The aim of this dissertation is to reconsider certain aspects of the development of modern thought by bringing a more wide-ranging perspective to that historical phenomenon. Drawing on a set of analyses from political philosophy that recognize the legitimacy of the conceptual emergence of modernity, as well as from recent historiographic work on the radical enlightenment, it seeks to examine the development of modern thought in a more complex fashion in order to identify the principal theoretical disputes and divergent social and political programs claimed during the period in question, most notably those related to notions of equality, liberty and rights. The objective of the dissertation is thus to offer a deeper consideration of the period, of its conflictive dimension and its multiple temporalities, with the ultimate purpose of theoretically exploring and asserting a set of radical definitions and practices inherited from modernity that remain relevant for conceiving of rights.