Before Rosseau and Voltaire, France produced three influential thinkers that would also influence the enlightenment and the direction in which it carried itself. These three thinkers were Michel de Montaigne, Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal. Michel de Montaigne was a thinker who established and believed that everyone, no matter where they were from, had their own code of morality and ethics that they followed to perfection and made everyone different and unique in comparison to one another. Because of this, no one set of codes or values should be better than any other and no one should impose on any other persons set of codes or values. Rene Descartes introduced the phrase "i think, therefore i am". This was his way of showing us all that we had the ability, reasoning and logic within us to acknowledge our existence as well as that of god with some applied mathematics as well. Finally, Blaise de Pascal was more in tune with the emotions within someone and how natural and pure they were. He didnt believe one could apply mathematics, reason and logic to areas of faith and emotion as Descartes believed. Instead, he simply said "the heart has its reasons, which reason knows not".

-franchesko

information taken from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/examining-some-key-thinkers-of-the-enlightenment.html

Before the enlightenment, which many believe to has had its roots in the 18th century, came the renaissance. Approximately two centuries before the enlightenment, something of the same concept was occurring in Europe. Realistic thinking, changes in scientific thinking and philosophical thinking all made themselves present during the renaissance, with people like Nicholas Copernicus, who introduced the idea that the earth moved around the sun and not the other way around, which revolutionized the everyones view on astronomy. Several years later, Galileo, who we all associate with the telescope, confirmed that Copernicus had been right after performing several mathematical calculations and by using his trusty telescope. Granted, these discoveries caused tension within the church, but they also changed ways of thinking around the world; the groundwork for what was to become the enlightenment had been laid.

-Franchesko