Before this study, the author was tasked with identifying general tendencies of changes in values and dominant ideas in all spheres of cognition. During the study different branches of knowledge of one period and one civilization area are compared. The author analyzes the tendencies developed in them. He chooses the example of the mid-18th century European culture. The article considers changes in scientific paradigms of philosophy, economics, linguistics, and natural sciences. Thus, in all areas of scientific knowledge, there is a tendency of interest in nature. In particular, in the philosophy, the idea of the value of the man’s natural state advocated Rousseau in his "ode to human nature," in the economics of this period, a significant c...