Kant’s Essay on Enlightenment
Kant might have been only responding to a newspaper query in answering the question, however, the views expressed therein might as well
encapsulize the aspirations and ideals of the intellectual movements that have been acting proactively and reactively to combat the stifling forces of the socio-political systems of the eighteenth century.
He described the means to attain an aspect of humanization of the individual, to achieve one’s full potential as a thinking being, wherein one takes active part in the pursuit of knowledge, and to have sole responsibility in teaching oneself of the truths encountered in that pursuit, so as to arrive at a perspective independent of the prevailing institutions of the time. In short, to be one’s own man.
His statements appear deceptively innocuous and very carefully worded s far as political and military authorities were concerned, but totally uncharitable to religious views and their adherents. It might as well be so, writing in Prussia, one of the most powerful military states of the time, and the Unifier of the then highly fragmented German states.
Other philosophers and scientists might have been exercising more or less restraint in attacking the superstitions and the obduracy of the authorities when it comes to being pilloried, however, the implications of serving the creed of individual/self-determination, on how far freedom and reaction to the realizations of critical thinking could be obtained with lasting results were not lost on those who were under the yoke of colonial domination or any form of intellectual or political repression.
It it debatable whether Kant was arguing for a more radical form of exercising that freedom, of totally overthrowing the Guardians upon proven guilty of being hindrances to that “freedom from immaturity”, but cursory study of the events that suddenly were precipitated after or during Enlightenment, we could theorize with conviction that the peoples in nation-states touched by these concepts of which Kant is one of the spokespersons, had acted on these views to the fullest, if not, to the extreme.
Let us be clear that Kant’s Essay explicitated the necessity of disregarding religious authorities insofar as their guidance was flawed, while rulers/superiors that demand obedience were, by inference, tolerate no dissent leading to open rebellion. Thus, Kant had indicted oppressive governments/rulers and intolerant religious hierarchies as the adversaries of human individual and social progress and/or expansion of knowledge.
Thus, without stating it, it would follow, a reader could reason, that a confrontation or open conflict with these “adversaries” would be inevitable, in the pursuit of one’s reasoning and search for Truth.
It goes without saying that the sudden explosion of scientific discovery, social criticism, critical and satirical literature, and the great political upheavals in the French, British, and American Revolutions, especially the American Revolutionary War, had had their seeds planted during the Enlightenment, and that was followed by the Modern Era. On a local note, Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels recounting the abuses of the Spanish overlords and friars in the Philippines further inflamed the Filipinos to revolt from the Spanish Crown.
The importance of Kant’s assertions do not lie in whether he was directly responsible for influencing revolutionaries, anymore we can credit Nietschze of the superstition of Aryan racial superiority or Marx with the Communist Revolution, rather Kant had been a famous element in “internationalizing” liberalism, as was his French, British, and American counterparts, thus helping corroborate the universality of the individual reasoning and its social expression and actualization. Here, philosophers, scientists, and thinkers buttressed each others’ conclusions and modes of thinking. We could perceive here an “underground international democratic movement” as far as the number of unforgiving military, political, and religious authorities were concerned.
The question now remains, “Is Kant’s call to ‘dare to know’, with its revolutionary undertones necessarily relevant in today’s society?” The answer to that would be taken up vigorously by Michel Foucault.
Michel Foucault: What is Enlightenment?
According to Foucault, the reasoning “component”, and thus, its published or publicly expressed intentions, of the Enlightenment, is but a part of the complex power relations and historical circumstances and factors that birthed the Modern Age, subsuming any philosopher, or their theories and convictions, into a greater whole, that Foucault seems to require laymen to comprehend from its totality to its minute machinery. So, any defintion of Enlightenment, in a few facts and explanations, would not suffice without contrasting it to other eras, and making anyone a scholar if one dares to match Foucault’s challenge.
As for his take on achieving enlightenment, one should be aware of one’s own capabilities, or even one’s attitude, and taking into account present reality, the lessons of history, before philosophizing and then undertaking the insinuated quixotic admonition of Kant, “aude sapere”, lest our collective or individual action following this misguided direction lead to the “return of the most dangerous traditions”.
This he adeptly illustrated by mentioning National Socialism and Stalism as humanisms, and that the Enlightenment nourished a plethora of humanisms enthusiatically making good “thinking without guidance from another”, thus pointing out the possibility of people/societies overstepping their “aude sapere”.
Thus, Foucault appears to advocate a more moderate approach to the concepts of enlightenment, one that is in accordance with modern sensibility and stability.
However, it seems ironic that Foucault, a Frenchman, faults the Enlightenment and propaganda/discursive formation, whereas his countrymen
aided the American cause in repudiating the Divine Right of Kings, an Enlightenment political contention, and radically enforcing “Give me liberty or give me death” against British Rule, the political “guardian” of the Colonies.
