Immanuel Kant's "What is Enlightenment?"
According to Immanuel Kant, all men are trapped in a state of intellectual bondage which he calls, "self-incured tutelage". This "self-incured tutelage" causes men to be unable to think for themselves, and forces the reason of one man to become dependent on that of another's. This "self-incured tutelage" is something that men do to themselves through fear and laziness of reason (men are afraid of being wrong and are lazy in their act of reasoning). Freement from this "self-incured bondage" Kant calls "Enlightenment". Immanuel Kant then in continues his argument by stating that there are people who oppress the reason of men, and then states examples of these people and how they suppress reason. According to Kant, these people suppress reason by saying the words, "Do not argue". According to Kant, the words "Do not argue" specifically ask the hearer to just obey the person without reason or justification. These words therefore also impede the growth of a man's enlightenment and reduces his reason. Kant concludes his argument saying that today (in 1784) the people live in an "age of enlightenment" where the people are not currently enlightened but are becoming enlightened.
Kant's idea of "self-incured tutelage" seems to very much resemble John Berger's idea of mystification. Berger's mystification comes from the problem of someone telling another person what a specific person means to say through their words or paintings. Both problems come from the issue of another person trying to explain something to another person. The only difference between these two, however, depends on the point of reference. Consider two men standing next to each other looking at a painting, and one man is explaining to the other what it means. This act is mystification, when viewing the man explaining to the other his perspective and forcing him to agree, but it is "self-incured tutelage" when viewing the man listening to the other's explaination if this same man does not use his own reason to explain or disprove his friend's explanation. According to Kant, the man explaining would be closer to enlightenment than the other man and also is forcing the other man into "self-incured tutelage" by his actions.
For further discussion one could ask this question: If the problem of "self-incured tutelage" is the fact that we depend upon others to explain things to us, then why should we listen to other people or even listen to writers as opposed to trying to figure the world out through our own reason?
Personally I would answer this question (from the perspective of an enlightened scholar) by saying that others always have information that we do not and through collective study men might gain a better understanding of the world. However, men should not rely upon others to have perfect information. Men should always continue to practice their own personal reason, even when obtaining information from others, so that they might more easily understand what is true and what is not true.
Kant's idea of "self-incured tutelage" seems to very much resemble John Berger's idea of mystification. Berger's mystification comes from the problem of someone telling another person what a specific person means to say through their words or paintings. Both problems come from the issue of another person trying to explain something to another person. The only difference between these two, however, depends on the point of reference. Consider two men standing next to each other looking at a painting, and one man is explaining to the other what it means. This act is mystification, when viewing the man explaining to the other his perspective and forcing him to agree, but it is "self-incured tutelage" when viewing the man listening to the other's explaination if this same man does not use his own reason to explain or disprove his friend's explanation. According to Kant, the man explaining would be closer to enlightenment than the other man and also is forcing the other man into "self-incured tutelage" by his actions.
For further discussion one could ask this question: If the problem of "self-incured tutelage" is the fact that we depend upon others to explain things to us, then why should we listen to other people or even listen to writers as opposed to trying to figure the world out through our own reason?
Personally I would answer this question (from the perspective of an enlightened scholar) by saying that others always have information that we do not and through collective study men might gain a better understanding of the world. However, men should not rely upon others to have perfect information. Men should always continue to practice their own personal reason, even when obtaining information from others, so that they might more easily understand what is true and what is not true.
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