"The aim of this new text book is to situate Enlightenment ideas in context, to show the concerns which gave rise to them and to point out their consequences - which were far-reaching and tied to practical concerns. After two chapters which give a historical account of the period the focus turns to the main figures - Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau and Kant - along with considerations of the rise of deism and the shift from scepticism to atheism. There is also an account of the impact that science began to have on religion."--BOOK JACKET.