Editing Age of Enlightenment (section)

==Influential intellectuals==
{{Main list|List of intellectuals of the Enlightenment}}

The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the [[Scientific Revolution]].<ref>I. Bernard Cohen, "Scientific Revolution and Creativity in the Enlightenment." ''Eighteenth-Century Life'' 7.2 (1982): 41–54.</ref> Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included [[Francis Bacon]], [[Pierre Gassendi]], [[René Descartes]], [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[Baruch Spinoza]], [[John Locke]], [[Pierre Bayle]], and [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]].<ref>Israel, Jonathan I. ''Democratic Enlightenment.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011,9</ref><ref>Sootin, Harry. ''Isaac Newton.'' New York: Messner (1955)</ref> Some of the figures of the Enlightenment included [[Cesare Beccaria]], [[George Berkeley]], [[Denis Diderot]], [[David Hume]], [[Immanuel Kant]], [[Lord Monboddo]], [[Montesquieu]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], [[Adam Smith]], [[Hugo Grotius]], and [[Voltaire]].<ref name="Black">Jeremy Black, "Ancien Regime and Enlightenment. Some Recent Writing on Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Europe," ''European History Quarterly'' 22.2 (1992): 247–55.</ref>

One of the most influential Enlightenment publications was the ''{{lang|fr|[[Encyclopédie]]}}'' (''Encyclopedia''). Published between 1751 and 1772 in 35 volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]], and a team of 150 others. The ''Encyclopédie'' helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond.<ref>Robert Darnton, ''The Business of Enlightenment: a publishing history of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800'' (2009).</ref> Other publications of the Enlightenment included Berkeley's ''[[A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge]]'' (1710), Voltaire's ''[[Letters on the English]]'' (1733) and ''[[Philosophical Dictionary]]'' (1764); Hume's ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'' (1740); Montesquieu's ''[[The Spirit of Law|The Spirit of the Laws]]'' (1748); Rousseau's ''[[Discourse on Inequality]]'' (1754) and ''[[The Social Contract]]'' (1762); Cesare Beccaria's ''[[On Crimes and Punishments]]'' (1764); Adam Smith's ''[[The Theory of Moral Sentiments]]'' (1759) and ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' (1776); and Kant's ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' (1781).{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}