Immanuel Kant What is Enlightenment?

An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784) Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know]: "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.

[Kant and the Age of Critique] Questions 1 [Kant and the Age of Critique] 1.1 Kant has written three Critiques, which eventually forms the philosophical system of his thinking. 1.11 What are they? 1.12 What are the three corresponding key questions in those books? 1.13 What is modern about the spirit of those questions? 1.2 Kant offers an account of human beings as self-conscious entities caught up in some mental and historical conflicts: “Kant posits the human being as caught up in an insoluble tension.” Provide at least two Kantian examples of that tension.

Questions 2 [Kant and the Enlightenment] [Read also this introduction (pdf) and this lecture note (pdf)]  2.0 Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” – The key thesis is: (2.0) Enlightenment is: (2.1) [NB: Learn the entire sentence by heart.] Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why: (2.2) Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of: (2.3)  There is more chance of an entire public enlightening itself. This is indeed almost: (2.4) Now in some affairs which affect the interests of the commonwealth, of the commonwealth, we require a certain mechanism whereby: (2.5) But should not a society of clergymen, […], be entitled to commit itself by oath to a certain unalterable set of doctrines, in order to secure for all time a constant guardianship over each of its members, and through them over the people ? I reply that this is quite: (2.6) If it is now asked whether we at present live in an enlightened age, the answer is: (2.7) A prince who does not regard it as beneath him to say that he considers it his duty, in religious matters, not to prescribe anything to his people, but to allow them complete freedom, a prince who thus even declines to accept the presumptuous title of tolerant, is himself: (2.8) I have portrayed matters of religion as the focal point of: (2.9) But only a ruler who is himself enlightened and has no far of phantoms, yet who likewise has at hand a well-disciplined and numerous army to guarantee public security, may say what no republic would dare to say: Argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but: (2.10)

Questions 3 [Kant, Rousseau, Luther and Machiavelli] 3.1 Kant is heavily influenced by Rousseau whose innovative ideas on human equality, individual freedom and pedagogic autonomy turn into a philosophical force behind the French Revolution. 3.11 What are the three mottos of the French Revolution? 3.12 And how is Kant’s philosophy of the Enlightenment related to those three motives? Locate the clues and examples in “What is Enlightenment?”. 3.2 In terms of questioning old authority, especially that of the clergy and the monarch, there are some notable points of intersection among the ideas and practices of Kant, Luther and even Machiavelli. What are they? Based on your learning so far, draw some large picture of the modern genealogy of a theological critique. 3.3 In terms of introducing a new authority, Kant, Luther and Machiavelli differ significantly. What are the natures of those “replaced” authorities?