During what time in history did philosophers go back and forth in major discourse over issues dealing with how to establish a society with safe guards to provide for freedom for individuals?

That time is the Enlightenment, an era that comprises the 17th and the 18th century. European thinkers were concerned abouth human freedom and many aspects related to it. Creating political institutions to make men free, to guarantee equal rights, and developing philosophical basis for human liberty were the issues they dealt with mostly.