Kant And The Enlightment

Immanuel Kant and the Enlightenment
By Carlos Valenzuela, LC
The enlightenment seems to be a moment of radical change for humanity. The period of time that we refer with this name was full ofchanges that transformed western civilization, but what does Immanuel Kant means with enlightenment, is the main concern of his article titled “An answer to the question What is enlightenment?”. Withthis paper I do not intend to offer a summary of this article but rather a critique of it. I will explain the main argument that he presents and the reason why I think he is right or wrong if there issuch a position that we can assume.
Immanuel Kant was a man of his era. He lived in the late 18th century and early 19th. He was borned and lived his entire life close to the city of Königsberg,Prussia and was deeply inmerse in his time. Only five years after Kant wrote the article, the french revolution would begin and the radical changes in European culture would take place.
Kant wouldbegin his article by answering the question of the title. He would say that enlightenment is “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity”. He clarifies this immaturity by saying that it is theproduct of laziness and cowardice. In other words, man is immature when he prefers to follow the opinion of others rather than conquer his laziness and produce his own ideas. He explains that theenlightened man is that which dares to think by himself.
Furthermore, he says that given this immature state of the mass there are other people who had taken control and advantage of them. This secondkind of people may be enlightened and can realize that what they do is wrong but will certanly notice that if they challenge the stablishment will find themselves among the opressors turning thenewly awaken mass against them. The enlightenment, consequently, cannot come from them. He offers as an alternative a revolution but concludes that this would only bring new prejudices; as a result,...