Analysis Of Enlightenment By Kant

In Kant’s essay, he argues that the immaturity a person might have is brought upon themselves not because one does not want to understand. He argues that we are afraid to break free from the norm and think for ourselves. He believes that the saying of enlightenment is to “have the courage to use your own understanding.” (Kant 54) Kant defines enlightenment as “enlightenment is a man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity” (54) I believe that Kant defines enlightenment this way because he believes that people should think on their own and create their own ideas. From birth we are told what to do, what to say, what is right and what is wrong. We rarely question authority and Kant gives an example by this and he states we are told to …show more content…
Kant states that “religious immaturity is the most pernicious and dishonorable variety of all.” (59) He argues that religious immaturity is more harmful and disgraceful he believes that the church is a force which restricts behavior and that the church can control on how you believe in certain things. For example, usually people are born into a religion and if they start to question religion they’re usually shamed. Kant believes that this restricts ones enlightenment because we don’t make sense of religion until we become older but when we were little our parents ideas are pushed onto us and since that’s all we know we believe it. We’re given a book either the Bible, Torah or Quran from a young age to guide us and then we have a minister to serve as our inner voice but where does the line cross? How are we supposed to think for ourselves when we are forced to believe what our parents think? Kant is emphasizing that the church confides us to believe so that we don’t become enlightenent. The significance of this is people don’t know how to think for themselves we live in a time where we expect things to be handed to us and I don’t think people even care to be enlightened because that’s breaking away from the …show more content…
Kant is optimistic in the future because he states that “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… we still have a long way to go before men as a whole can be in a position of using their own understanding confidently and well in religious matters, without outside guidance.” (58) He seems hopeful that one day people will have the ability to think on their own and in this generation teens are more aware of what is going on in the world because of the