ABSTRACT
All these political transformations of the social order were preceded by and to a large extent inspired by the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century known as the Enlightenment. The leading figures of the Enlightenmentmen such as the French philosophes Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire; the English economist Adam Smith; and the German philosopher Kant-proposed a refashioning of society based on reason, progress, faith in human ingenuity, and an abiding belief in the capacity of all people for improvement. Inspired by the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and its inner logic and practice of close observation and experimentation, the philosophes rejected all truths based on tradition and religious authority, championing instead a world where individuals, exercising their natural right to liberty, created new economic, political, and social structures for the benefit of both individuals and the greater good. These ideas also gave rise to individualism, the self-conscious recognition that people have personal identities that, while shaped by the larger culture of which they are part, are nonetheless products of personal experience, of individual decisions and opportunities both taken and missed.
