An answer to the question:

What is enlightenment?
 Introduaion

Since the eighteenth century was the "Age ofEnlightenment," it was appro-
priate to ask "What is Enlightenment?" Kant's answer to the question
appeared in the December I 7 84 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift. As his
concluding note indicates, the September issue, which Kant had not yet
received, contained an essay on the same topic by Moses Mendelssohn.
The occasion for both replies to the question could have been an essay in
the December 1783 issue, "Is It Advisable to Sanction Marriage through
Religion?" by Johann Friedrich Zollner, which contained the passage
"What is Enlightenment? The question, which is almost as important as the
question What is truth?, should be answered before one begins to enlighten
others. And yet I have never found it answered anywhere."
As might be expected, Kant's answer and Mendelssohn's were not in
agreement. Consistently with his eudaimonism, Mendelssohn had located
enlightenment in the cultivation of what Kant would call the theoretical,
as distinguished from the practical, use of one's intellectual powers. To
this extent, Kant's reply to Garve in "Theory and Practice" would serve
against Mendelssohn as well.
Kant's insistence upon freedom of the press, in the present context as
the instrument of enlightenment, reappears in virtually all his political
writings. A number of points introduced here - Kant's distinction be-
tween the public and the private use of reason, his principles of scriptural
exegesis, his views about what kind of sect a government could sanction
consistently with its own interest - were elaborated in a treatise written in
I 794, which had to be withheld from publication because of the repres-
sive measures of Frederick the Great's nephew and successor. In 1798,
after the death of Frederick William II, it was published as Part I of The
Conjiia of the Faculties.

13
An answer to the question:
What is enlightenment?
⽆法⾃我动⽤理性是社会的⾃我束缚
指导者（掌权者）在动⽤理性的⾃我性上添加了恐惧感，从⽽维持了位⾼权重的地位

Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his self-incu"ed minority. • 8:35
Minority is inability to make use of one's own understanding without
direction from another. This minority is self-incu"ed when its cause lies
not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolution and courage to use it
without direction from another. Sapere aude!b Have courage to make use of
your own understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment.
It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of human-
kind, after nature has long since emancipated them from other people's
direction (natura/iter maiorennes), 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! If I have a book that
understands for me, a spiritual advisor who has a conscience for me, a
doctor who decides' upon a regimen for me, and so forth, I need not
trouble myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay; others will readily
undertake the irksome business for me. That by far the greatest part of
humankind (including the entire fair sex) 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 carte in which they have confined them, they then
show them the danger that threatens them if they try to walk alone. Now
this danger is not in fact so great, for by a few falls they would eventually
learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes them timid and usually 8:36
frightens them away from any further attempt.
Thus it is difficult for any single individual to extricate himself from
the minority that has become almost nature to him. He has even grown
fond of it and is really unable for the time being to make use of his own
understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Pre-
cepts and formulas, those mechanical instruments of a rational use, or
rather misuse, of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of an
everlasting minority. And anyone who did throw them off would still make
only an uncertain leap over even the narrowest ditch, since he would not
be accustomed to free movement of this kind. Hence there are only a few
who have succeeded, by their own cultivation of their spirit, in extricating
themselves from minority and yet walking confidendy.
But that a public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed this is
almost inevitable, if only it is left its freedom. For there will always be a
few independent thinkers, even among the established guardians of the
great masses, who, after having themselves cast off the yoke of minority,
• Unmiindigkeit 但是群众的觉醒是⽆可避免的，历史必然的，因为有启蒙性的先知⼀定会出现
b Horace Epodes r.2, 40. Literally, "dare to be wise."

' A Giingelwagen was a device used by parents and nurses to provide support for young
children while they were learning to walk.

