Who were the leaders of the enlightenment in america?

Among the foremost representatives of the American Enlightenment were presidents of colleges, including Puritan religious leaders Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Clap, and Ezra Stiles, and Anglican moral philosophers Samuel Johnson and William Smith. read more

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, (Thomas Paine, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith) All of these men argued for self-determination and a "social contract" that would preserve the natural rights that every citizen/human is born with (Life, Liberty, Property/Pursuit of Happiness) read more

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith Michael Polanyi The Enlightenment was a period in which ideas of philosophy, art, science and politics, coalesced to sweep away the Medieval ideas that had held back radical thinking for hundreds of years. read more