the Age of Enlightenment. Greek Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in the Greek community. Most of the Greek people were scattered all over the Ottoman Empire. Some lived on the Ionian Islands, Venice, and other parts of Italy. One of the early proponents of Greek Independence was Leonardos Philaras ironically the Modern Greek enlightenment began shortly after his death. There were constant uprisings throughout the Ottoman Empire countless Greeks lived in Venice and fought for the Venetian Empire against the Ottomans. Some Greek painters living in Venice who fought in the war included: Victor (painter), Philotheos Skoufos, and Panagiotis Doxaras. Greek painting dramatically shifted during the Modern Greek Enlightenment. The traditional Byzantine Venetian style that was prevalent in the Cretan School faded in the Heptanese School. Painters such as Doxaras drastically shifted the traditional style. He integrated oil painting, replacing the egg tempera technique.
Agnostic atheism or atheistic agnosticism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a divine entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.
Jacques-André Naigeon was a French artist, atheist–materialist philosopher, editor and man of letters best known for his contributions to the Encyclopédie and for reworking Baron d'Holbach's and Diderot's manuscripts.
Atheism, as defined by the entry in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, is "the opinion of those who deny the existence of a God in the world. The simple ignorance of God doesn't constitute atheism. To be charged with the odious title of atheism one must have the notion of God and reject it." In the period of the Enlightenment, avowed and open atheism was made possible by the advance of religious toleration, but was also far from encouraged.
Nicholas Jacquier was a French Dominican and Inquisitor. He became known as demonologist and proponent of witch-hunting.
Edward McCarthy Miller, Jr. is an American economist and writer. His writings on race and intelligence have sparked debates on academic freedom. He has written extensively for racialist publications.
Franklin T. Lambert is a professor of history at Purdue University. He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 1990 and has special interests in American Colonial and Revolutionary Era history. Before earning his PhD he was also a punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1965 to 1966.
