“What is enlightenment?” Kant defines it as “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.” Self-incurred tutelage is because of laziness and is lack of courage. People are not dare to know and not dare to make use of their own reason but only slavishly obey the “guardians”, which chiefly in matters of religion instead of arts and sciences. I also have question about Kant’s “the guardians of the people (in spiritual things) should themselves be incompetent is an absurdity which amounts to the externalization of absurdities.” Compared with individuals, the public should enlighten itself more possibly, if only freedom is granted. Here, Kant uses a few sentences to explain why “the public can only slowly attain enlightenment.” I did not quite get why. Enlightenment requires a greater degree of freedom to make public use of one’s reason. That is, to be human, to argue as much as you will, to appreciate your worth, and to think for yourself. Human starts to see themselves, rather than gods or spirits. People should believe that guardianship could never be possible to shut off all further enlightenment.

If one wants himself or herself be enlightened, one must divest the human race of its tutelage and freely use his or her own light of reason. “Do we now live in an enlightened age?” I really like Kant’s answer. “No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment.” And I believe today we still live in an age of enlightenment, as we are still lacking critical thinking, are scared of challenging authorities, and are reluctant to argue why. For example, instead of thinking about how this mathematical formula forms, most students just automatically accept what the professor teaches and memorize how this formula works in those practice problems. Students are focus more on how to get a better grade on the exam rather than truly learning. I believe this is not what the education system wants to see.