Similarities Between Kant And The Enlightenment

According to Kant Enlightenment is defined as the ability to understand the world without the direction from another. Kant believed that people bring about their own “intellectual darkness” because they do not have the courage to think for themselves. To become Enlightened requires strength and courage to go against the intellectual norms (which during the time of the Enlightenment was the Catholic church). For most people it was easier to have the church dictate to them what was true and what was not. The Pope has direct communication with God thus what he says must come from God and must be true. However, centuries of scandals, controversies, and violence all leading to the Reformation which made people wonder whether the church was of God

or of men. Thus Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant wanted people to think for themselves and to not blindly follow the church.

Kant stated in his essay, “Have the courage to use your own reason!” which is the motto of the enlightenment. Kant went against the notion of blindly following prescribed church dogma and he also challenged the widely accepted concept that men were machines. This philosophy originated from the British Empiricists and the French Sensationalists who believed that human behavior was governed by the laws of nature. They concluded that man is a machine and thus free will was only an

illusion. However, Kant believed in some sort of free will because it is our choice to think for ourselves.

We bring upon ourselves “intellectual darkness” by blindly following prescribed church dogma, similarly we become enlightened when we have the courage to think for ourselves. All of these situations involve a choice, or in other words free will. Kant was revolutionary in his time by believing that humans have the power to think for themselves and that we are more then machines controlled by the laws of nature. Kant talking about free will states, “it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.” Kant believed that men are machines when they do not think for themselves. He would equate the church or government (anything in which people surrender their freedom of thought) to the laws of nature and that when men surrender their freedom of thought they merely become a cog in a giant machine controlled by these powerful organizations. Kant calls for a rebellion against against these giant organizations and demand that people do not simply surrender that in which they only have to give—their reason. However, according to Kant society can only achieve enlightenment

slowly. Kant states, “A revolution may well bring about a falling off of personal despotism and of avaricious or tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform in one’s way of thinking; instead new prejudices will serve just as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.” Kant believes that a revolution may overthrow the “masters” of the current intellectual paradigm, but that people will replace old prejudices for new ones. People who were not enlightened (Kant called them the great unthinking masses) were not ready for a revolution thus they do not know what to do with their new found freedom. These “great unthinking masses” will give their freedom of thought to a new intellectual paradigm. According to Kant they fell back into slavery only this time by a different hand. I believe that a rebellion against the past is necessary for change to occur only if past beliefs restrict peoples free will. For example, our nations rebellion against slavery was justified because slavery restricted free will. I believe that revolutions must also be slow to avoid the creation of a new paradigm that will restrict the freedom of “the great unthinking masses.” Ultimately, I believe in Kants passion for freedom of choice and freedom of thought. We must awaken from our intellectual slumber and “have the courage to use [our] own reason.”