clipped from: www.philosopher.org.uk The characteristics of the Enlightenment are a scepticism towards the doctrines of the church, individualism, a belief in science and the experimental method, the use of reason, that education could be a catalyst of social change and the demand for political representation. Its main social and political consequence was the French revolution.
The core period of the Enlightenment was second half of the eighteenth century. The thinkers associated with the Enlightenment include d'Holbach (1723-89) and the Encyclopedists in France, David Hume (1711-76) in Scotland and Kant in Germany. To understand the Enlightenment we have to look at what preceded it.