Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on the passage:
The term 'enlightenment' describes a cultural milieu and intellectual movement that began in Western Europe in the seventeenth century and reached its peak in the eighteenth. Its main characteristic was the belief that human reason, universal and consistent, is adequate to solve basic issues and to set fundamental standards of living. For some Enlightenment thinkers, the model of reason was the inductive method of science, which infers universal laws from particular empirical observations. For others, particularly Descartes and his followers, reason was modeled on geometry, involving the deduction of specific truths from clear and distinct universal ideas known intuitively by the 'light of reason.' Many Enlightenment thinkers employed both
Which of the following statements best shows the different ways Enlightenment thinkers approached their ideas?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The passage explicitly describes two different methodological approaches to 'reason' used during the Enlightenment:
Inductive Method: It states that for some, the model was the 'inductive method of science, which infers universal laws from particular empirical observations.'
Deductive Method: It mentions that for others (like Descartes), reason was 'modeled on geometry, involving the deduction of specific truths from clear and distinct universal ideas.'