Foremost among eighteenth-century European thinkers are the French philosophers Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot who have left indelible marks on the pattern of modern intellectual history. Their crowning collaborative achievement was the Encyclopedie, a vast work which influenced generations of educated Europeans. Vyverberg's work reassesses several ideas long considered to be the central tenets of Enlightenment philosophy and challenges the prevailing view of the Enlightenment's supposedly rigid conception of human nature.

Foremost among eighteenth-century European thinkers are the French philosophers Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot who have left indelible marks on the pattern of modern intellectual history. Their crowning collaborative achievement was the Encyclopedie, a vast work which influenced generations of educated Europeans. Vyverberg's work reassesses several ideas long considered to be the central tenets of Enlightenment philosophy and challenges the prevailing view of the Enlightenment's supposedly rigid conception of human nature.