| Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) | Early Enlightenment thinker excommunicated from the Jewish religion for his concept of a deterministic universe |
| John Locke (1632–1704) | Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) |
| Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) | German philosopher and mathematician known for his optimistic view of the universe |
| Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) | Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) |
| Montesquieu (1689–1755) | The Persian Letters (1721); The Spirit of Laws (1748) |
| Voltaire (1694–1778) | Renowned French philosophe and author of more than seventy works |
| David Hume (1711–1776) | Central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment; Of Natural Characters (1748) |
| Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) | The Social Contract (1762) |
| Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783) | Editors of Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts (1751–1772) |
| Adam Smith (1723–1790) | The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759); An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) |
| Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) | What Is Enlightenment? (1784); On the Different Races of Man (1775) |
| Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) | Major philosopher of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment |
| Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) | On Crimes and Punishments (1764) |