thomas paine
born: 1737
died: 1809 |
works:
rights of man(1792) |
relationships:
friends: benjamin franklin george washington thomas jefferson mary wollstonecraft william godwin richard price |
influences: hugo grotius thomas hobbes samuel von pufendorf john locke adam smith james madison jean-jacques rousseau influential on: karl marx |
opponents: edmund burke jeremy bentham karl marx thomas malthus enemies: george III maximilien de robespierre |
sources:
1) rights of man, gregory claeys, hackett, 1992 |
notes:
- born in england, went to america to work with benjamin franklin out of scientific interest - common sense was important in the lead-up to the american revolution - rights of man was written as a pro-revolutionary rebuttal to edmund burke. - he was charged with libel against the king in order to suppress rights of man (which in terms of sales was, until it was banned, bigger than jesus), which forced him to flee to revolutionary france. - the government then carried out a "red scare" campaign against paine by spreading propaganda that rights of man rejected the notion of private property. - was elected to the convention and helped write the french constitution. - age of reason argued against the christian doctrine of revelation from a deist perspective. - he was imprisoned by robespierre and nearly executed by the jacobins. - left france for america after giving up on the french revolution. - his deist attitudes, however, made him unpopular in america |