A presentation of Kant's idea for enlightenment process that was happening at that time. I try to be objective as it is needed to give a thorough explanation for what was the main subject in this process. Kant explains the main idea of enlightenment and describes it with examples for which stands descriptive and understandable for that period

Millo, Florian

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A brief explanation of Kant’s Enlightenment articleFlorian Millo*AbstractA presentation of Kant’s idea for enlightenment process that was happening at that time. Itry to be objective as it is needed to give a thorough explanation for what was the main subjectin this process. Kant explains the main idea of enlightenment and describes it with examples forwhich stands descriptive and understandable for that period.*florian.millo@u-psud.frUniversite Paris-Saclay, Department of Physics1 IntroductionThe problem of 18th-Century was deep insideman’s mind, laziness, cowardice, immaturity. InKant’s paper, he starts the opening paragraphwith a sentence.Enlightenment is man’s emergence fromhis self-imposed immaturity. [1]What can we understand from this sentence?First let’s say that we see enlightenment as man’semergence, then what is the next process to takeplace?Many philosopher prefer to call enlightenmentas multiple enlightements, as there were a lot ofcontributions from others fields that illuminatedgenerations.One of Kant’s preferred philosopher was JeanJacque Rousseau and his main work was SocialContract, which was a thorough study of polit-ical and moral philosophy that motivated Kantto write on enlightenment.2 Understanding sentencesOne of keywords in Kant’s paper is immaturity.When he says - ”Immaturity is the inabilityto use one’s understanding without guid-ance from another”, he is talking about lazi-ness.Is important the fact that immaturity is deeplyrelated with laziness. One can say, no, for whichnone has an argument.The man has to use his mind to understandthings by himself and by a guidance that doesnot requires any third parties.A good example of this was so called ”Motto ofEnlightenment” - Dare to know!.....A line takenfrom Horace’s Epode - ’Sapere Aude!’Next, I present a paragraph that is known to bea good example, it follows:-”If I have a bookto serve as my understanding, a pastor toserver as my consience, a physician to de-termine my diet for me, .... , I need notexert myself at all”In this example, Kant tells us that laziness hadsorrounded everyone back then and everyonecould not do anything without help from otherparts of society. Thus, my understanding fol-lows, if individual would work out to help their-selves, immaturity would become mature andnever existed. Why immaturity existed? Is iteven important?Rules and formulas, those mechanical aidsto the rational use, or rather misuse, of hisnatural gifts, are the shackles of a perma-nent immaturity.Comment: One should free himself from imma-turity and pursue a secure course.Kant argues that freedom of thinking isthe key problem and not all had it. Free-dom is the least harmful of all, and thefreedom to use our reason publicly in allmatters.Kant heard in all his sides: “Do not argue!”The officer says, “Do not argue, drill!”The tax man says, “Do not argue, pay!”The pastor says, “Do not argue, believe!.Comment: There were many restrictions backthen, because of man’s immaturity. All obeyedand with no protest. Checking all the chronol-ogy and what was the main problem, Kant de-duced an answer for that:-”The use of man’s rea-son must always be free, and it alone can brindout enlightenment among mans”Question: Which reason, private or public?Kant then defines two uses of reason:1st: Public use of reason - The use that everyoneas a scholar makes of reason.2nd: Private use of reason - The use for which1a person may make in a civic post or office thathas been trusted him.Comment: We have to understand, reason mustbe carefully used, because when it is used wrongin wrong places, one can call it a mistake butone can use it from his immaturity.Later on, Kant explains that we do not live inan enlightenment age but in an age of enlighten-ment.He then puts religion to present his main points,as for, Manner of thinking, Spiritual Freedom,Dignity.In the end Kant concludes that nature caresabout religions principles applied to us, and thusthey must be in accordance to principles of gov-ernment, thus being in accord with people’s dig-nity.Peoples must raise their spirit for freedom andthe free of speach is one main thing, we shoulddo.Dignity must agree with these principles, other-wise you need to change!As presenting these principles, we should have inmind Knowledge and Reason.Knowledge is important and as an archive of ourbrain, we must use it in different situations andto solve them. Theories of Knowledge explainsthat laziness and cowardice comes because onecan not use his knowledge to finish what onewants and to do what one needs.AcknowledgementI thank Prof. Ted Humphrey for the good trans-lation that he did, for which was a good sourcefor me.References[1] An Answer to the Question: What is En-lightenment? IMMANUEL KANT. Trans-lation by Ted Humphrey[2] An Answer to the Question: What is Enlight-enment? 1784. Immanuel Kant[3] ImageOther Works:[4] Observation of high-energy astro-physical neutrinos in three years ofIceCube Data Florian Millo[5] High Velocity Cloud Analysis inHI4PI Data Florian Millo[6] γ − β Spectrometry of 207 BiFlorian Millo2

A brief explanation of Kant's Enlightenment article

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A brief explanation of Kant's Enlightenment article

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