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1、An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?Written by Immanuel Kant Narrated by Michael Scott Produced by ThoughtA Konigsberg in Prussia, 30th September, 1784Enlightenment is mans release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is mans inability to make use of his understanding without direc
2、tion 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. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons w
3、hy so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book whi
4、ch understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me. That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far great
5、er portion of mankind (and by the entire fair sex) - quite apart from its being arduous is seen to by those guardians who have so kindly assumed superintendence over them.After the guardians have first made their domestic cattle dumb and have made sure that these placid creatures will not dare take
6、a single step without the harness of the cart to which they are tethered, the guardians then show them the danger which threatens if they try to go alone. Actually, however, this danger is not so great, for by falling a few times they would finally learn to walk alone. But an example of this failure
7、 makes them timid and ordinarily frightens them away from all further trials. For any single individual to work himself out of the life under tutelage which has become almost his nature is very difficult. He has come to be fond of his state, and he is for the present really incapable of making use o
8、f his reason, for no one has ever let him try it out. Statutes and formulas, those mechanical tools of the rational employment or rather misemployment of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting tutelage. Whoever throws them off makes only an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch becau
9、se he is not accustomed to that kind of free motion. Therefore, there are few who have succeeded by their own exercise of mind both in freeing themselves from incompetence and in achieving a steady pace.But that the public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed, if only freedom is granted
10、enlightenment is almost sure to follow. For there will always be some independent thinkers, even among the established guardians of the great masses, who, after throwing off the yoke of tutelage from their own shoulders, will disseminate the spirit of the rational appreciation of both their own wort
11、h and every mans vocation for thinking for himself.But be it noted that the public, which has first been brought under this yoke by their guardians, forces the guardians themselves to remain bound when it is incited to do so by some of the guardians who are themselves capable of some enlightenment -
12、 so harmful is it to implant prejudices, for they later take vengeance on their cultivators or on their descendants. Thus the public can only slowly attain enlightenment. Perhaps a fall of personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be accomplished by revolution, but never a tru
13、e reform in ways of thinking. Farther, new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedo
14、m to make public use of ones reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, Do not argue! The Officer says: Do not argue but drill! The tax collector: Do not argue but pay! The cleric: Do not argue but believe! Only one prince in the world says, Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, b
15、ut obey! Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.Which restriction is an obstacle to enlightenment, and which is not an obstacle but a promoter of it? I answer: The public use of ones reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private use of reason, on t
16、he other hand, may often be very narrowly restricted without particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public use of ones reason I understand the use which a person makes of it as a scholar before the reading public.Private use I call that which one may make of it in a particular civil post or office which is entrusted to him. Many affairs which are conducted in the interest of the community require a certain mechanism through which
