UPCOMING PROJECT 2 #

What is Enlightenment?

Immanuel Kant (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.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature

has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in

lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians.

It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve

as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself

at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for

me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have

carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard

taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their

domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not

take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show

them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is

not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to

walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all

further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all

but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is

actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt

it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his

natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still

make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of

free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in

freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.

But that the public should enlighten itself is more likely; indeed, if it is only allowed freedom,

enlightenment is almost inevitable. For even among the entrenched guardians of the great

masses a few will always think for themselves, a few who, after having themselves thrown off

the yoke of immaturity, will spread the spirit of a rational appreciation for both their own

worth and for each person's calling to think for himself. But it should be particularly noted

that if a public that was first placed in this yoke by the guardians is suitably aroused by some

of those who are altogether incapable of enlightenment, it may force the guardians themselves

to remain under the yoke--so pernicious is it to instill prejudices, for they finally take revenge

upon their originators, or on their descendants. Thus a public can only attain enlightenment

slowly. Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-

grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new

prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking

mass.

Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; and the freedom in

question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.

But on all sides I hear: "Do not argue!" The officer says, "Do not argue, drill!" The tax man

What is Enlightenment? / 2

says, "Do not argue, pay!" The pastor says, "Do not argue, believe!" (Only one ruler in the

World says, "Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!") In this we

have examples of pervasive restrictions on freedom. But which restriction hinders

enlightenment and which does not, but instead actually advances it? I reply: The public use of

one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind;

the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise

hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public use of one's own reason I understand

the use that anyone as a scholar makes of reason before the entire literate world. I call the

private use of reason that which a person may make in a civic post or office that has been

entrusted to him. Now in many affairs conducted in the interests of a community, a certain

mechanism is required by means of which some of its members must conduct themselves in

an entirely passive manner so that through an artificial unanimity the government may guide

them toward public ends, or at least prevent them from destroying such ends. Here one

certainly must not argue, instead one must obey. However, insofar as this part of the machine

also regards himself as a member of the community as a whole, or even of the world

community, and as a consequence addresses the public in the role of a scholar, in the proper

sense of that term, he can most certainly argue, without thereby harming the affairs for which

as a passive member he is partly responsible. Thus it would be disastrous if an officer on duty

who was given a command by his superior were to question the appropriateness or utility of

the order. He must obey. But as a scholar he cannot be justly constrained from making

comments about errors in military service, or from placing them before the public for its

judgment. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed on him; indeed, impertinent

criticism of such levies, when they should be paid by him, can be punished as a scandal (since

it can lead to widespread insubordination). But the same person does not act contrary to civic

duty when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts regarding the impropriety or even

injustice of such taxes. Likewise a pastor is bound to instruct his catecumens and

congregation in accordance with the symbol of the church he serves, for he was appointed on

that condition. But as a scholar he has complete freedom, indeed even the calling, to impart to

the public all of his carefully considered and well-intentioned thoughts concerning mistaken

aspects of that symbol, as well as his suggestions for the better arrangement of religious and

church matters. Nothing in this can weigh on his conscience. What he teaches in consequence

of his office as a servant of the church he sets out as something with regard to which he has

no discretion to teach in accord with his own lights; rather, he offers it under the direction and

in the name of another. He will say, "Our church teaches this or that and these are the

demonstrations it uses." He thereby extracts for his congregation all practical uses from

precepts to which he would not himself subscribe with complete conviction, but whose

presentation he can nonetheless undertake, since it is not entirely impossible that truth lies

hidden in them, and, in any case, nothing contrary to the very nature of religion is to be found

in them. If he believed he could find anything of the latter sort in them, he could not in good

conscience serve in his position; he would have to resign. Thus an appointed teacher's use of

his reason for the sake of his congregation is merely private, because, however large the

congregation is, this use is always only domestic; in this regard, as a priest, he is not free and

cannot be such because he is acting under instructions from someone else. By contrast, the

cleric--as a scholar who speaks through his writings to the public as such, i.e., the world--

enjoys in this public use of reason an unrestricted freedom to use his own rational capacities

and to speak his own mind. For that the (spiritual) guardians of a people should themselves be

immature is an absurdity that would insure the perpetuation of absurdities.

