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Immanuel Kant’s essay “Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” contains the thoughts of a philosopher about the distinguishing features of a person of the Enlightenment era. For Kant, it is a turning point in the historical development of humanity, which is aimed at realizing a person’s mental abilities laid down by nature. In Kant’s understanding, only a person who can think independently, without relying on the opinion of others, reaches maturity. The main ideas and arguments presented in the essay need to be systematized and summarized for a better understanding of Kant’s philosophy.
In the essay, Kant focuses on the principles of independence, freedom, and restrictions, which in his opinion, are keys to Enlightenment thinking. In Kant’s understanding, the ability to make independent and reasonable judgments is an exit from the state of immaturity. Kant claims that for a long time, humanity did not realize and did not use its inherent ability to make independent judgments appropriately. Moreover, Kant states that a person is the cause of this prolonged immaturity. People do not have enough courage to start thinking independently, and it is convenient for them to remain immature all life and to think under the guidance of others.
According to the philosopher, the key to the emergence of independent thinking is the presence of freedom. In conditions of freedom, the education of society is virtually inevitable. Moreover, Kant declares that restricting the freedom of judgment for a person can be considered a restriction of his freedom in general, which is the greatest crime against society. The imposition of dogmas and beliefs that are not characteristic of people leads to the fact that humanity cannot reach its maturity and cannot advance in its historical development.
In this context, much attention is paid to the role of religion in society. For Kant, the imposition of religious dogmas is an example of a flagrant lack of freedom in the possibility of independent judgment. The philosopher claims that people who blindly obey religious dogmas are at the highest level of immaturity because they blindly agree with attitudes that no one has ever questioned. Thus, Kant recommends avoiding dogmatic politics and giving society freedom in matters of religion to create an enlightened society.
However, along with freedom, Kant talks about the importance of having certain restrictions. These restrictions can contribute to the enlightenment of society as effectively as complete freedom. The philosopher draws a line between the citizen’s and scholar’s freedom and claims that a citizen must have certain restrictions. A person must follow the procedures established by the authorities and, for example, pay taxes, and at the same time, should have the right to express his disagreement with the need to pay taxes publicly. Sometimes it looks like the less freedom a citizen has, the more a scholar has. The same applies to public and private use of one’s reason. Freedom should extend only to the public sphere and be limited to private use of reason to maintain public order.
Thus, by Enlightenment, Kant understands the transition of human consciousness from the stage of unquestioning perception of other people’s thoughts and attitudes to the stage of formation by a person of his independent judgments. However, the creation of an enlightened society must follow certain principles. A person as a scholar needs freedom to think; however, a citizen’s freedom must be limited and controlled to avoid chaos in society.
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