The victory of the American Revolutionaries could by no means be attributed to blind luck. American and French leaders were visionaries, as far of the reality aspects of the war and the confidence of securing victory, was concerned. They had Foucault’s view of Enlightenment in mind when they
utilized tactics, logistics, and knowledge of terrain to break British Hegemony of the Atlantic, and establishing the world’s largest democracy since the first democratic assembly was held in Athens, Greece.
Question to be asked of Foucault’s polemics on Kant’s assertions is: Is it absolutely necessary for Foucault to discredit Kant, whose views were absolutely IMMEDIATELY PERTINENT to the Enlightenment Era in general, and to the American Revolution and Nation-building in particular, or does his philosophizing beg the question? Furthermore, is he guilty of theorizing for theorization sake?
A follow up question would be: What realizations could a student attain in the analysis of the two essays?
For the former, Foucault should have had recognized Kant’s words value for its reflection on the dependency of the Guardians’ (rulers, governments, church, or any other authority) mandate on the sufferance of their constituents, on the majority’s perception of their maintenance of civil liberties and rights, and the truth about each person being responsible for their learning and decision-making. His perambulation on Enlightenment, his own application of discursive formation, historicity of power relations, is nonetheless brilliant, yet, is far from what a layman would have time for, unlike Kant’s easily comprehensible text, the facility of which easily urges one to action. One could surmise that Foucault strove to be only understood by a few, while Kant was trying to reach a great number of people with his simple-worded text. For the latter, a student should realize: (a) Responsible to learn as much as possible not only to be good at one’s profession but to also uphold dignity and to be in the best position to protect one’s own rights; (b) institutions are established to serve the interests of the constituents. Failure to do so would invite censure, and the people should readily speak out against such abuses of power and advocate reforms; (c) radical liberal views, though attractive and seductive in their passionateness, should be critiqued in the light of today’s due process of law, primacy of social order, the best forums for the redress of grievances, proper expression of dissent, etc., just to name a few possible student responses.
The best definition of enlightenment remains in the hands of the individual, by how far and how purposeful one’s own desire to conscientiously advance oneself in knowledge, skill, and self-actualization and humanization, and in doing so, one would best serve the family and society.
WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT? A Diversion of Views Between Kant and Foucault
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Kant’s Essay on Enlightenment
Kant might have been only responding to a newspaper query in answering the question, however, the views expressed therein might as well
encapsulize the aspirations and ideals of the intellectual movements that have been acting proactively and reactively to combat the stifling forces of the socio-political systems of the eighteenth century.
He described the means to attain an aspect of humanization of the individual, to achieve one’s full potential as a thinking being, wherein one takes active part in the pursuit of knowledge, and to have sole responsibility in teaching oneself of the truths encountered in that pursuit, so as to arrive at a perspective independent of the prevailing institutions of the time. In short, to be one’s own man.
His statements appear deceptively innocuous and very carefully worded s far as political and military authorities were concerned, but totally uncharitable to religious views and their adherents. It might as well be so, writing in Prussia, one of the most powerful military states of the time, and the Unifier of the then highly fragmented German states.
Other philosophers and scientists might have been exercising more or less restraint in attacking the superstitions and the obduracy of the authorities when it comes to being pilloried, however, the implications of serving the creed of individual/self-determination, on how far freedom and reaction to the realizations of critical thinking could be obtained with lasting results were not lost on those who were under the yoke of colonial domination or any form of intellectual or political repression.
It it debatable whether Kant was arguing for a more radical form of exercising that freedom, of totally overthrowing the Guardians upon proven guilty of being hindrances to that “freedom from immaturity”, but cursory study of the events that suddenly were precipitated after or during Enlightenment, we could theorize with conviction that the peoples in nation-states touched by these concepts of which Kant is one of the spokespersons, had acted on these views to the fullest, if not, to the extreme.
Let us be clear that Kant’s Essay explicitated the necessity of disregarding religious authorities insofar as their guidance was flawed, while rulers/superiors that demand obedience were, by inference, tolerate no dissent leading to open rebellion. Thus, Kant had indicted oppressive governments/rulers and intolerant religious hierarchies as the adversaries of human individual and social progress and/or expansion of knowledge.
Thus, without stating it, it would follow, a reader could reason, that a confrontation or open conflict with these “adversaries” would be inevitable, in the pursuit of one’s reasoning and search for Truth.
