What is Enlightenment?

Samuel Fleischacker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135091576
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

"Have the courage to use your own understanding! - that is the motto of enlightenment." - Immanuel Kant

The Enlightenment is one of the most important and contested periods in the history of philosophy. The problems it addressed, such as the proper extent of individual freedom and the challenging of tradition, resonate as much today as when they were first debated. Of all philosophers, it is arguably Kant who took such questions most seriously, addressing them above all in his celebrated short essay, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?

In this engaging and lucid book, Samuel Fleischacker first explains and assesses Kant's philosophy of Enlightenment. He then considers critics of Kant's views - from Burke and Hegel to Horkheimer and Adorno - and figures he regards as having extended Kant's notion of enlightenment, such as Feuerbach, Marx, Habermas, Foucault, and Rawls.

Throughout, he demonstrates how Kant holds two distinct theories of enlightenment. On the one hand, Kant proposes a 'minimal' view, where to be enlightened is simply to engage in critical public discussion, allowing diversity of opinion to flourish. On the other, he argues that Kant elsewhere calls for a 'maximal' view of enlightenment, where, for example, an enlightened person cannot believe in a traditional religion. With great skill Fleischacker shows how these two views are taken in a multitude of directions by both critics and advocates of Kant's philosophy.

Arguing that Kant's minimal enlightenment is a precondition for a healthy proliferation of cultures, religious faiths and political movements, What is Enlightenment? is a fascinating introduction to a key aspect of Kant's thought and a compelling analysis of philosophical thinking about the Enlightenment. Including helpful chapter summaries and guides to further reading, it is ideal for anyone studying Kant or the philosophy of the Enlightenment, as well as those in related disciplines such as politics, history and religious studies.

Part I

KANT'S ENLIGHTENMENT

1 The official story

In 1712, Joseph Addison described the world as “enlightened by Learning and Philosophy.” Bishop Berkeley called his era an “enlightened age” in 1732, and David Hume contrasted “barbarous” with “enlightened ages” when he discussed reports of miracles in 1748. Hume also contrasted those who enlighten the world with religious figures like Thomas à Becket in his History of England, lamenting that “pretended saints” receive so much popular attention while enlighteners do not.¹

In all these cases, the words “enlighten” and “enlightened” are used to signify something that comes with learning, and contrasts with dogmatic religious belief. But we are not told much more about what they mean. They are not especially common in eighteenth-century Britain – I've given their only appearance in Hume's Enquiries and they don't appear at all in his Treatise or Dialogues on religion – and there is no extended discussion in the Anglophone world of what “enlightenment” might entail.² Nor did the French lumières or the Italian lumi engage in any real debate over what mental processes or political conditions made their learning possible.

That debate was left to German-speaking lands, where, in December 1783, two members of the “Wednesday Society,” a discussion group of intellectuals associated with the Berlinische Monatsschrift, challenged their peers to come up with a good definition of enlightenment. One member of the group, a theologian named Johan Friedrich Zöllner, wrote a piece on civil marriage ceremonies in the Berlinische Monatsschrift that included the following footnote: “What is enlightenment? This question, which is almost as important as what is truth, should indeed be answered before one begins enlightening! And still I have never found it answered.”³ Another member, a doctor named J.K.W. Möhsen, read a paper to the group in which he noted that its goal was “to enlighten ourselves and our fellow citizens,” and went on to propose, as part of a program for realizing that goal, “that it be determined precisely, What is enlightenment?”⁴

Zöllner and Möhsen were answered by a flood of articles, discussing everything from the mental faculties necessary for enlightenment to the relationship between enlightenment and happiness, religion, and freedom of the press.⁵ By far the most famous of these is the little piece by Kant called “What Is Enlightenment?” (WE), which appeared in the Berlinische Monatsschrift a year after Zöllner and Möhsen issued their challenge. Kant's essay is distinctive, among the responses to Zöllner and Möhsen, for the strong freedom of the press that it advocates (others thought that religious subjects should not be discussed too openly), for its individualism, and for the fact that it identifies enlightenment with a kind of act, rather than a kind of theory. (In a piece that appeared with the same title, in the same issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift, Moses Mendelssohn identified enlightenment with “theoretical matters” rather than practical ones, and saw it as instantiated in the sciences pursued by a society as a whole.⁶) Despite these ways in which Kant thereby differed from some of his peers, his piece has become an emblem of the entire Enlightenment, an essay by which students are introduced to the intellectual world of the eighteenth century.⁷ In some respects this is not unreasonable; Kant certainly seems to have been trying to grasp an ethos that he saw as characteristic of the period in which he lived. But we should bear in mind that he was also engaged in a polemical struggle with his peers to define the culture they shared. He was also writing in a very specific corner of the historical phenomenon we call today “the Enlightenment,” and responding to its specific challenges, not to those that faced intellectuals in, say, Edinburgh or Paris.⁸

