12 ms·

What Is Enlightenment? (1784)

70 points by thorum 3y ago

alexnewman 3y ago
https://library.tsu.ge/data/file_db/anthim/10_80354.pdf https://library.tsu.ge/data/file_db/anthim/10_80354.pdf
bediger4000 3y ago
(1784)
- mdp2021 3y ago
  Which could be telling also since Kant was born in 1724: he wrote the piece about Enlightenment at 60 - as a mature man.
RGamma 3y ago
404. The irony isn't lost on me.
- al_borland 3y ago
  Same. Though I’m lost knowing if this is an issue with the link/site, or if that’s the joke.
  - thorum 3y ago
    The submitted link works for me, but maybe it’s a regional issue. Here’s an archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20230329042339/https://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230329042339/https://www.colum...
leoh 3y ago
Alternative link https://courseworks2.columbia.edu/files/587042/download?download_frd=1 https://courseworks2.columbia.edu/files/587042/download?down...
svnt 3y ago
And Jung refined it, 150 years later: “our age has a blindness without parallel. We think we have only to declare an acknowledged form of faith to be incorrect or invalid, to become psychologically free of all the traditional effects of the Christian or Judaic religion. We believe in enlightenment, as if an intellectual change of opinion had somehow a deeper influence on our emotional processes, or indeed upon the unconscious! We entirely forget that the religion of the last two thousand years is a psychological attitude, a definite form of adaptation to inner and outer experience, which moulds a definite form of civilization; it has thereby created an atmosphere which remains wholly uninfluenced by any intellectual disavowal. The intellectual change is, of course, symptomatically important as a hint of coming possibilities, but the deeper levels of the psyche continue for a long time to operate in the former attitude, in according with psychic inertia. In this way the unconscious has preserved paganism alive. The ease with which the classic spirit springs again into life can be observed in the Renaissance. The readiness with which the older primitive spirit reappears can be seen in our own time, even better perhaps than in any other historically known epoch.”
- jl6 3y ago
  Proven, IMHO, by the ease with which many atheists have fallen into alternative faith-based belief systems. 21st century America is increasingly atheist, but no less religious.
  - anthk 3y ago
    That happened in Europe from the 60's. A lot of people replaced Christianism with Horoscopes, which is a similar irrational bullshit to feel yourself better. Or buying lottery tickets depending on where they bought it, as if the place were magical or so.
    - pantalaimon 3y ago
      Magical Thinking is way older than that and may well be the source for many religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking
clooper 3y ago
Surprisingly pertinent given all the news about AI and cognitive automation.
t1tos 3y ago
"Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the seed within the hard core--namely the urge for and the vocation of free thought." Kant may be referring to the liberation of political nonage. The illusion of open discourse with the necessity to obey is the mark of a slighted man in the sovereign. So he urges us: "Caesar has no power over grammarians."
- zogrodea 3y ago
  That might be the content of what Kant is speaking about, but I think the method/process of what he is speaking about is interesting and deserving of attention too. "Thanks be to Nature, then, for the incompatibility, for heartless competitive vanity, for the insatiable desire to possess and to rule! Without them, all the excellent natural capacities of humanity would forever sleep, undeveloped. Man wishes concord; but Nature knows better what is good for the race; she wills discord. He wishes to live comfortably and pleasantly; Nature wills that he should be plunged from sloth and passive contentment into labor and trouble, in order that he may find means of extricating himself from them. The natural urges to this, the sources of unsociableness and mutual opposition from which so many evils arise, drive men to new exertions of their forces and thus to the manifold development of their capacities. They thereby perhaps show the ordering of a wise Creator and not the hand of an evil spirit, who bungled in his great work or spoiled it out of envy." From https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Idea_for_a_Universal_History_from_a_Cosmopolitan_Point_of_View https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Idea_for_a_Universal_History_... (under the heading "FOURTH THESIS"). I can certainly relate to his statement that labour and trouble have enhanced my capabilities and others here likely can as well.
iammjm 3y ago
Sapere aude, motherfuckers!
Anotheroneagain 3y ago
For a long time I've seen Kant as someone who deeply misunderstood the Enlightenment. It was specifically meant to free people of this endless bickering over some scripture or other abstract issue, and told them see for themselves. But science has long descended back into "rationalism" (what an unfortunate term), and is no better than what the enlightenment fought against.
- 48864w6ui 3y ago
  How so? What is "rationalism" and how do you apply it to scientists, as opposed to, say, Jesuits?
  - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
    Rationalism is the rejection of the idea that knowledge needs to be gathered, rather than intuited. A rationalist, in practice, necessarily derives his worldview either starting from some gut instict (that something just has to be a certain way, because it feels that way), or from preexisting texts, be it a religious scripture, or a scientific theory that is treated as inviolable.
    - n4r9 3y ago
      Which scientific theory or theories do you perceive being treated as inviolable?
      - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
        It depends more on the person who does it, rather than a specific theory, but I will pick obesity in particular - there has hardly been any idea so widely contradicted by practical experience, yet it is still treated as an indisputable fact, to the extent that all the further work aims at resolving why people "lie" and how to make them eat less, rather than coming up with something else.
        3y ago
Emma_Goldman 3y ago
"Criticism is no longer going to be practiced in the search for formal structures with universal value, but rather as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, saying. In that sense, this criticism is not transcendental, and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible: it is genealogical in its design and archaeological in its method. Archaeological -- and not transcendental -- in the sense that it will not seek to identify the universal structures of all knowledge or of all possible moral action, but will seek to treat the instances of discourse that articulate what we think, say, and do as so many historical events. And this critique will be genealogical in the sense that it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it is impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think. It is not seeking to make possible a metaphysics that has finally become a science; it is seeking to give new impetus, as far and wide as possible, to the undefined work of freedom." It's worth reading Foucault's entire discussion of Kant's essay, published on the second centenary of the original: http://individual.utoronto.ca/bmclean/hermeneutics/foucault_suppl/what_is_enlightenment.htm http://individual.utoronto.ca/bmclean/hermeneutics/foucault_...
drooopy 3y ago
I don't know why I thought this was going to be about the Window Manager.
Dibby053 3y ago
All my life I've been told to stop trying to think for myself and just believe what experts say, and now this so-called expert in thought is telling me to think for myself? I'm confused.
meyum33 3y ago
If Kant wrote his philosophy in this friendly prose he'd be an even greater philosopher now, most importantly he would be actually read by philosophers and students.
dennis_jeeves2 3y ago
Quote from link: This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom--and the most innocent of all that may be called "freedom": freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!" For developers: Agile coach: "Do not argue--believe!"
sylware 3y ago
You are all wrong. This is a GFX toolkit!
- sylware 3y ago
  Humorous content denial on HN...
ceving 3y ago
This cannot be repeated often enough. Here is also the original text: https://bdfwia.github.io/bdfwia.html https://bdfwia.github.io/bdfwia.html

