Immanuel Kant
An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?
Prussian
Age of Reason
The Prussian philosopher, Immanuel Kant, created a revolutionary stir in eighteenth-century philosophy. He advanced innovative solutions to ancient questions concerning truth, justice, and faith by differentiating between scientific knowledge and theology. He also proposed individual morality through a break from religious authority and a consciousness based on sense and reason. He further set forth the idea that, even though the existence of God is necessary to the notion of a life after death, human beings must arrive at a universal code of morality without divine revelation. Kant’s theories of individualism and humanism set him at odds with the monarchy and the church, of course. However, Kant’s theory that the world is a construct of the human mind became an influential concept in philosophers who came after him, most notably Samuel Coleridge and the Romantics.
An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784)
Kant’s premise in What is Enlightenment? is that human beings must move out of their “self-imposed nonage,” or the immaturity of a people who bend to authority for guidance in all areas of their lives, to gain true enlightenment. Only by “cultivating their own minds” may humankind deliver themselves from mental and political tyranny. Without a change in the way we think, we are forever under the control of an elite few. These guardians of immature people, including the entire female sex, keep them low by denying them the opportunity for the education and understanding necessary for self-reliance. Kant warns that there is danger in forming new opinions that collide with the status quo; once we accept responsibility for our own morality and actions, we can no longer blame others for our choices or circumstances. Without the sovereign or priest as a guide, we are left to ourselves for wisdom. However, according to Kant, without enlightenment, humankind is never truly free.
Consider while reading:
- Note the behavior of the few who throw off the yoke of authority only to become part of the elite class.
- Why do people accept guidance from others who oppress them?
- Why does Kant say the liberation of thought is worth the danger?
Written by Karen Dodson
