1. The question of enlightenment; 2. Europe in the 1680s 3. Scientific inquiry, religious controversy, and political dissent; 4. Voltaire and the Campaign against fanaticism; 5. The emergence of the public Sphere I; 6. The emergence of the public Sphere II; 7. The emergence of the public Sphere III; 8. Diderot and the encyclopédie; 9. Dreaming philosophers and crazy musicians;10. New worlds, strange peoples, and peculiar customs; 11. The Scottish englightenmnet and the origins of social theory; 12. En

Eighteenth-century Europe saw a flowering of ideas that shook the social and political order of the day. Voltaire, Locke, Diderot, and Kant and other great thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, as this period would come to be known, sought to rid society of the shackles of superstition and ignorance by promoting such then-radical ideas as the inalienable rights of the individual, religious toleration, and the power of reason and science to better mankind. Discussed in the coffee houses, salons, academies, and secret societies of Europe and Britain, Enlightenment ideals influenced the architects of the French Revolution and the founding fathers of the United States, and would go on to become the foundation of modern political, economic, and social theory. In this fascinating course, Professor James Schmidt explores the great thinkers and ideas -- as well as the controversies -- of this intellectually rich period in history.