What specific challenges did Kant face? Kant really wrote two essays in defense of enlightenment, the famous 1784 piece as well as “What Is Orientation in Thinking?” (WO), in 1786. At that time, the long reign of Frederick II, known as “Frederick the Great,” was drawing to a close, and the intellectual circles to which Kant belonged were worried about what might happen next. Frederick was beloved by intellectuals for the free rein he gave to scholarly discussion, but there was reason to fear that his likely successor would not follow him in this respect. The future FrederickWilliam II had joined a series of secret societies and was purported to believe that he had mystical visions; he was also close with a certain Johann Christof Wöllner who was known to have hopes of suppressing the open discussion of religion and “bringing back the … country to the faith of Jesus Christ.”⁹ And indeed, immediately after coming to the throne, Frederick William would appoint Wöllner to high position, Wöllner would attempt to shut down the public expression of heretical views, and Frederick William would use his personal conversations with Jesus as a basis for further restrictive policies.¹⁰ When Kant calls for the supreme importance of freedom of the pen, then, even in 1784 and especially in 1786, and when in 1786 he adds that being guided by personal religious experience can lead to the greatest of despotisms, we need to hear him as in large part trying to make a case for the policies of Frederick the Great, and warning his fellow intellectuals against encouraging the repressive tendencies in Frederick William. Kant was reluctant to write the 1786 piece, which required him to intervene in a dispute among friends, but was eventually convinced that he had to do it in order to help fend off the political threat looming on the horizon.¹¹

So much for historical background; let's turn now to the texts. What was enlightenment, for Kant? Kant's piece on the topic is extremely short, but it contains a number of different elements and it is worth making sure we are clear about them. I'd like to lay out five major themes of his famous essay, and then elaborate and defend three of them.

“Enlightenment,” Kant tells us in the opening line of the essay, “is the exit of human beings from their self-incurred immaturity.”¹² And at the end of the first paragraph, he says that “Dare to know!,” or “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is the watchword of enlightenment. So we have two themes right off the bat. First, the opposite of enlightenment is not a state of ignorance – a lack of information – but an emotional weakness, a state of immaturity; we cure this immaturity by taking responsibility for our own knowing, not by simply acquiring information.¹³ And second, our immaturity is self-incurred, and the way out of it is an act we must perform ourselves. Other people cannot enlighten us; we must enlighten ourselves. And we do that by “using our own understanding” – whatever exactly that means.

We should pause to note that this is not the most obvious view of enlightenment. Many other thinkers in Kant's time saw enlightenment as coming about when scientific knowledge is cultivated and used to solve chronic human problems, or when the baleful rule of priests, enslaving the population by way of superstition, is brought to an end.¹⁴ For Moses Mendelssohn, enlightenment consisted in theoretical knowledge, especially about religion.¹⁵ For Karl Reinhold, it lay in the clarification of concepts, especially “those concepts which have a considerable influence on human happiness.”¹⁶ Christian Daniel Erhard, writing a few years after Kant, held that enlightenment consists in “the abolition of prevailing prejudices and errors among individuals and … peoples.”¹⁷ Kant too thought that enlightenment will improve science and lead us away from prejudice and superstition, but it was the courage to use our own understanding, and not the improvement of science or the overcoming of prejudice and superstition, that he identified with enlightenment. It follows that he did not think people need the help of others, even scientific experts, to enter enlightenment – he regarded our reliance on others, including scientific experts, as precisely what keeps us from enlightenment – and he didn't blame others, even clerics, for our lack of enlightenment. People with a great deal of theoretical knowledge, or skill in clarifying concepts, or understanding of what makes for human happiness or underpins prejudice, might be the source of enlightenment for Mendelssohn and Reinhold and Erhard, but not for Kant. The source of enlightenment lies within each of us, for him, not in any set of scholars. He puts the onus on each of us for achieving enlightenment, and he blames us for the immaturity that blocks us from doing so. He implies, thereby, that enlightenment is within reach of everybody.¹⁸

What, now, is the immaturity that blocks enlightenment? Kant describes it as “the inability to use one's own understanding without the direction of another.” He attributes this condition to everyone who thinks “I have a book that understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who decides on my diet.” We should stop and wonder at this. Does Kant mean to say we should never rely on authority? Am I to figure out everything on my own, ignoring even my doctor's advice about diet? Surely not. But then what does Kant mean? Perhaps just that I must always stand ready to question my authorities, if what they say seems to me ill-considered or ill-informed. I need to have enough understanding of my own, and trust my understanding enough, that I can say, “This doctor seems to me a charlatan” in certain cases, and blame myself, rather than just the doctor, if I continue nevertheless to rely on him. Moreover, Kant's main point doesn't have to do with my attitude towards medical experts, or experts on other scientific matters. The pastor, not the doctor, is the main character in his list of examples. As we'll see, Kant is concerned above all with the way we rely on authorities in matters of religion – an arena where, he thinks, scientific knowledge is not available and relying on someone else's words is morally inappropriate.¹⁹

