What is Enlightenment?

Kant's answer to the question "what is enlightenment" finally brings the possibility of hope for change and escape from the status of docile bodies. In this essay, Kant defines enlightenment as "the human being's emergence from his self-incurred...inability to make use of one's own understanding without direction from another." This problem of minority (the label Kant assigns to this inability to use one's own independent understanding) is reminds me of the earlier discussions we had about the sexual repressive hypothesis and the incorporation of the confessional as a means of (what we thought to be) freedom. Instead of freeing us, however, this confessional only extended the methods of control and surveillance over us as we were subjected to the opinions and standards of others, then consoled for our mistakes, and given steps to approach the realm of sexual normality (this can be seen in the camps and techniques created to 'cure' homosexuals of their sexual 'deviance').

Here, Kant tells us that the only possibility for freedom is one based on individualized acceptance of "one's own worth", a concept very closely related to that of insurrection that I brought up earlier in the quarter. Saul Newman, a Professor of Philosophy at Boston college, interprets Foucault and philosopher Max Stirner, and discusses a similar idea as a method of achieving freedom. Specifically, Newman writes of Stirner's concept of 'ownness' - literally the Kantian idea of using your own reasoning/understanding without depending upon the evaluation of the surrounding society at large.

One interesting problem I encountered, however, was how to appreciate Kant's call for individuality when, in my own opinion, it directly conflicts with his notion of the Categorical Imperative, specifically the formula of universal law - i.e. that all values/maxims are moral only if they would produce beneficial results if universalized such that everyone could adopt and act upon them. It seems that Kant's discussion of enlightenment precludes this, because (as seen in his clergymen example) it would be even more impermissible for an individual, or group of individuals, to impose his/her own understanding upon another and therefore prevent the acceptance of the other's own understanding.

Interestingly enough, Newman's analysis directly incorporates this problem, as he says that the conception of ownness "is a form of freedom that goes beyond the categorical imperative. It is based on a notion of the self as a contingent and open field of possibilities, rather than on an absolute and dutiful adherence to external moral maxims." In other words, no maxim of morality would or should ever be universalized because it would subsequently infringe upon someone's own interpretation of what's moral. And, it seems that Kant agrees, for in the context of religion he says that "it is absolutely impermissible to agree, even for a single lifetime, to a permanent religious constitution not to be doubted publicly by anyone." This critique of permanent theological beliefs immune from personal interrogation can easily be applied to morality as a whole - with modern problems including civil liberties in the war on terror, torture, and the debate about homosexual marriages.