70 points by thorum 3y ago

alexnewman 3y ago

https://library.tsu.ge/data/file_db/anthim/10_80354.pdf https://library.tsu.ge/data/file_db/anthim/10_80354.pdf

bediger4000 3y ago

(1784)

mdp2021 3y ago
Which could be telling also since Kant was born in 1724: he wrote the piece about Enlightenment at 60 - as a mature man.

RGamma 3y ago

404. The irony isn't lost on me.

al_borland 3y ago
Same. Though I’m lost knowing if this is an issue with the link/site, or if that’s the joke.
- thorum 3y ago
  The submitted link works for me, but maybe it’s a regional issue. Here’s an archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20230329042339/https://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230329042339/https://www.colum...

leoh 3y ago

Alternative link https://courseworks2.columbia.edu/files/587042/download?download_frd=1 https://courseworks2.columbia.edu/files/587042/download?down...

svnt 3y ago

And Jung refined it, 150 years later: “our age has a blindness without parallel. We think we have only to declare an acknowledged form of faith to be incorrect or invalid, to become psychologically free of all the traditional effects of the Christian or Judaic religion. We believe in enlightenment, as if an intellectual change of opinion had somehow a deeper influence on our emotional processes, or indeed upon the unconscious! We entirely forget that the religion of the last two thousand years is a psychological attitude, a definite form of adaptation to inner and outer experience, which moulds a definite form of civilization; it has thereby created an atmosphere which remains wholly uninfluenced by any intellectual disavowal. The intellectual change is, of course, symptomatically important as a hint of coming possibilities, but the deeper levels of the psyche continue for a long time to operate in the former attitude, in according with psychic inertia. In this way the unconscious has preserved paganism alive. The ease with which the classic spirit springs again into life can be observed in the Renaissance. The readiness with which the older primitive spirit reappears can be seen in our own time, even better perhaps than in any other historically known epoch.”

jl6 3y ago
Proven, IMHO, by the ease with which many atheists have fallen into alternative faith-based belief systems. 21st century America is increasingly atheist, but no less religious.
- anthk 3y ago
  That happened in Europe from the 60's. A lot of people replaced Christianism with Horoscopes, which is a similar irrational bullshit to feel yourself better. Or buying lottery tickets depending on where they bought it, as if the place were magical or so.
  - pantalaimon 3y ago
    Magical Thinking is way older than that and may well be the source for many religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

clooper 3y ago

Surprisingly pertinent given all the news about AI and cognitive automation.

