“An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” written by Immanuel Kant is an essay which brings light to the debate that was most common during Kant’s period: the freedom of self and thought. In his essay he discusses the freedom of thought. He explains how to reach this freedom and that a person may willingly want otherwise, by discussing the maturity of a society using the different roles of the society’s members.

Kant was encouraging a revolutionary state in the human race that would free men from the chains they lock themselves in. However, it is the most peaceful and safe guarded revolution in history. Kant’s call to free a man’s thoughts from the guardians of others, no matter what that may be, even one’s own previous thought, is the call of freedom. He even criticised his own previous understanding of enlightenment, which he, at the time, believed to be the exercise of “abstract reason”. Kant links enlightenment to many different levels and understandings: the individual’s belief verses his responsibilities, ruler obligation, and the community’s safety.

Kant outlines a unique structure for enlightenment in a society that leads to the age of enlightenment. First, he links it to the quality of maturity which he facilitates as the courage to free ones thoughts by questioning everything through the knowledge and reasoning. One will then reach the reason of believing something to be true, which includes religious beliefs, also. Te scholar should provide the means in which options of on truth is seen i.e. when scholars express their thoughts they are presenting another possible way to look at knowledge. They are widening a person vision to understand the other, and decide through their own reasoning what do they truly think.

Kant explains reason to be the most sublime state: “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason” (Kant, 1784). He goes from there to distinguish between the public, private, monarchy, and scholarly use of reason that proves humans maturity. The public use of reason presented in the scholar in each human should always be free. To Kant each person carries the ability to become a scholar, but some individuals choose to immobilize this ability. However, the private use of reason is free and restricted at the same time: free to judge and question the knowledge, actions and truths around us; restricted when doing so without causing chaos in the society by performing one’s duties and responsibilities even if they differ with his beliefs. For example, an educator may disagree about a curriculum and argue about the validity of it, yet he or she will teach it until the system in which he works through is enlightened enough to change it.

Kant then addresses how we can reach such a system when looking at the component of participating in as learners and educators… The head of the system, as Kant refers to, is the prince or a monarchy leader. The appliers and defenders of the system presented in Kant’s argument are a strong army that insures peacefulness of the society. That all melts down to freeing a person from the self- imposed immaturity and transferring the human being from a guided person to a person who uses reasoning of matters until he posses the soul of a reasoning person. But how, then, can this transformation apply to each figure in the division of a society or system?

Looking at how the transformation may happen and why may it not, by starting with the learner and the educator. The transformation may free the learner when they are autonomous in their learning, free in accepting the knowledge presented to them.  What may hinder this, according to Kant, is the learners’ immaturity when lacking the courage to think for their own self and following a guardian in this situation it may be (the educator, their books, or another student), avoiding the risk of thinking for themselves or hiding in their cowardice and laziness to avoid responsibility. However, some will free themselves which could lead to the enlightenment of the rest of the learners; conversely they may do so by voicing their opinion but not by refusing to learn. The same manner in which the educator should go on with his responsibility as mentioned earlier.

To Kant an enlightened ruler will encourage the people to free themselves from the cowardice and laziness, understanding that without such encouragement, people will gladly stay immature. He will possess a strong army that will insure the steadiness of the society; he will allow them to argue and reason their understanding as long as they obey laws and fill their responsibilities. This leads to a mature society that may arguably be to the best advantage will of each member yet will insure the harmony required for them to reach their own personal enlightenment. Scholars will voice their free thought which will encourage the other members of the society to think freely for themselves. They may not agree with the scholars but they will surely be free to think, and by thinking freely they will be allowed to act freely too.

Although Kant was calling for the freedom of thought and eliminating the power of the guardians imposed on people’s thought, he himself uses several expressions that impose some guardians of the thought. He is presenting his understanding of enlightenment and claiming it to be the educated way to enlighten the society. He implies the idea of guarding the people towards the freedom of thought, but how or who will free them from his thoughts? Yet, he outlines the most mature and steady manner for bringing enlightenment to a society from within. By transforming a society into a free community that has the ability to think and reason, that will insure enlightenment no matter which system they are placed in; it is building a soul that is truly enlighten, not just in an enlightened phase, to move from an age of enlightenment to an enlighten age. Kant emphasises that force and revolution may free the people in a physical manner but can never free the thought or “reform a manner of thinking,” like he is seeking to do. His enlightenment revolutions threatens no free person, the only threat is to the week, cowardice, lazy, irresponsible soul that may be present in any human. Yet the question lays to which extended should an educator for fill his responsibilities in presenting the given knowledge, rather than voicing his opinion and acting according to that?

References:

Kant, I, ( 1784). “An Answer to the Question ‘What is Enlightenment?’ in Schmidt, J.( 1989) What Is Enlightenment? Journal of the History of Ideas 50, no. 2 pg. 64