Tag Archives: courage

Blog Post #1 – Enlightenment

Posted on by

Hello, everyone! My name is Erick Cumbe and it’s my first semester at Baruch College as a transfer student. I actually went to City College but decided to come into Baruch since it’s a business school and I want to major in Finance. I never imagined doing such a drastic change but now that I’m here, I couldn’t be any happier and I hope that everything goes well.

After reading Immanuel Kant’s response to “What is Enlightenment?”, I took it as Kant basically saying that Enlightenment is when a human being reaches a full level of maturity, or in other words, someone who grows up and makes decisions on his/her own. For example, a child, for instance, hasn’t gone through enlightenment because he/she still needs one’s assistance. In this case, they will need their parents to eat, to bathe, or to even just go to the park. If you think about it their parents, think and speak for them because they decide what their child should do. This means that a child doesn’t have their own voice when it comes to actually controlling his/her life. On the other hand, someone who is older perhaps an independent adult probably does manage to reach enlightenment because he/she doesn’t depend on others. Which means that they’ve reached a level of maturity to actually think on their own and make their own decisions, which in my opinion is what Kant meant when he said to “Have courage to use your own understanding!” (Enlightenment 1).

Through Kant’s response, he mentions many reasons why people never reach a certain level of maturity. The one that stood out to me the most is when he mentions that people stay immature because they can be cowards. Although it sounds mean, I do agree with this statement because it doesn’t matter what you do in life you always have to have the courage to take that first step and actually do it. Many people don’t and it’s not because they’re necessarily scared about the situation but because they’re afraid of being judged. For example, trends that happen nowadays because of social media and the internet, there will always be those people who instantly jump on it because they are cowards in my opinion. People like these just follow the trends just to be cool or on top of things but they never really developed a voice of their own because they’re being nothing but a follower, instead of a leader. That’s why I agree with Kant because in situations like these it proves one way that people can be immature.

In all honesty, I believe that we don’t live in an enlightenment age, I don’t think we ever will because it’s simply not possible. If we follow the definition that Kant gave about actually reaching enlightenment it’ll mean that we can’t ask for help or that we shouldn’t let anyone speak for us. For example, in the business field, you could be the most courageous person and always voice out your opinion but you wouldn’t do that towards your boss because you’ll end up without a job. I also believe that you can’t go through your entire life without asking for help, everyone needs help in life sooner or later. In my opinion, the definition of enlightenment should be “when one takes charge of their own life and isn’t afraid of receiving help.”

Post 1- Introduction & Enlightenment

Posted on by

Hello everyone! By way of introduction, I’m a sophomore currently studying economics. I spend a lot of time learning as much as I can about the interesting mix of politics and business, and always enjoy hearing people’s perspectives on world issues. I enjoy traveling and have a huge interest in aviation.

Immanuel Kant suggests that enlightenment is achieved when members of society are able to think for themselves and make their own choices. In his ideal world of enlightenment, people are not subject to the thoughts of a certain few, and can enjoy the freedom that comes with living in a way that seems to be most meaningful to them.  In explaining the methods behind his ideas, Kant breaks the idea of enlightenment into two separate worlds- enlightenment on the personal level, and enlightenment on the public level. As the name suggests, for Kant, public enlightenment involves all of the citizens as a group adapting to new, better ways of completing tasks. Unlike in his personal perspective, with regards to public enlightenment, people rely on their human nature when discovering new methods. They don’t explicitly realize that they are advancing, and tend to not be able to avoid the inevitable continuation of human progression. Personal enlightenment on the other hand, is a bit more problematic and is explained to be more difficult to achieve mainly because individuals must make decisions based off of their own thoughts. Doing so can be difficult as they part ways with the comforts associated with following the decisions made by a select few, and must now face the negative consequences of being accountable for their own actions.

Based off of the ideas brought by Kant, I do not feel as if the world we live in is at a point of enlightenment. On the personal level, enlightenment requires people to be comfortable with their own thoughts, and as Kant says: “have courage to use your own understanding!” In today’s world, people are often most concerned with fitting in and being accepted by society and as a result, tend to put their own ideas aside. In doing so, they are not able to live a life of ‘freedom’ and must always subject themselves to the constantly evolving new norms.  When thinking about society at large, while we may be at a closer point to enlightenment when compared to on the personal level, much of our current innovation is often subjected to the approval of some form of a regulator. We are able to extend our knowledge, however we are always forced to do our best to fit our ideas and findings into what will satisfy the requirements of certain institutions. However, the fact that we are indeed allowed to think for ourselves, and come up with updated methods proves that we are at a point of ’emerging’ enlightenment. While we are currently not in an enlightened era, we are most certainly moving in the direction to coming to as close to such a time as ever before.