French philosophes--including Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, & Rousseau--advocate "rational thought, empirical observation, and sensibility to correct the errors of the present and to construct a better, more just, and more humane world operating in better harmony with the laws of nature" (Davis et al 13).

Leading "' a revolution in the minds of men to free them from prejudice'" (Diderot qtd. in Davis et al, 397), Diderot directed writing and publication of the multi-volume Encyclopédie, from 1751-1772, featuring "articles on science, mathematics, literature, art, technology, history, and society" that subject to the critical eye of Reason "all that could be explained and understood in and about the universe" (Davis et al. 378).  "All things must be examined without sparing anyone's sensibilities," Diderot declares (qtd. in Davis et al. 380). Encyclopédie articles embed attacks on legal, clerical, and social abuses in pre-revolutionary France, that would pave the way for the French Revolution.

Circa 1770, Diderot began writing the Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville as a review of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's travel accounts (Davis et al. 380).
In the Supplement, Diderot contrasts the "natural law" of sexual freedom followed by the Tahitians, to the artificial "civil and religious laws" of monogamy espoused by European religion and culture.  Diderot exposes European "hypocrisy, tyranny, and self-righteousness" that result from waging a tortuous and unwinnable "internal civil war" between powerful natural desires and artificial moral impositions and constraints" (Davis et al. 380, 381).

Influenced by Enlightenment philosophy, Jefferson "believed that people who had access to free education and had the support of democratic institutions could best govern themselves" (Davis 521).

In the "Declaration of Independence" (1776), Jefferson constructed a rational, logical three-part argument to support the American colonies' revolution to obtain independence from England, founded upon "self-evident truths about human equality and the human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that belong to individuals in "a state of nature" (Davis et al.  522). 

"Dare to know" (sapere aude > Horace)
Dare to reason independently & question authority -
of tradition, received knowledge, status quo 
(e.g. authority of Church, divine right of monarchs to rule, privilege of aristocracy)

"In the celebrated Age of Reason, with its emphasis upon liberty and independence, [Wollstonecraft] argued, women had been left out of the picture" (Davis et al. 525). 
Wollstonecraft applies Enlightenment and revolutionary arguments--originally intended to apply only to disenfranchised men--to criticize social and economic injustices to women.
Compares plight of women to that of Black African slaves

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) deplores the current inferior state of female education, which "prepares [females] only for superficial conversation, shallow thinking, and ornamental accomplishments" and ensures female inferiority as less than rational creatures (Davis et al. 525).  Instead, Wollstonecraft demands recognition of women's "natural powers of reason" and the development of these powers through reformed female education that improves "our minds" and prepares "our affections for a more exalted state"
(Davis et al. 525). 

Questioned the power of Reason to provide the most significant forms of knowledge.

Self-proclaimed “Man of Feeling” attuned to heart and emotion as innate guides to goodness
Literature of "Sensibility"

Confessions (1781-1788): Claims Uniqueness;
Know [define, invent] thyself;
childhood innocence, adolescent rebellion
against corruption of adult civilization

Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782): tortured alienation in sublime Nature   (Davis et al. 14)

Folklore & Popular Arts of “uncultivated” “spontaneous” volk
[Grimms’ fairy tales, folk song & ballad]

Shakespeare: myth of popular, untutored, rule-breaking, original “genius”

Medievalism & Gothic Romance: Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1765)