The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement taking place in Europe from the late 17th century to the early 19th century. The Enlightenment, which valued knowledge gained through rationalism and empiricism, was concerned with a range of social ideas and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state.
This list of intellectuals, sorted alphabetically by surname, includes figures largely from Western Europe and British North America. Overwhelmingly these intellectuals were male, but the emergence of women philosophers who made contributions is notable.