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Friday, April 30, 2021

What is Enlightenment? (Final Draft)

 

What is Enlightenment?

By: Caitlin Warner

Before we discuss what enlightenment means to Immanuel Kant, let's first discuss who he was. Kant was born on April 22nd, 1724 in what is known today as Kaliningrad, Russia. However, back in Kant’s day it was named Königsberg and was the capital of Prussia. He was the 4th of 9 children, but the eldest surviving child of 5, and the only child to obtain an education. Kant began college in 1740 at the University of Königsberg as a theological student, but later became drawn to mathematics and physics. After graduating he became a tutor, and 15 years later he was appointed to the chair of logic and mathematics. Kant was a German-speaking philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. His thorough and methodical works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy. He embodied new trends which originally began with rationalism (stressing reason) by René Descartes and empiricism (stressing experience) by Francis Bacon. Kant passed away on February 12th, 1804 in Königsberg. During his lifetime Kant published several essays, but in 1784 “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?” was a published essay. Let’s imagine that we are back in Königsberg, Prussia during the year 1784 and are having a discussion with Immanuel Kant about his interpretation of Enlightenment:

“Kant, what exactly is Enlightenment?” the student asked.

“Enlightenment is a man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage,” replied Kant.

The student enquired, “Nonage? Whatever is nonage?”

“Nonage is the ability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance,” responded Kant.

“So, what you mean to tell me is that nonage is like being underage, not literally but more like intellectual immaturity,” the student answered.

“Yes! You’re catching on. Almost as though every thought that ever comes into their brain had originated from somewhere else. This is a state of nonage.” Kant declared.

Questioning this, the student wonders, “How does one avoid this state of nonage?”.

“Have the courage to use your own understanding,” Kant explains.

“But Kant, this goes directly against what the bible tells us to do… we must trust him with everything we do,” muttered the student.

“Enlightenment places itself against these authorities, I believe it keeps people in a state of nonage. Laziness and cowardness are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remains minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance,” argues Kant.

“There appears to be a large emphasis on nature and the natural order of things, am I correct in saying that?” the student responded.

“There most definitely is,” stated Kant.

Immanuel Kant believed that the world had turned people into individuals other than what nature had originally intended us to be. He believed this was caused by institutional structures that hold people back (religious and secular).

               “They are the reason why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscious, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on, then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think. If I can only pay, others will take care of the disagreeable business for me,” Kant declared.

               The student replies, “That’s an excellent point, we do have a lot of people telling us what to think, believe, and do.”

               “Thus, it is very difficult for the individual to work themselves out of nonage, which has become second nature to him, and they have even become to like it. At first, they are really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it,” Kant explains.

               “Basically, nonage is something that is conditioned? Is it similar to Plato’s story of the cave dwellers?” questions the student.

               Kant responds, “Exactly!”

               “Then what is necessary for enlightenment?” asks the student.

               “The public can enlighten itself indeed if it is only given freedom. Enlightenment is almost inevitable. Enlightenment requires nothing but freedom and the most innocent of all that may be called freedom; freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters.” Kant responds.

               “Or in other words, freedom to express yourself and what you’re thinking in public,” the student says.

               “That’s right,” Kant replies

               “Well, then which restrictions are harmful to enlightenment? Which ones are innocent? And are there restrictions that advance enlightenment?” The student inquires.

               Kant explains, “The public use of one’s reason must be free at all times and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind.”

               “Are we now living in an enlightened age?” asks the student.

               “No, but we live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now stand it is still far from true that men are already capable of using their own reasons and religious matter confidently and correctly without external guidance. Still, we have some obvious indications that the field of working toward the goal of religious truth is now opened. What is more, is the hindrances against general enlightenment or the emergence from self-imposed nonage are gradually diminishing. In this respect, this is the age of the enlightenment,” Kant details.

               Many people back in 1784, and still to this day live in a state of nonage by blindly following without question, and that these institutional structures hold us back from truly being free. Kant argues in his essay that people are individuals who by nature have the sacred right to be free, think freely, and decide the course of their own life. That we must think for ourselves and to trust our own capacity to judge and understand things. We must be able to trust ourselves because nature has given us the intellectual capacity to be free.


Work Cited

Duignan, Brian. “Immanuel Kant”, Britannica, 25 April 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Kant/The-Critique-of-Practical-Reason

Sutherland, Joan. “Everything is Enlightenment”, Lions Roar, 25 April 2021, https://www.lionsroar.com/everything-is-enlightenment/

“Enlightenment”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 25 April 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/


Answered questions: 1/28, 2/2, 2/4, 2/9, 2/11, 2/16, 2/18, 2/25, 3/2, 3/9, 3/25, 3/30, 4/1, 4/6, 4/8, 4/13, 4/20, 4/22, 4/27
Presented Midterm:3/11
Posted Midterm essay: 3/11

2 comments:

  1. That's an astute connection, between Kant's notion of enlightenment and Plato's cavedwellers. Plato's "light" symbolizes a certain metaphysical view of other-worldly eternal Ideas (etc.) which I think we're free to set aside, in order to make that connection: it's about breaking free from self-imposed ignorance, convention, and a profound lack of curiosity. In that way, light just is the will to grow up. More fundamentally, it's the will to grow and learn. And think.

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  2. Dr. Oliver,

    Thank you for expanding on that!

    ReplyDelete