Everything must be examined, everything must be reviewed, without exception or scrutiny. (Diderot )
It could be said that the century of lights is the period defined between the two European revolutions, the English one, of 1688 and the French one, in 1789. The moment is defined by the consciousness of a new time when reason and science enlighten humanity. The origin of the Illuminism can be located with certainty in England, then spread across the European territory thanks to the French.
They belong to an intellectual elite, thinkers and writers, master the art of rhetoric. There are those who know how to see a parallel between this period and that of the Greek sophists, or that of the Renaissance humanists. Some call themselves free thinkers and many belong to Freemasonry. They present a nonconformist attitude towards the present and attack equally any intellectual, social, political oppression as well as superstition or fanaticism. Dogmas must be eradicated because reason must find no more limits than its own. They believe that humanity will progress thanks to reason and its development. Although they are elitist, they believe that culture should reach everyone, so they are interested in pedagogy, in spreading new ideas clearly. Almost all of them are anticlerical, but atheists - only a few.
Philosophy during the illustrated period
Kant, I seek the balance between borrowings and rationalists