Enlightenment

2 thoughts on “Enlightenment”

1. Honestly, I believe that this is one more the most interesting pieces I have read even tho some of the language by Kant is hard to understand. I would like to discuss some of the ideas that are bought up by the book and their main ideas.

   Enlightenment is defined, by Norton Anthology, through several definitions. Some of these definitions that stood out to me, personally, are two definitions from Samuel Jackson: 1. to illuminate; to supply with light 2. To instruct; to furnish with increase of knowledge. The one that really grasped by attention was the definition by Immanual Kant: “Enlightenment is a man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.” I googled tutelage, and it means to have authority over something or someone. Through those definitions, i came to summarize that enlightenment is the expansion of knowledge through the release of authority over someone. In my opinion, it makes sense; we are all tied down to some sort of “imprisonment” through the so call “protector” of some kind of force. If we are able to release ourselves, and have the freedom, we are able to reason things through science and logic.

   Kant believes that people that are not enlightened because they have not released themselves from self-incurred tutelage. It makes a lot of sense because people back then had always followed the church and did it without question. Their obligations and intentions were placed because of their duty to the church. Thus, it makes it so that it doesn’t allow freedom for the religious figures. He says, “Therefore, there are only few who have succeeded by their own exercise of mind both freeing themselves from incompetence and in achieving a steady pace.” and “The public use of one’s reason must always be free and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men” (Kant, 106).

   Connecting it to today, I believe that one reason for success for so many people is how they “dare to think for himself…trampling on prejudice, tradition, conventional wisdom authority in a world, all that enslaves most minds” (NA, Enlightenment, 101).

   David Hume’s work also appeal to me in some degree; he says “reject every system…however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation” (Hume, 129). He talks about slavery and how “the more the master is removed from us in place and trans, the greater liberty we enjoy; the less are our actions inspected and controlled” (Hume, 130).

   Overall, I agree with the main aspects of the reading. The question I leave with my classmate and professor is how do YOU guys react to the reading?

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2. Rene Descartes’ purpose in The Discourse on Method was to derive how we, human beings, find the truth. In doing so, he created a criterion. The first is never assuming anything to be true until there is absolutely no doubt. The second is to break down every truth into smaller and smaller pieces and the third is to build upon each of these pieces. The last is to examine everything until there is nothing left out in the truth.

   In this approach, he questions everything in his mind and concluded most of them as false. So then he started from scratch (not the fastest way) and found that the only truth left is mathematics. But this left him feeling that it can’t be foundation of human thought since not everyone has this knowledge. There had to be something even more so he questioned how he derived at these truths.

   Descartes establishes that his thoughts and doubts of “truth” indicate that he has the ability to think and his famous quote, “I think, therefore I am”, came to be the first principle. Furthermore, the thought to doubt everything had to have come from somewhere else. He explained that perfection must exist because this thought derived from something more perfect beyond him. Thus, it must mean that some perfect being, God, must have put this in his mind.

   The thought process became confusing because of how he jumped from using reason to find undeniable truths to believing God as the perfect being who created everything. He ignored the four criterions. How can God be undeniable if he isn’t seen with our own senses? Is God the perfect being that allowed Descartes to derive this thought or is there something else?

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