Part 1. Introduction, intellectual history and conceptual change -- The dawn of the 17th century, Aristotelian scholasticism -- The new vision of Francis Bacon -- The new astronomy and cosmology -- Descartes's dream of perfect knowledge -- The specter of Thomas Hobbes -- Skepticism and Jansenism; Blaise Pascal -- Newton's discovery -- The Newtonian revolution -- John Locke, the revolution in knowledge -- The Lockean moment -- Skepticism and Calvanism, Pierre Bayle --
Part 2. The moderns, the generation of 1680-1715 -- Introduction to Deism -- The conflict between Deism and Christianity -- Montesquieu and the problem of relativism -- Voltaire, bringing England to France -- Bishop Joseph Butler and God's providence -- The skeptical challenge to optimism, David Hume -- The assault upon philosophical optimism, Voltaire -- The Philosophes, the triumph of the French Enlightenment -- Beccaria and enlightened reform -- Rousseau's dissent --Materialism and Naturalism, the boundaries of the Enlightenment.
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