It goes without saying that the sudden explosion of scientific discovery, social criticism, critical and satirical literature, and the great political upheavals in the French, British, and American Revolutions, especially the American Revolutionary War, had had their seeds planted during the Enlightenment, and that was followed by the Modern Era. On a local note, Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels recounting the abuses of the Spanish overlords and friars in the Philippines further inflamed the Filipinos to revolt from the Spanish Crown.
The importance of Kant’s assertions do not lie in whether he was directly responsible for influencing revolutionaries, anymore we can credit Nietschze of the superstition of Aryan racial superiority or Marx with the Communist Revolution, rather Kant had been a famous element in “internationalizing” liberalism, as was his French, British, and American counterparts, thus helping corroborate the universality of the individual reasoning and its social expression and actualization. Here, philosophers, scientists, and thinkers buttressed each others’ conclusions and modes of thinking. We could perceive here an “underground international democratic movement” as far as the number of unforgiving military, political, and religious authorities were concerned.
The question now remains, “Is Kant’s call to ‘dare to know’, with its revolutionary undertones necessarily relevant in today’s society?” The answer to that would be taken up vigorously by Michel Foucault.
Michel Foucault: What is Enlightenment?
According to Foucault, the reasoning “component”, and thus, its published or publicly expressed intentions, of the Enlightenment, is but a part of the complex power relations and historical circumstances and factors that birthed the Modern Age, subsuming any philosopher, or their theories and convictions, into a greater whole, that Foucault seems to require laymen to comprehend from its totality to its minute machinery. So, any defintion of Enlightenment, in a few facts and explanations, would not suffice without contrasting it to other eras, and making anyone a scholar if one dares to match Foucault’s challenge.
As for his take on achieving enlightenment, one should be aware of one’s own capabilities, or even one’s attitude, and taking into account present reality, the lessons of history, before philosophizing and then undertaking the insinuated quixotic admonition of Kant, “aude sapere”, lest our collective or individual action following this misguided direction lead to the “return of the most dangerous traditions”.
This he adeptly illustrated by mentioning National Socialism and Stalism as humanisms, and that the Enlightenment nourished a plethora of humanisms enthusiatically making good “thinking without guidance from another”, thus pointing out the possibility of people/societies overstepping their “aude sapere”.
Thus, Foucault appears to advocate a more moderate approach to the concepts of enlightenment, one that is in accordance with modern sensibility and stability.
However, it seems ironic that Foucault, a Frenchman, faults the Enlightenment and propaganda/discursive formation, whereas his countrymen
aided the American cause in repudiating the Divine Right of Kings, an Enlightenment political contention, and radically enforcing “Give me liberty or give me death” against British Rule, the political “guardian” of the Colonies.
The victory of the American Revolutionaries could by no means be attributed to blind luck. American and French leaders were visionaries, as far of the reality aspects of the war and the confidence of securing victory, was concerned. They had Foucault’s view of Enlightenment in mind when they
utilized tactics, logistics, and knowledge of terrain to break British Hegemony of the Atlantic, and establishing the world’s largest democracy since the first democratic assembly was held in Athens, Greece.
Question to be asked of Foucault’s polemics on Kant’s assertions is: Is it absolutely necessary for Foucault to discredit Kant, whose views were absolutely IMMEDIATELY PERTINENT to the Enlightenment Era in general, and to the American Revolution and Nation-building in particular, or does his philosophizing beg the question? Furthermore, is he guilty of theorizing for theorization sake?
A follow up question would be: What realizations could a student attain in the analysis of the two essays?
For the former, Foucault should have had recognized Kant’s words value for its reflection on the dependency of the Guardians’ (rulers, governments, church, or any other authority) mandate on the sufferance of their constituents, on the majority’s perception of their maintenance of civil liberties and rights, and the truth about each person being responsible for their learning and decision-making. His perambulation on Enlightenment, his own application of discursive formation, historicity of power relations, is nonetheless brilliant, yet, is far from what a layman would have time for, unlike Kant’s easily comprehensible text, the facility of which easily urges one to action. One could surmise that Foucault strove to be only understood by a few, while Kant was trying to reach a great number of people with his simple-worded text. For the latter, a student should realize: (a) Responsible to learn as much as possible not only to be good at one’s profession but to also uphold dignity and to be in the best position to protect one’s own rights; (b) institutions are established to serve the interests of the constituents. Failure to do so would invite censure, and the people should readily speak out against such abuses of power and advocate reforms; (c) radical liberal views, though attractive and seductive in their passionateness, should be critiqued in the light of today’s due process of law, primacy of social order, the best forums for the redress of grievances, proper expression of dissent, etc., just to name a few possible student responses.
The best definition of enlightenment remains in the hands of the individual, by how far and how purposeful one’s own desire to conscientiously advance oneself in knowledge, skill, and self-actualization and humanization, and in doing so, one would best serve the family and society.