Immanuel Kant

 

Immanuel Kant's essay "What is Enlightenment?"–explores the use of public and private reason; in the essay's context, public and private reason, for Immanuel Kant, is, " Argue as much as you will and about what you will; only obey!" At first, it seems peculiar, but I will explain this controversial statement. I will argue how Kant uses the term “scholar” in cross-reference to the military officer. I think the reason for that term is that Kant makes an analogous argument with that of a scholar who addresses the public with their writings in the proper sense to argue but will not cause any actual harm. Hence, the military officer, the citizen, and the clergy can do the same without harming the affairs assigned to them as passive members. The basic idea is to clarify between public and private use of reason for Kant, which is central for him so that the individual can be an enlightened thinker. But I will first answer the question, what is the motto of Enlightenment? Then, I will define how he defines “minority” in his essay. Third, I will explain the two terms, private and public use of reason, and what these two notions have to do with enlightenment. Then, I will use evidence from the text to back up what I have described at first, but I will add another term that Kant used: "scholar," and I explain the importance of public and private use of reason.

    The concept of public and private is widely familiar, but before getting into public and private use, for Kant, I think we need to answer the question, what is the motto of Enlightenment? So for him is not being self-incurred as the cause, not in the absence of understanding, but the lack of firm decisions to be courageous and without direction. The minority takes comfort in being a minor because those minors are too lazy and cowardly to think for themselves, subscribing to a natural state. Furthermore, his point is the comfort of being one (minority) because it is challenging to extract from not being a minor that is now natural for him. So, one's version of self-incurred dares to understand, which is then courageous, is the enlightenment motto. As I have explained, for Immanuel Kant, being a minor is a comfort state. Also, because of its simplicity, setting up a guardian for yourself is a simple mechanism. I mean, for example, as a person, we need not think if one has a doctor because that doctor will think for the individual, the doctor will decide for the person, and so forth. The doctor takes on the guardian role by supervising the minor (patient); as a doctor, it is then a step toward the majority over the person (minority). This step is highly dangerous for Kant. The majority then works its way to dumb the minority and prevents the person from thinking for himself; with fear, the majority will threaten the minor not to think alone if the minor attempts to do such action. Using fear and intimidation, the minor remains stagnant and without the ability to think as a person. So, Kant then finds it a problem which is difficult to extract oneself because it is now nature. It would be easy for someone to regard himself as an independent thinker aligning with "freedom." However, as vocational, private use of reason takes on that task as a person. Kant then gives three examples who engages in private reason: (1) a soldier following an order from his superior, (2) a citizen paying a tax levy, and (3) a clergyman instructing a student.

The commonwealth uses private reason as that of a passive mind to behave passively, being directed by someone or an entity for public ends meet. One must then obey as far as being part of the machine acting as a passive member. However, to criticize the use of taxes or the soldier criticizing their superior, public reason is then used. Kant then gives another example of a pastor following the church's obligations in prayer and procedure, but if the pastor finds a problem. The pastor can publicly criticize the issue but privately follow the church's guidelines. Thus, public reason is then the passive mind to use one's reason in all subject matters. Public reason is the act of engagement so that the enlightenment age will come forward. The self-incurred minority works its way out of atrocity by using private and public reason for such matters to make it deem to the public. By a few independent thinkers, the people must enlighten themselves, scatter the spirit of one's own valuing, and put under the yoke of that guardianship without another's guidance. Because of these two uses of reason, it then grows into the world fostering publicly for improvement upon the political and moral landscape. That is the focal point of the Enlightenment.

As I described earlier, the motto for Enlightenment is one’s willingness to have the courage to make use of understanding. “Have courage to make use of your own understanding! Is thus the motto of enlightenment.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) Crucial to Kant is that of the minority’s inability to make use of one’s own use of understanding. “Minority is inability to make use of one’s own understanding without direction from another. This minority is self-incurred when its causes lies not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant). Minorities are those who take comfort in not thinking! Because humans take part in laziness and cowardice, they remain to be a minor, difficult to extract because it is assumed as a natural state. “It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of humankind, after nature has long since emancipated them from other people’s direction, nevertheless gladly remains minors for life, and that it becomes so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor!” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) Those guardians then work their way to become the majority by cultivating dullness among the minority. If the minority dares to think for themselves, the use of fear and intimidation will prevent them from taking such action. “Should hold the step toward majority to be not only troublesome but also highly dangerous will soon be seen to by those guardians who have kindly taken it upon themselves to supervise them; after they have made their domesticated animals dumb and carefully prevented these placid creatures from daring to take a single step without the walking cart in which they have confined them, they then show them the danger that threaten them if they try to walk alone.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) Therefore, it is a chain of everlasting minority, but only a few have succeeded in extracting themselves from the minority. So, public use of reason must always be free; public reason, by its use alone, can bring Enlightenment among the public. Constantly, private use of reason restricts and hinders the Enlightenment's progress because private reason is doing another's commission. “The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among human beings; the private use of one’s reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted without this particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant)