t1tos 3y ago

"Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the seed within the hard core--namely the urge for and the vocation of free thought." Kant may be referring to the liberation of political nonage. The illusion of open discourse with the necessity to obey is the mark of a slighted man in the sovereign. So he urges us: "Caesar has no power over grammarians."

zogrodea 3y ago
That might be the content of what Kant is speaking about, but I think the method/process of what he is speaking about is interesting and deserving of attention too. "Thanks be to Nature, then, for the incompatibility, for heartless competitive vanity, for the insatiable desire to possess and to rule! Without them, all the excellent natural capacities of humanity would forever sleep, undeveloped. Man wishes concord; but Nature knows better what is good for the race; she wills discord. He wishes to live comfortably and pleasantly; Nature wills that he should be plunged from sloth and passive contentment into labor and trouble, in order that he may find means of extricating himself from them. The natural urges to this, the sources of unsociableness and mutual opposition from which so many evils arise, drive men to new exertions of their forces and thus to the manifold development of their capacities. They thereby perhaps show the ordering of a wise Creator and not the hand of an evil spirit, who bungled in his great work or spoiled it out of envy." From https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Idea_for_a_Universal_History_from_a_Cosmopolitan_Point_of_View https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Idea_for_a_Universal_History_... (under the heading "FOURTH THESIS"). I can certainly relate to his statement that labour and trouble have enhanced my capabilities and others here likely can as well.

iammjm 3y ago

Sapere aude, motherfuckers!

Anotheroneagain 3y ago

For a long time I've seen Kant as someone who deeply misunderstood the Enlightenment. It was specifically meant to free people of this endless bickering over some scripture or other abstract issue, and told them see for themselves. But science has long descended back into "rationalism" (what an unfortunate term), and is no better than what the enlightenment fought against.

48864w6ui 3y ago
How so? What is "rationalism" and how do you apply it to scientists, as opposed to, say, Jesuits?
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  Rationalism is the rejection of the idea that knowledge needs to be gathered, rather than intuited. A rationalist, in practice, necessarily derives his worldview either starting from some gut instict (that something just has to be a certain way, because it feels that way), or from preexisting texts, be it a religious scripture, or a scientific theory that is treated as inviolable.
  - n4r9 3y ago
    Which scientific theory or theories do you perceive being treated as inviolable?
    - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
      It depends more on the person who does it, rather than a specific theory, but I will pick obesity in particular - there has hardly been any idea so widely contradicted by practical experience, yet it is still treated as an indisputable fact, to the extent that all the further work aims at resolving why people "lie" and how to make them eat less, rather than coming up with something else.
      - 3y ago

Emma_Goldman 3y ago

"Criticism is no longer going to be practiced in the search for formal structures with universal value, but rather as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, saying. In that sense, this criticism is not transcendental, and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible: it is genealogical in its design and archaeological in its method. Archaeological -- and not transcendental -- in the sense that it will not seek to identify the universal structures of all knowledge or of all possible moral action, but will seek to treat the instances of discourse that articulate what we think, say, and do as so many historical events. And this critique will be genealogical in the sense that it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it is impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think. It is not seeking to make possible a metaphysics that has finally become a science; it is seeking to give new impetus, as far and wide as possible, to the undefined work of freedom." It's worth reading Foucault's entire discussion of Kant's essay, published on the second centenary of the original: http://individual.utoronto.ca/bmclean/hermeneutics/foucault_suppl/what_is_enlightenment.htm http://individual.utoronto.ca/bmclean/hermeneutics/foucault_...

drooopy 3y ago

I don't know why I thought this was going to be about the Window Manager.

Dibby053 3y ago

All my life I've been told to stop trying to think for myself and just believe what experts say, and now this so-called expert in thought is telling me to think for myself? I'm confused.

meyum33 3y ago

If Kant wrote his philosophy in this friendly prose he'd be an even greater philosopher now, most importantly he would be actually read by philosophers and students.

dennis_jeeves2 3y ago

Quote from link: This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom--and the most innocent of all that may be called "freedom": freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!" For developers: Agile coach: "Do not argue--believe!"

sylware 3y ago

You are all wrong. This is a GFX toolkit!

sylware 3y ago
Humorous content denial on HN...

ceving 3y ago

This cannot be repeated often enough. Here is also the original text: https://bdfwia.github.io/bdfwia.html https://bdfwia.github.io/bdfwia.html