ABSTRACT
The Enlightenment was a period of European intellectual and cultural development that began in the late seventeenth century and lasted through the eighteenth century. The empirical approach to learning emphasizes sensory experience as a means to knowledge. During the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, intellectuals began to express skepticism of any "truths" that could not be demonstrated as valid. A good illustration of the difficulty in generalizing about Enlightenment thinking can be seen in comparing the contributions of two eighteenth century figures, the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Scotsman Adam Smith. Both Smith's view of human nature as essentially rational and his explanation of cause and effect on a society-wide level demonstrate important elements of the Enlightenment approach to understanding the world. Enlightenment thinking motivated people to come up with new and useful ideas in all sorts of fields, from politics to education to science to literature, helping to make European society more innovative and dynamic.
