What is Enlightenment?

“What is Enlightenment?” “Enlightenment” as a Figure, an Age, a Process Ideas, institutions, ideology of “Enlightenment” (equality, rights, laws, the market, the public) Kant on “Enlightenment”: What? Who? When? Where? Why? How? Enlightenment and the Problem of “Freedom”

What does it mean to become "enlightened"? Nosce teipsum: know yourself Try to become a better, wiser, more mature person: change yourself Private good, public good: on collective ‘betterment’ How does “enlightenment” work? Who knows?

Enlightenment = Aufklärung Aufklärung: to clear up, bring (to) light, illuminate (light as a figure or metaphor for knowing) Enlightenment as Historical Age (Die Aufklärung): 17th/18th centuries (roughly, Descartes to Kant) Enlightenment as Process: as ‘Progress’ (teleology, moving toward an ‘end’) as a ‘Project’ (the project of ‘reform’)

The Enlightenment: An “Age of Criticism” Philosophical foundations for social and political change (actions follow ideas) The transformation of “common sense” Enlightenment and the making of “public opinion” New institutions of “the public”: new spaces and forms for public dialogue and debate

Ideals of Enlightenment Reason as communication: know yourself, read yourself, discuss yourself/yourselves Equality: by right(s), by law, by nature (“We hold these truths to be self-evident”) Self-governance: by the people, for the people (“The people” makes and gives “itself” the law) On Reform: remaking society, reshaping ourselves

Institutions and imagination: ideals in practice New ideas about man (about his nature, how he ought to behave, what are his proper ends) lead to new forms of social and political organization 3 “modern” ideals: The “Public” Self-governance by Law (by the “People”) The “Market” Passions as self-governing ‘force’ of enlightenment (e.g.: “Doux commerce”; love of “duty”)

Circulation and the enlightened res publica What makes a public as a ‘thing’? the circulation of ideas (and persons) within a state, and beyond its borders… The “res publica of letters” and the Cosmopolitan ideal (the interconnected “World”) What/who is the subject of enlightenment? What does an enlightened “body” look like? How do we imagine it? The “public” body vs. the “private” body

The Critique of Enlightenment: On “ideology” What is “ideology”? Common ideals that men become “attached” to in rational, passionate, imaginary ways The “ideology” of Enlightenment: true or false (or both)? (e.g.: “all men are created equal”) Enlightenment “ideology” as “objective illusion”: an illusion with respect to what is, but not to what could be On the nature and importance of “critique”: “criticism” vs. “conditions of possibility” (limits, potential)

An answer to the question(s) of “Enlightenment”: What? Who? When? Where? Why? How? “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity” Who does it (happen to)? “Man,” individual and collective What is it? An emergence: a movement or change from (out of) one state or condition to another Where does it lead? By inference, to a state of ‘maturity’ How will it/he get there? By overcoming ‘self-imposed’ limits (how?: “have the courage to use your own understanding!”)

A closer look “self-imposed immaturity”: hetero-nomy vs. auto-nomy “Use your own understanding”: the individual and the collective “you”: “the public” is the proper “subject” of Enlightenment How does a group think? through expression, dialogue, debate (nosce teipsum  “discourse yourselves”)

The paradox of “freedom” The public needs only “freedom” to become Enlightened, probably (“almost inevitable”) Less civil freedom = more “spiritual” freedom? (The Kingdom vs. the “Freistadt” [republic?]) The “solution” to the paradox of freedom: toward an “end” in principled self-governance (the “kernel” and the “shell”: on habit)

“Have courage!”: the dangers of Enlightenment? Public reason vs. private reason: “argue, but obey!” The temporality of Enlightenment: a duty to the present and to the future (but not the same ‘duty’) The limits of enlightenment: just be yourself, you know? speak from your heart...(but I’d hate for you to have to leave..)

An enlightened age vs. an age of Enlightenment Enlightenment as a process with no “end”? Do we ever “reach” Enlightenment? Does “enlightenment” need to have a particular end in mind (such as equality, justice, peace)? Or is it more open-ended, something different than now that we can’t foresee (i.e., the modern as the “new”)?

Foucualt on Enlightenment Foucault’s two ways of reading “Enlightenment” a) As teleology (progress toward an end) b) A break with the past/present (idea of “the modern”) Kant’s essay: a public answer to a public question “Let us imagine that the Berlinische Monatsschrift still exists and that it is asking its readers the question: What is modern philosophy? Perhaps one could respond with an echo: modern philosophy is the philosophy that is attempting to answer the question raised so imprudently two centuries ago: Was ist Aufklärung [What is Enlightenment]?” – Michel Foucault