In 1740 Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great, came to power in the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

. Under the rule of the philosophically-oriented Frederick II, Berlin gave birth to an intellectual renaissance in which it became one of the most important centers of the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

in Europe. The city was an important printing press location, as well as the new home of many drama groups. Later, it hosted a National Theater, the Academy of the Arts and the Academy of Sciences. Central to the Berlin Enlightenment was a learned society of friends known as the ''Aufklärer'' (en-lighteners), including the publisher and bookseller Friedrich Nicolai, the poet and philosopher Karl Wilhelm Ramler, the philosopher

Johann Georg Sulzer Johann Georg Sulzer (; 16 October 1720 in Winterthur – 27 February 1779 in Berlin) was a Swiss professor of Mathematics, who later on moved on to the field of electricity. He was a Wolffian philosopher and director of the philosophical section ...

Thomas Abbt Thomas Abbt (; 25 November 1738 – 3 November 1766) was a German mathematician and writer. Education Born in Ulm as the son of a wig-maker, Abbt visited a secondary school in Ulm, then moved in 1756 to study theology, philosophy and mathemati ...

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...

, and

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'J ...

. They pursued literary and literary interests, often linked with the goal of civil

emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure Economic, social and cultural rights, economic and social rights, civil and political rights, po ...

; at the same time, they were loyal and patriotic to the State of Prussia. The union of the civil enlightenment and the state of Prussia and its King bespoke their underlying national goals, and the advancement of German language and literature. This was also hindered by Frederick II's preference for the French language.

People

* Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725–1798) *

(1720–1779) *

(1738–1766) * Hartwig Wessely (1725–1805) *

Salomon Maimon Salomon Maimon (; ; ; ‎ ''Shlomo ben Yehoshua Maimon''; 1753 – 22 November 1800) was a philosopher born of Lithuanian Jewish parentage in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, present-day Belarus. His work was written in German and in Hebrew. Bi ...

(1753–1800) * Johann Jakob Engel (1741–1802) *

Ernst Ferdinand Klein Ernst Ferdinand Klein (3 September 1744 in Wrocław, Breslau – 18 March 1810 in Berlin) was a German jurist and prominent representative of the Berlin Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. Career Klein studied law at University of Halle-Wittenber ...

(1743–1810) * Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (1741–1796) *

Julien Offray de La Mettrie Julien Offray de La Mettrie (; November 23, 1709 – November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his 1747 work '' L'homme machine'' ('' ...

(1709–1751) *

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

(1694–1778) *

Karl Philipp Moritz Karl Philipp Moritz (Hameln, 15 September 1756 – Berlin, 26 June 1793) was a German author, editor and essayist of the ''Sturm und Drang'', late Enlightenment, and classicist periods, influencing early German Romanticism as well. He led a life ...

(1756–1793) * Philipp Buttmann (1764–1829) *

Christoph Friedrich Nicolai Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (18 March 1733 – 11 January 1811) was a German writer, bookseller, critic, and regional historian, who authored satirical novels and travelogues. Life Nicolai was born in Berlin, where his father, (d. 175 ...

(1733-1811) * Johann Erich Biester (1749-1816) * Friedrich Gedike (1754-1803)

References

*di Giovanni, George,
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) *Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, George Di Giovanni (1994).
The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel "Allwill"
'. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, . {{ISBN, 0-7735-1018-4. Enlightenment philosophy

People

See also

References