First in ideas: after the terrible wars of religion (between Catholics and Protestants) that devastated all nations in the previous two centuries, tolerance (respecting the beliefs of others) and reason (arguing logically, clearly, with evidence and, if necessary, with scientific experiments) gave way to a third agreement: if all are Christians, all are children of God, although this had not been applied in interreligious wars), and if they are equal, they must be treated equally. A group of French thinkers threw themselves into a gigantic undertaking: to summarize all human knowledge in a collection of books they called the Encyclopédie. Thinkers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, defended these ideas in the Encyclopédie and other books. The kings, like that of Spain, Charles IV (1748-1819), reinforced despotism and abandoned any openness based on the Enlightenment.
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Denis Diderot
Works: Encyclopedia
Central idea: Participated in the the elaboration of the book that compiled all the knowledge of the time
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