But would a society of pastors, perhaps a church assembly or venerable presbytery (as those

among the Dutch call themselves), not be justified in binding itself by oath to a certain

unalterable symbol in order to secure a constant guardianship over each of its members and

through them over the people, and this for all time: I say that this is wholly impossible. Such a

What is Enlightenment? / 3

contract, whose intention is to preclude forever all further enlightenment of the human race, is

absolutely null and void, even if it should be ratified by the supreme power, by parliaments,

and by the most solemn peace treaties. One age cannot bind itself, and thus conspire, to place

a succeeding one in a condition whereby it would be impossible for the later age to expand its

knowledge (particularly where it is so very important), to rid itself of errors,and generally to

increase its enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, whose essential

destiny lies precisely in such progress; subsequent generations are thus completely justified in

dismissing such agreements as unauthorized and criminal. The criterion of everything that can

be agreed upon as a law by a people lies in this question: Can a people impose such a law on

itself? Now it might be possible, in anticipation of a better state of affairs, to introduce a

provisional order for a specific, short time, all the while giving all citizens, especially clergy,

in their role as scholars, the freedom to comment publicly, i.e., in writing, on the present

institution's shortcomings. The provisional order might last until insight into the nature of

these matters had become so widespread and obvious that the combined (if not unanimous)

voices of the populace could propose to the crown that it take under its protection those

congregations that, in accord with their newly gained insight, had organized themselves under

altered religious institutions, but without interfering with those wishing to allow matters to

remain as before. However, it is absolutely forbidden that they unite into a religious

organization that nobody may for the duration of a man's lifetime publicly question, for so do-

ing would deny, render fruitless, and make detrimental to succeeding generations an era in

man's progress toward improvement. A man may put off enlightenment with regard to what

he ought to know, though only for a short time and for his own person; but to renounce it for

himself, or, even more, for subsequent generations, is to violate and trample man's divine

rights underfoot. And what a people may not decree for itself may still less be imposed on it

by a monarch, for his lawgiving authority rests on his unification of the people's collective

will in his own. If he only sees to it that all genuine or purported improvement is consonant

with civil order, he can allow his subjects to do what they find necessary to their spiritual

well-being, which is not his affair. However, he must prevent anyone from forcibly interfering

with another's working as best he can to determine and promote his well-being. It detracts

from his own majesty when he interferes in these matters, since the writings in which his

subjects attempt to clarify their insights lend value to his conception of governance. This

holds whether he acts from his own highest insight--whereby he calls upon himself the

reproach, "Caesar non eat supra grammaticos."'--as well as, indeed even more, when he

despoils his highest authority by supporting the spiritual despotism of some tyrants in his state

over his other subjects.

If it is now asked, "Do we presently live in an enlightened age?" the answer is, "No, but we

do live in an age of enlightenment." As matters now stand, a great deal is still lacking in order

for men as a whole to be, or even to put themselves into a position to be able without external

guidance to apply understanding confidently to religious issues. But we do have clear

indications that the way is now being opened for men to proceed freely in this direction and

that the obstacles to general enlightenment--to their release from their self-imposed

immaturity--are gradually diminishing. In this regard, this age is the age of enlightenment, the

century of Frederick.

A prince who does not find it beneath him to say that he takes it to be his duty to prescribe

nothing, but rather to allow men complete freedom in religious matters--who thereby

renounces the arrogant title of tolerance--is himself enlightened and deserves to be praised by

a grateful present and by posterity as the first, at least where the government is concerned, to

release the human race from immaturity and to leave everyone free to use his own reason in

all matters of conscience. Under his rule, venerable pastors, in their role as scholars and

without prejudice to their official duties, may freely and openly set out for the world's

What is Enlightenment? / 4

scrutiny their judgments and views, even where these occasionally differ from the accepted

symbol. Still greater freedom is afforded to those who are not restricted by an official post.

This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles

of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by

the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding

public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices

to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism.

I have focused on religious matters in setting out my main point concerning enlightenment,

i.e., man's emergence from self-imposed immaturity, first because our rulers have no interest

in assuming the role of their subjects' guardians with respect to the arts and sciences, and

secondly because that form of immaturity is both the most pernicious and disgraceful of all.

But the manner of thinking of a head of state who favors religious enlightenment goes even

further, for he realizes that there is no danger to his legislation in allowing his subjects to use

reason publicly and to set before the world their thoughts concerning better formulations of

his laws, even if this involves frank criticism of legislation currently in effect. We have before

us a shining example, with respect to which no monarch surpasses the one whom we honor.

But only a ruler who is himself enlightened and has no dread of shadows, yet who likewise

has a well-disciplined, numerous army to guarantee public peace, can say what no republic

may dare, namely: "Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!" Here as

elsewhere, when things are considered in broad perspective, a strange, unexpected pattern in

human affairs reveals itself, one in which almost everything is paradoxical. A greater degree

of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's spiritual freedom; yet the former

established impassable boundaries for the latter; conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom

provides enough room for all fully to expand their abilities. Thus, once nature has removed

the hard shell from this kernel for which she has most fondly cared, namely, the inclination to

and vocation for free thinking, the kernel gradually reacts on a people's mentality (whereby

they become increasingly able to act freely), and it finally even influences the principles of

government, which finds that it can profit by treating men, who are now more than machines,

in accord with their dignity.

I. Kant

Konigsberg in Prussia, 30 September 1784

1170 - Condorcet - Progress of the Human Mind.pdf