As I described earlier, Kant called the private reason to those that take on a task entrusted to him, being directed by someone or an entity for a purpose. One must then obey as part of the machine acting as a passive member. “What I call the private use of reason is that which one may make of it in a certain civil post or office with which he is entrusted. Now, for many affairs conducted in the interest of a commonwealth a certain mechanism is necessary, by means of which some members of the commonwealth must behave merely passively, so as to be directed by the government, through an artful unanimity, to public ends (or at least prevented from destroying such ends). Here it is, certainly, impermissible to argue; instead, one must obey.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) As I have given examples from Kant's text to brief his point between private and public reason, the officer who receives an order from his superior engages in the public use of reason when criticizing the military service for its errors to make them public. When on duty, the officers must obey the orders from their superiors, which is utilizing private use of reason. The citizen cannot refuse to pay taxes imposed on him because he can be punished if the individual refuses. But the citizen can engage in public reason to express their injustices of those taxes imposed by the tax levy. The same goes for the clergy. The clergy must give lectures to the class in accordance with the church. Because the church hires a clergy and under these conditions, it is the duty of the clergy.

Here is where I will present my argument with the term “scholar” who addresses the public with their writings. In addition, the military officer, the citizen, and the clergy can do the same without harming the affairs assigned to them as a passive member. “and so in his capacity of a scholar who by his writings addresses a public in the proper sense of the word, he can certainly argue without thereby harming the affairs assigned to him in part as a passive member. Thus it would ruinous if an officer, receiving an order from his superiors, wanted while on duty to engage openly in subtle reasoning about its appropriateness or utility; he must obey. But he cannot fairly be prevented, as a scholar, from making remarks about errors in the military service and from putting these before his public for appraisal.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) But Kant recognized that an appointed official cannot be entirely free because that official is carrying out another's commission; it then limits the freedom of the official. If the clergy believes, he found contradictions in the church's teachings, the clergy will need to resign because his conscience would not allow him to hold his position any longer. Hence, the instruction to the congregation is then a private use of reason. But on the contrary, the scholar enjoys unrestricted freedom to use his own reason. As a scholar, he speaks to the public through its written words, the clergy can talk to the people by utilizing public use of reason with unrestricted freedom.” For if he believed he had found the latter in them, he could not in conscience hold his office; he would have to resign from it. Thus the use that an appointed teacher makes of his reason before his congregation is merely a private use; for a congregation, however large a gathering it may be, is still only a domestic gathering; and with respect to it he, as a priest, is not and cannot be free, since he is carrying out another’s commission. On the other hand as a scholar, who by his writings speaks to the public in the strict sense, that is, the world – hence a clergyman in the public use of his reason – he enjoys an unrestricted freedom to make use of his own reason and to speak in his own person. For that the guardians of the people (in spiritual matters) should themselves be minors is an absurdity that amounts to the perpetuation of absurdities.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) The private and public use of reason is central to enlightenment thinking. The self-incurred minority then arises to take positions to use their understanding and confidence. The spirit of freedom as I have described earlier is spreading abroad. “This spirit of freedom is also spreading abroad, even where it has to struggle with external obstacles of a government which misunderstands itself. I have put the main point of enlightenment, of people's emergence from their self-incurred minority, chiefly in matters of religion because our rulers have no interest in playing guardian over their subjects with respect to the arts and sciences and also because that minority being the most harmful, is also the most disgraceful of all…” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant) As a free independent thinker, he is, therefore, not afraid to think freely in order to pave the way to freedom and into action. I will finish with a piece of his essay, which I think is great to close out this writing piece.

I first answered the question, what is the motto of Enlightenment? Then, I explained how Kant termed "minority." Third, I explained the two terms—private and public use of reason and what these two notions have to do with enlightenment thinking. Then, I have used evidence from the text to back up what I have described at first. Finally, I added another term that Kant used, "scholar," and explained the importance of public and private use of reason according to enlightenment thinking.

“The spirit of liberty roams, providing space to expand to its full capacity working its way into government and morals. Thus when nature has unwrapped, from under this hard shell, the seed for which she cares most tenderly, namely the propensity and calling to think freely, the latter gradually works back upon the mentality of the people (which thereby gradually becomes capable of freedom in acting) and eventually even upon the principles of government, which finds it profitable to itself to treat the human being, who is now more than a machine, in keeping with his dignity.” (What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant)