Summary
Kant begins his essay with a straightforward definition of enlightenment: it is mankind’s exit from immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance. Enlightenment, in other words, is thinking for oneself and no longer blindly following others’ beliefs. He explains that such immaturity is self-caused. It is not caused by a lack of capacity, but by cowardice. People stay in a state of immaturity because they are afraid to think independently. Kant suggests a motto for enlightenment: "Sapere Aude!" (“Have the courage to use your own understanding!”). It calls for people to stop fearing their own understanding.
Kant then elaborates on the two hindrances of enlightenment—laziness and cowardice. He mentions that people innately have the capacity to mature, but that they nonetheless lock themselves in a state of ignorance, because it’s so much easier to be immature. For instance, if an external authority—be it a book, a religious leader, or a doctor—makes decisions for someone, then there’s no need for that person to think or take responsibility. Because many people find it comfortable to let others think for them, it makes it easy for guardians (social authorities) to control them. The guardians like to exploit public ignorance. They ensure that the majority of people, including women, view autonomy as both challenging and dangerous. Kant illustrates this point using the analogy of domestic livestock. The owners make sure that the livestock don’t know how to walk alone, and are afraid to do so.
Kant goes on to discuss three possible routes for achieving enlightenment. The first one requires each person to overcome immaturity on their own. Kant doesn’t think it’s likely. The supposed danger of maturity deters many from even trying. Not only are people scared of maturity, but they grow fond of dependence. They don’t even try to jump over “the smallest ditch.” As a result, only a handful of people have managed to enlighten themselves. Since it is hard for people to break free from immaturity alone, it’s unlikely to achieve enlightenment through personal effort. Kant compares the obstacles to individual enlightenment to shackles that keep people from reaching their potential.
The second route is through rebellion against the guardians. Kant believes that while revolutions can end restrictions on independent thinking, they don't necessarily change entrenched patterns of thinking. In this case, old biases will simply be replaced by new ones.
After warning against these two ill-advised routes to enlightenment, Kant points to a third path. Unlike the first path, this third path involves collective enlightenment, which is more viable. Unlike the second path, which promotes a quick but unsatisfying fix, the third path promises a gradual and complete achievement of enlightenment. To identify this route, Kant says we must determine what sort of restrictions hinder enlightenment and what sort facilitate it.
While discussing the third route, Kant briefly mentions the possibility of guardians having a positive impact on enlightenment. Once the public is given freedom, there will be some independent thinkers even among those who control the masses. And once these guardians themselves are enlightened, they will encourage the populace to value independent thought. In this way, the guardians can actually set enlightenment in motion.
Analysis
The essay “What is Enlightenment?” is itself enlightened. It relies on unaided understanding and doesn’t appeal to authorities. In the essay, enlightenment seeks to understand itself, to figure out what it is, what it looks like, what hinders it, and how it is achieved. We see reason turning upon itself, trying to understand its own essence and limits. This resonates with what Kant wrote in the Critique of Pure Reason, where he says that “reason must subject itself to critique in all its undertakings.” This element of self-reflection is also shared by the Enlightenment movement. In answering the question “What is Enlightenment?”, Kant exclusively uses his own reason. As philosopher Antoon Braeckman has commented, by publishing a comprehensible essay without philosophical jargon in a non-specialized journal, Berlinische Monatsschrift, Kant addresses the public and speaks up about social issues freely.
When the essay was published in 1784, the Enlightenment era was near its end (Voltaire had just passed away). Instead of serving as a catalyst, the essay appears more as a product of the Enlightenment. As such, it presents features that the movement advocates for, such as self-reflection. Written near the end of the movement, the essay strives to clarify the philosophical meaning of the Enlightenment, looking back on what it was and what it aimed to accomplish. Kant defines enlightenment as independent thinking that rejects the blind acceptance of external sources. This seems to relate enlightenment to the verification of knowledge, which cannot appeal to extant authorities to ground itself. This idea that humans can comprehend the world and verify their knowledge can be seen as an outgrowth of the Scientific Revolution, which took place before the Enlightenment era. The Scientific Revolution introduced a new type of thinking, in which knowledge could be examined and tested. In Kant’s philosophy of enlightenment, thinking is similarly independent of traditional sources and open to scrutiny.
Stressing intellectual independence, Kant argues that enlightenment occurs when human beings recognize their own autonomy. This can be seen as a sequel to Renaissance humanism, a philosophical stance that values human agency over divine beings. By promoting the autonomous use of reason, the essay gives primacy to human experience and understanding over any supposedly transcendent source of knowledge.
