Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Have the courage to use your own understanding! — that is the motto of enlightenment.”
Immanuel Kant · Critical philosophy · Enlightenment · 1784
What does it mean?
Immaturity, as the essay defines it, is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance, when the cause is a lack of courage rather than a lack of brains. Enlightenment is the exit from that condition, and the motto is the courage to understand for oneself. A rival reading hears a contempt for every teacher, but he wants a public use of reason and is more cautious about roles where an office may require obedience. The essay of 1784 quotes Horace and gives the old motto this job.
Did Immanuel Kant really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Standard English of the 1784 essay, in the translation associated with Mary Gregor. Kant quotes Horace, Sapere aude, and calls the courage to use one's own understanding the motto of enlightenment. The German is his. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)
Approximate date: 1784.
How to use it
Pick one question outsourced to a favourite columnist, a claim about a new bus lane in Bristol, and read the opposing council paper before repeating the column. Then say what follows, and why, in terms that do not need the columnist in the room. That is the exercise, not a mood of rebellion; Courage of understanding can still end by agreeing with the column; The point is that the agreement was earned.
A mindset reading
Courage here is not contempt for teachers, and the essay is explicit that a public use of reason is the freedom that matters for enlightenment. In a private office, a role may require carrying out a policy one would criticise in print, and he draws that distinction in a way that still startles readers who want a simpler rebellion. The motto is about the public use; It is not a licence to ignore every instruction at work.
Understand the philosophy
The 1784 essay is a short door into the practical philosophy, defining enlightenment as emergence from self-incurred immaturity. The key term is immaturity, a condition one is in because one has not dared to think, not because thinking is impossible. The critical works then ask what understanding can do, and what limits it has, once it is actually being used. Mary Gregor's English, and the Guyer and Wood translations of the critiques, are the guides for his German.
- knowledge
- freedom
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
Immaturity, as the essay defines it, is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance, when the cause is a lack of courage rather than a lack of brains. Enlightenment is the exit from that condition, and the motto is the courage to understand for oneself. A rival reading hears a contempt for every teacher, but he wants a public use of reason and is more cautious about roles where an office may require obedience. The essay of 1784 quotes Horace and gives the old motto this job.
Did Immanuel Kant really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Standard English of the 1784 essay, in the translation associated with Mary Gregor. Kant quotes Horace, Sapere aude, and calls the courage to use one's own understanding the motto of enlightenment. The German is his. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784) Approximate date: 1784.