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 启蒙先知的性质与灌输的内容决定了启蒙的素的，但是那些灌输
prejudice ideology的⼈必然是搬⽯头砸⾃⼰的脚
IMMANUEL KANT

will disseminate the spirit of a rational valuing of one's own worth and of
the calling of each individual to think for himself. What should be noted
here is that the public, which was previously put under this yoke by the
guardians, may subsequently itself compel them to remain under it, if the
public is suitably stirred up by some of its guardians who are themselves
incapable of any enlightenment; so harmful is it to implant prejudices,
because they finally take their revenge on the very people who, or whose
偏⻅思想的灌输会导致
predecessors, were their authors. Thus a public can achieve enlighten-
⾰命的结果只是权⼒压制的轮班
ment only slowly. A revolution may well bring about a falling off of per-
sonal despotism and of avaricious or tyrannical oppression, but never a
true reform in one's way of thinking; instead new prejudices will serve just
as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.
For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and
indeed the least harmful of anything that could even be called freedom:
namely, freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. But I
8:37 hear from all sides the cry: Do not argue! The officer says: Do not argue
but driU! The tax official: Do not argue but pay! The clergyman: Do not
argue but believe! (Only one ruler in the world says: Argue as much as you
will and about whatever you will, but obey.0 Everywhere there are restric-
tions on freedom. But what sort of restriction hinders enlightenment, and
what sort does not hinder but instead promotes it? - I reply: 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 hinder-
ing the progress of enlightenment. But by the public use of one's own
reason I understand that use which someone makes of it as a scholar before
the entire public of the world of readers. 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 artfuld unanimity, to public
ends (or at least prevented from destroying such ends). Here it is, cer-
tainly, impermissible to argue; instead, one must obey. But insofar as this
part of the machine also regards himself as a member of a whole common-
wealth, even of the society of citizens of the world, 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 be 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

d kiinstliche
'Zweckmiijligkeit

18
 WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

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. A citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed
upon him; an impertinent censure of such levies when he is to pay them
may even be punished as a scandal (which could occasion general insubor-
dination). But the same citizen does not act against the duty of a citizen
when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts about the inappropri-
ateness or even injustice of such decrees. So too, a clergyman is bound to 8:38
deliver his discourse to the pupils in his catechism class and to his congre-
gation in accordance with the creed of the church he serves, for he was
employed by it on that condition. But as a scholar he has complete free-
dom and is even called upon to communicate to the public all his carefully
examined and well-intentioned thoughts about what is erroneous in that
creed and his suggestions for a better arrangement of the religious and
ecclesiastical body. And there is nothing in this that could be laid as a
burden on his conscience. For what he teaches in consequence of his
office as carrying out the business of the church, he represents as some-
thing with respect to which he does not have free power to teach as he
thinks best, but which he is appointed to deliver as prescribed and in the
name of another. He will say: Our church teaches this or that; here are the
arguments it uses. He then extracts all practical uses for his congregation
from precepts to which he would not himself subscribe with full convic-
tion but which he can nevertheless undertake to deliver because it is still
not altogether impossible that truth may lie concealed in them, and in any
case there is at least nothing contradictory to inner religion present in
them. 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.
But should not a society of clergymen, such as an ecclesiastical synod
or a venerable classis (as it calls itself among the Dutch), be authorized to
bind itself by oath to a certain unalterable creed, in order to carry on an
unceasing guardianship over each of its members and by means of them
over the people, and even to perpetuate this? I say that this is quite 8:39
1 billigermaflen

19
 IMMANUEL KANT

impossible. Such a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment

away from the human race forever, is absolutely null and void, even if it
were ratified by the supreme power, by imperial diets and by the most
solemn peace treaties. One age cannot bind itself and conspire to put the
following one into such a condition that it would be impossible for it to
enlarge its cognitions (especially in such urgent matters) and to purity
them of errors, and generally to make further progress in enlightenment.
This would be a crime against human nature, whose original vocation lies
precisely in such progress; and succeeding generations are therefore per-
fectly authorized to reject such decisions as unauthorized and made sacri-
legiously. The touchstone of whatever can be decided upon as law for a
people lies in the question: whether a people could impose such a law
upon itself. Now this might indeed be possible for a determinate short
time, in expectation as it were of a better one, in order to introduce a
certain order; during that time each citizen, particularly a clergyman,
would be left free, in his capacity as a scholar, to make his remarks
publicly, that is, through writings, about defects in the present institution;
meanwhile, the order introduced would last until public insight into the
nature of these things had become so widespread and confirmed that by
the union of their voices (even if not all of them) it could submit a proposal
to the crown, to take under its protection those congregations that have,
perhaps in accordance with their concepts of better insight, agreed to an
altered religious institution, but without hindering those that wanted to
acquiesce in the old one. But it is absolutely impermissible to agree, even
for a single lifetime, to a permanent religious constitution not to be
doubted publicly by anyone and thereby, as it were, to nullity a period of
time in the progress of humanity toward improvement and make it fruit-
less and hence detrimental to posterity. One can indeed, for his own
person and even then only for some time, postpone enlightenment in what
it is incumbent upon him to know; but to renounce enlightenment,
whether for his own person or even more so for posterity, is to violate the
sacred right of humanity and trample it underfoot. But what a people may
never decide upon for itself, a monarch may still less decide upon for a
8:40 people;' for his legislative authority rests precisely on this, that he unites in
his will the collective will of the people. As long as he sees to it that any
true or supposed improvement is consistent with civil order, he can for the
rest leave it to his subjects to do what they find it necessary to do for the
sake of their salvation;z that is no concern of his, but it is indeed his
concern to prevent any one of them from forcibly hindering others from
working to the best of their ability to determine and promote their salva-
tion. It even infringes upon his majesty if he meddles in these affairs by
honoring with governmental inspection the writings in which his subjects
attempt to clarity their insight, as well as if he does this from his own
supreme insight, in which case he exposes himself to the reproach Caesar

20
 WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

non est super grammaticos, g but much more so if he demeans his supreme
authority so far as to support the spiritual despotism of a few tyrants
within his state against the rest of his subjects.
If it is now asked whether we at present live in an enlightened age, the
answer is: No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now
stand, a good deal more is required for people on the whole to be in the
position, or even able to be put into the position, of using their own
understanding confidently and well in religious matters, without another's
guidance. But we do have distinct intimations that the field is now being
opened for them to work freely in this direction and that the hindrances to
universal enlightenment or to humankind's emergence from its self-
incurred minority are gradually becoming fewer. In this regard this age is
the age of enlightenment or the century of Frederick.
A prince who does not find it beneath himself to say that he considers it
his duty not to prescribe anything to human beings in religious matters but
to leave them complete freedom, who thus even declines the arrogant
name of tolerance, is himself enlightened and deserves to be praised by a
grateful world and by posterity as the one who first released the human
race from minority, at least from the side of government, and left each free
to make use of his own reason in all matters of conscience. Under him,
venerable clergymen, notwithstanding their official duties, may in their
capacity as scholars freely and publicly lay before the world for examina- 8:41
tion their judgments and insights deviating here and there from the creed
adopted, and still more may any other who is not restricted by any official
duties. This spirit of freedom is also spreading abroad, even where it has
to struggle with external obstacles of a government which misunderstands
itself. For it shines as an example to such a government that in freedom
there is not the least cause for anxiety about public concord and the unity
of the commonwealth. People gradually work their way out of barbarism
of their own accord if only one does not intentionally contrive to keep
them in it.
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. But the frame of mind of a
head of state who favors the first goes still further and sees that even with
respect to his legislation there is no danger in allowing his subjects to make
public use of their own reason and to publish to the world their thoughts
about a better way of formulating it, even with candid criticism of that
already given; we have a shining example of this, in which no monarch has
yet surpassed the one whom we honor.

' Caesar is not above the grammarians

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 IMMANUEL KANT

But only one who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of phantoms, but
at the same time has a well-disciplined and numerous army ready to
guarantee public peace, can say what a free stateh may not dare to say:
Argue as much as you will and about what you will; only obey! Here a strange,
unexpected course is revealed in human affairs, as happens elsewhere too
if it is considered in the large, where almost everything is paradoxical. A
greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's freedom
of spirit and nevertheless puts up insurmountable barriers to it; a lesser
degree of the former, on the other hand, provides a space for the latter to
expand to its full capacity. 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
8:42 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, j in keeping with his dignity.*

Konigsberg in Prussia, 30th September, 1784

*Today, on September 30th, I read in Biischings3 Wiichentliche Nachrichten of 13th September

a notice concerning this month's Berlinische Monatsschrifi, which mentions Mendelssohn's
answer to the same question. I have not yet seen this journal; otherwise I should have held
back the present essay, which may now stand only in order to find out to what extent chance
may bring about agreement in thoughts.
h Freistaat

'Sinnesart
1 tier nun mehr als Maschine ist

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