Edmund Burke

Born, raised, and educated in Ireland, Edmund Burke was one of the most well-known British statesmen and political philosophers of the eighteenth century. After gaining early recognition for his literary skills, Burke entered Parliament in 1766 and remained there for the next two decades.

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Joseph Addison

In early eighteenth-century English coffeehouse culture, no patron was as distinguished a conversationalist or as delightful an essayist as the Oxford-educated Joseph Addison.

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Lyman Beecher

In the early 1800s, Presbyterian divine Lyman Beecher faced a culture in crisis: Alcoholism, poverty, illiteracy, and other social ills were on the rise, and church attendance was in decline. Furthermore, the policy of state-funded, state-established churches was fading.

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Adam Smith

Adam Smith is the most well-known expositor of capitalism of all time. He was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, a small coastal town near Edinburgh. Smith was educated at Glasgow University and Ballioll College in Oxford, England. Later he lectured at Edinburgh and became a professor at Glasgow University.

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John Witherspoon

John Witherspoon was born in 1723 to a Scottish family that strongly believed in the virtues fostered by religion. Witherspoon began attending the University of Edinburgh at age fourteen. After completion of his studies in 1743, Witherspoon was ordained and started his ministry at Beith, Scotland.

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Antonio Rosmini-Serbati

1997 was the bicentennial of the birth of the Italian priest, theologian, political reformer, and philosopher, Antonio Rosmini. During a time marked by ferment against the established order, Rosmini dedicated his life to reconciling Roman Catholic teaching with modern philosophical and political thought.

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Luis de Molina

Born in Spain in 1535, Luis de Molina was one of the most accomplished, learned figures in the sixteenth-century revival of Scholasticism on the Iberian peninsula. A member of the Jesuit Order, Molina spent twenty-nine years of his life in Portugal–first as a student, then as a professor of theology, law, and philosophy.

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William Perkins

William Perkins, Cambridge scholar and preacher, was one of the most popular theologians of the Elizabethan age, eventually outselling even John Calvin.

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John Milton

John Milton is generally regarded, next to William Shakespeare, as the greatest English poet, and his magnificent Paradise Lost is considered one of the finest epic poems in the English language. Educated at Saint Paul's School in London and Christ's College in Cambridge, Milton was versed in Latin, Greek, French, and Italian.

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Richard M. Weaver

Richard M. Weaver lived a life of hard work, self-sacrifice, and quiet virtue. Although he taught English at the University of Chicago for the bulk of his career, he remained deeply attached to the traditions of his upbringing in North Carolina.

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Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) was the younger brother of the famous Karl Polanyi, one of the staunchest critics historically of Western society and capitalist values. Trained as a physician, Polanyi undertook a career as a chemist.

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Girolamo Zanchi

On February 2, 1516, Girolamo Zanchi was born in the northern Italian city of Alazano. Orphaned at age fourteen, Zanchi joined the local monastery of the Augustinian Order of Regular Canons.

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