Immanuel Kant's Answer to The Question of Enlightenment

"Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!"- that is the motto of enlightenment." - Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? is a 1784 essay by German philosopher Immanuel Kant published in the December 1784 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift (Berlin Monthly), edited by Friedrich Gedike and Johann Erich Biester. In this essay Kant replied to the question posed a year earlier by Reverend Johann Friedrich Zöllner, who was also an official in the Prussian government.
Zöllner's question was addressed to a broad intellectual public community, in reply to Biester's essay entitled: "Proposal, not to engage the clergy any longer when marriages are conducted" (April 1783) and a number of leading intellectuals replied with essays, of which Kant's is the most famous and has had the most impact. Kant's opening paragraph of the essay is a much-cited definition of a lack of Enlightenment as people's inability to think for themselves due not to their lack of intellect, but lack of courage.

According to Kant, enlightenment was man’s release from “self-incurred tutelage.” Enlightenment was the process by which men could rid themselves of intellectual slavery after centuries of bondage. Men would achieve enlightenment only when they become free of intellectual guardianship, and learn to “dare to think”. Kant first provided reasons why this so called tutelage has occurred in the first place, then continues to describe the necessary requirements to achieve enlightenment.

Kant holds that this tutelage occurred because of many reasons and aspects, the first being laziness. Men found reason and the task of widening their knowledge somewhat cumbersome. Thus they found it easier and less burdensome to obey other men, especially ‘more intellectual’ men. Cowardice is tutelage’s second reason, thus even strengthening their laziness. Men in general preferred not to use reason, and think for themselves in fear of new ideas, and what that means for them and their societies. The third reason, which had a great effect on societies before, was the elite’s monopoly of knowledge, depriving ordinary people knowledge and proper education. By doing that, this selected few enriched the general public’s laziness and cowardice, in order to keep them from questioning anything major. They convinced the general public that their present society was good, and that venturing into new ideas and reasoning would bring harm to this good society. Kant’s final reason is complacency and blind obedience. Men were just like cattle, obeying the ideas of the elite, without any questioning or resisting the norm and shaking the status-quo.

After discussing the reasons behind this tutelage, Kant continues to explain the requirements for enlightenment. For Kant, freedom was the most important aspect. He held that one’s ability to express oneself freely and honestly was essential for enlightenment. When men start expressing their thoughts and opinions freely and without fear of any sort of punishment, reasoning and new ideas surface, which is paramount to enlightenment. In other words, freedom of speech is one of enlightenment’s pillars. Kant then goes on to explain his second point, which is that in order to have an enlightened public, the leaders should be enlightened. If the leader isn’t enlightened, he would not give people freedom to express themselves freely, and that would only encourage more laziness, cowardice, and blind obedience. In his essay, Kant concentrates on the monarch and his power by stating that, "his law giving authority rests on his uniting the general public will in his own." In other words the monarch’s commands and desires should be a representation of the people, their will, and their interests. He emphasizes that a republican government should comply with the will of its citizen and not forces them into blind and destructive obedience.

Although Kant states that monarchs abused their power and authority by depriving the public of education, and access to knowledge, and enforcing obedience and intellectual slavery, he blames the people for tutelage. Kant states again that enlightenment is men’s escape from their self-incurred tutelage. Only when men rid themselves from intellectual bondage and blind obedience, will they find true enlightenment, and this is still relevant to this day.