No brief summary can do [[justice]] to the [[diversity]] of enlightened thought in 18th-century Europe. Because it was a [[value]] [[system]] rather than a set of shared [[belief]]s, there are many contradictory trains to follow. In his famous essay "What is Enlightenment?" (1784), Immanuel Kant described it simply as freedom to use one's own [[intelligence]].[7] More broadly, the Enlightenment period is marked by increasing empiricism, scientific rigor, and reductionism, along with increasing questioning of religious orthodoxy. | No brief summary can do [[justice]] to the [[diversity]] of enlightened thought in 18th-century Europe. Because it was a [[value]] [[system]] rather than a set of shared [[belief]]s, there are many contradictory trains to follow. In his famous essay "What is Enlightenment?" (1784), Immanuel Kant described it simply as freedom to use one's own [[intelligence]].[7] More broadly, the Enlightenment period is marked by increasing empiricism, scientific rigor, and reductionism, along with increasing questioning of religious orthodoxy. |