What about the second idea in Kant's opening line – that our immaturity is “self-incurred?” We are responsible, according to Kant, for the very unwillingness to question that makes us vulnerable to manipulation by authorities. Many other people, in Kant's own time and since, would rather blame those authorities for the threats and manipulative ways of teaching that make it difficult for people to think for themselves. Kant blames us for our own mental slavery. Why? Well, Kant's fundamental principle of morality is based on the idea that we are all free: we have the ability, at all times, to follow a law we lay down for ourselves, and not be led around by outside pressures. It follows that we bear responsibility even for the moments when we renounce our responsibility, that we can be regarded as having freely taken on even conditions by which we are mentally enslaved. We are wrong to do this, of course, but it is nevertheless something we do, not something that just happens to us. As applied to our failure to think for ourselves, the idea is that we ourselves attribute the aura of authority to others that enables them to shape our beliefs. Kant says in a later text that the public “surreptitiously attributes” a “magic power” to experts in medicine, law, and theology, regarding them as “miracle-workers” who will help them get what they want (CF, Ak 7:30–31). So we are the true source of the authority that others wield over us. If we but question that authority, it will disappear: we will see that there is nothing magical about experts, and that we have reason to rely on their authority only insofar as it is based on grounds we can accept. We will realize that we can and should see authority only in those to whom we freely grant it (which is to say: responsibly grant it), that we never have reason to accept another person's word blindly.²⁰

The third major point in the essay is a political one. Kant tells us that it is difficult for an individual to pull himself out of immaturity on his own – it is all too comfortable to recite “statutes and formulas” instead of thinking for ourselves – but that an entire society can move towards enlightenment if only it allows freedom of expression.²¹ Then the freedom of thought shown by some may inspire others to “throw … off the yoke of immaturity.”

And now, as Kant clarifies what he means by freedom of expression, he introduces what is probably the best-known element of the essay: a distinction between the private and the public use of reason. Everywhere we hear “Don't argue!,” he says. Officers in the military tell their soldiers not to argue with their orders; tax collectors say, “Don't argue; just pay!” (WE, Ak 8:36–37). Kant thinks that some sort of argument should be permissible in all these realms: even soldiers in the army should be allowed to raise doubts about the orders their officers issue. But they need not be permitted to raise those doubts when and where they receive their orders. We need to obey superiors in various spheres, even if we should be allowed to dispute their orders in the public realm. The realm of argument, of free debate, must be separated from the realm of obedience. Making use of a slightly odd understanding of the words “private” and “public,” Kant says that in one's private capacity – one's role in a specific job or other limited aspect of society – one may not always have a right to speak freely, but that one should always be allowed to do this when addressing the public: when writing or speaking as a “scholar.” Those who have an official role are required to carry out their duties in that role, Kant thinks, but he also calls for a realm of free public discussion in which they can criticize the duties assigned to them.

There is a great deal more to be said about this version of the public/private distinction, but before we get there, I want to add points (4) and (5) to the summary I have been giving of Kant's essay. The fourth point is that no church may fix its doctrines forever, binding future generations to accept without question the views it proclaims at one particular time. “One age cannot bind itself, and thus conspire to place the succeeding age in a situation in which it becomes impossible to broaden its knowledge” (WE, Ak 8:39). Even the unanimous consent of a church's members to such an arrangement would not make it legitimate: “[T]o renounce [enlightenment,” says Kant – to renounce the free questioning of dogmas – “is to wound and trample underfoot the holy rights of humanity.” Again we see that enlightenment is a moral act, for Kant – indeed a moral obligation. We also see that voluntary groups as well as the government can offend against this obligation, and that it cannot rightly be overridden even by communal consensus. It is, rather, a condition for any acceptable social contract, a condition without which no society can be seen as truly reflecting its members’ choices.

Which brings us to the fifth and final main thesis of the essay: the priority of intellectual over civic freedom. Governments should never forbid the free discussion of politics, says Kant. Such discussions are helpful to the government itself, as well as a condition for policies to be legitimate. Kant indicates that nothing more than public discussion is necessary, in the long run, to effect political change. Even absolute rulers, he thinks, will eventually reform everything in a constitution that needs reforming – including their own absolute powers – in the face of public criticism. Indeed, Kant suggests that it may be helpful to intellectual freedom if civic freedom is restrained for a while (WE, Ak 8:41–42). Then ideas can be played out without leading to rash political changes, and the people can come to mental maturity before they rule themselves.

I think there is a nugget of truth to Kant's separation of public discussion from practical politics, but I don't want to defend that separation here. Instead, I'd like to focus on what I think are the two core themes of the enlightenment essay: (1) that every human being has a duty to think for him or herself and not merely accept doctrines on authority, and (2) that this individual duty is interwoven in a complex way with a realm of ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I Kant’s enlightenment
• Part II Critics (I)
• Part III Maximalists
• Part IV Critics (II)
• Part V Minimalists
• Part VI Kantian Enlightenment Today
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index