What is Enlightenment?
Reflecting on Immanuel Kant’s Essay
Edward Hsu
Mr. de Groof
Grade 12 Composition
12/9/14
IEP G12 #21 Edward Hsu
During seventeenth and eighteenth century, European thinkers
flourished in this period, and more and more different thoughts became
popular, affected the society then and further lead to American Revolution and
French Revolution. Although “Enlightenment” was such an important
movement, its definition still remained vague until Immanuel Kant, a famous
German philosopher during 18th century, answered the question of “What is
Enlightenment?” in his essay.
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-interposed nonage.
Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s
guidance”. Kant defines the word “Enlightenment” as people action to escape
from the state of foolishness and become people who can think
independently. However, many people think that thinking freely is a quite
dangerous behavior so they refuse to change and act like coward lazy fools.
Therefore, those rulers often easily control them. Moreover, Kant mentions
that it is hard for a person to have a great improvement alone because of the
hardship with overcoming mental obstacle. Yet Enlightenment is easy, nearly
naturally, for a group of people due to the more frequent presence of
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independent thinkers. They will think independently and further spread their
thought to others. Therefore, the presence of Enlightenment is nearly
unstoppable. However, according to Kant, all of these require freedom.
“This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom” (Line 45). Kant
emphasizes the importance of freedom to enlightenment. His freedom
specifically points to the freedom of free thought. However, what Kant saw
when he finished this essay, most rulers (guardians) restricted the freedom of
thought with commands. In the next paragraph, Kant further explains that no
restriction should be set. Enlightenment will be hindered if free reasoning
cannot be used legally and publically. Therefore, enlightenment requires an
environment with free reasoning, and Kant warns that restrictions will hinder
enlightenment.
Beside these points, Kant discusses the discrepancy between citizens
and scholars. The greatest difference between them is that citizens had to
obey the commands from the. In the sixth paragraph, Kant writes, “The citizen
cannot refuse to pay the taxes levied upon him; indeed, impertinent censure
of such taxes could be punished as a scandal that might cause general
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disobedience. Nevertheless, this man does not violate the duties of a
citizenship if, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his objections to the
impropriety or possible injustice of such levies.” Kant thought that citizens
have to obey rules in order to achieve public objectives. However, when ones
are speaking as scholars, ones can censure those commands because
scholars have full freedom to speak. This is the greatest difference between
the identity of citizens and scholars. Yet, people often are both scholars and
citizens at the same time. “That the spiritual guardians of the people should
themselves be treated as minors is an absurdity which would result in
perpetuating absurdities. Kant uses the example of preachers to demonstrate
people’s identities conflict because their identity, mixed by limited spiritual
leader and unlimited scholar, creates a awkward situation to those preachers.
“What a people may not decide for itself may even less be decided for
it by a monarch, for his reputation as a ruler consist precisely in the way which
he unites the will of the whole people within his own.” Same with British
philosopher John Locke, Kant supports natural rights. If monarchs do not
respect people’s natural rights, they will become tyrants.
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Kant’s thoughts about freedom are the basic concepts of modern
democratic government and are widely accepted. However, some of his
points are not quite accurate. In his opinion in the difference between citizens
and scholars, Kant states that citizens obeys while scholars has freedom to
express their thought. This statement is wrong from the perspective of
nowadays. Civil disobedience is the way of citizens to express their thoughts
when receiving unfair treatment, unlike Kant’s opinion that disobedience is
only an act that will be punished. Furthermore, if scholars does not take their
responsibility-censuring guardians’ command, they should lost their freedom,
or power, instead of being silent. Their silence will be a great harm to people’s
rights and a great help to tyrants.
Indeed, the change of values throughout the time causes the
disagreement. Some of the concepts from Enlightenment age may be
modified, or even proved wrong. However, truth will remain. These truths,
fixed by time, will enlighten the world and change the whole globe to free land.
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