Enlightenment

This Day in Philosophy — 29 August: the birth of John Locke

John Locke was born at Wrington on 29 August 1632. A theory of knowledge that made the mind a blank sheet, a political philosophy that tied property to labour and a defence of toleration place him among the founding writers of the modern world.

This Day in Philosophy — 25 August: Hume and Nietzsche, on the same date

David Hume died in Edinburgh on 25 August 1776; Friedrich Nietzsche died in Weimar on 25 August 1900. A hundred and twenty-four years separate them, yet both shook reason's claim to ground itself, and both did it from the same place.

Friedrich Nietzsche

This Day in Philosophy — 22 August: the Haitian uprising and the first Geneva Convention

The uprising that began at Saint-Domingue on 22 August 1791 became the hardest test the universality of human rights has faced. On the same day in 1864 the first Geneva Convention was signed, committing to paper the idea that even war has limits.

This Day in Philosophy — 17 August: the death of Frederick the Great

Frederick II of Prussia died at Sanssouci on 17 August 1786. Kant's essay 'What Is Enlightenment?' was written under his rule and named him directly, and the eighteenth century's most contested political concept took shape around him.