This society has often been regardedas the first modern scientific institution. Through a collective social enterprise, extending over many generationsand paced by the march of science and technology, the human specieswould fulfil its destiny by gaining complete control over the forces of thenatural world, appropriating to the full its resources for the satisfactionof human needs. Your next reading by Page Dubois is a very subjective piece of writing. Herconcern is the aggressiveness of the liberatory project of the enlightenment. The investigative approaches used by science are viewed, by many, as theauthoritative source of human knowledge in today's world.
Rationalism is the reliance on pure reason or logic.
Note that for Descartes the conscious 'I'precedes truth or knowledge. This is a central concept of the enlightenment. Deduction is the practice of inferring, onthe basis of necessary and sufficient evidence from a premise to aconclusion. Induction is the practice of inferring from the specific to thegeneral. These may beeither visual or verbal.