

Summary: “Enlightenment is humanity’s emergence from self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance.” This is near impossible for the individual to achieve, but if we do not violate human nature by actively holding them back, enlightenment of the public is inevitable. In certain roles, humans ought to obey, but outside them they shall be free to publicly criticise everything. And only in doing so one can perfect the skill. Government shall not supervise this, even the laws themselves shall be open to criticism. But, paradoxically, civic order may restrict total freedom in order to allow for its full potential to flourish. Finally, once the people are fully capable of freedom, they will cease to be machines, and be treated with dignity.

Source: Immanuel Kant (1784) Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? Published in Berlinische Monatsschrift, December 1784.



(Full text at columbia.edu, English) (German original at wikisource.org)

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