Kant: What is Enlightenment?

Kant, “Was ist Aufklarung,” in Foucault, The Politics of Truth

Enlightenment is self-enlightenment through reason and rational thinking. “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage” and “Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another” (2007: 29) There is not need to think if other think or work for me, they would “guard” me, the problem is that one has to live out of any tutelage…But tutelage has become “almost his nature” for people who are not “accustomed to that kind of free motion”. If “freedom” comes, then enlightenment would come, but the point is a true reform in ways of thinking, especially the public use of one’s reason as a scholar instead of the private use of it. There is a relation between the scholar and his/her public in which he/she has an unlimited freedom to use his/her reason to speak in his/her own person.