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  Immanuel Kant

• What is Enlightenment?

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An Answer to the Question What is
Enlightenment? (1784)

• Enlightenment is man's emergence from his
  self-imposed immaturity.
• Immaturity is the inability to use one's
  understanding without guidance from another.
• This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause
  lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of
  resolve and courage to use it without guidance
  from another.
• Sapere Aude! dare to know "Have courage to use
  your own understanding!"--that is the motto of
  enlightenment.

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Questions 1

• Kant and the Age of Critique
• 1.1 Kant has written three Critiques, which
  eventually forms the philosophical system of his
  thinking.
• 1.11 What are they?
• 1.12 What are the three corresponding key
  questions in those books?
• 1.13 What is modern about the spirit of those
  questions?
• 1.2 Kant offers an account of human beings as
  self-conscious entities caught up in some mental
  and historical conflicts Kant posits the human
  being as caught up in an insoluble tension.
  Provide at least two Kantian examples of that
  tension.

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Questions 2

• Kant and the Enlightenment
• Read also this introduction (pdf) and this
  lecture note (pdf) 
• 2.0 Kant, What is Enlightenment? The key
  thesis is (2.0)
• Enlightenment is (2.1) NB Learn the entire
  sentence by heart.
• Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why (2.2)
  
• Thus it is difficult for each separate individual
  to work his way out of (2.3) 
• There is more chance of an entire public
  enlightening itself. This is indeed almost (2.4)
• Now in some affairs which affect the interests of
  the commonwealth, of the commonwealth, we require
  a certain mechanism whereby (2.5)
• But should not a society of clergymen, , be
  entitled to commit itself by oath to a certain
  unalterable set of doctrines, in order to secure
  for all time a constant guardianship over each of
  its members, and through them over the people ? I
  reply that this is quite (2.6)
• If it is now asked whether we at present live in
  an enlightened age, the answer is (2.7)
• A prince who does not regard it as beneath him to
  say that he considers it his duty, in religious
  matters, not to prescribe anything to his people,
  but to allow them complete freedom, a prince who
  thus even declines to accept the presumptuous
  title of tolerant, is himself (2.8)
• I have portrayed matters of religion as the focal
  point of (2.9)
• But only a ruler who is himself enlightened and
  has no far of phantoms, yet who likewise has at
  hand a well-disciplined and numerous army to
  guarantee public security, may say what no
  republic would dare to say Argue as much as you
  like and about whatever you like, but (2.10)

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Questions 3

• Kant, Rousseau, Luther and Machiavelli
• 3.1 Kant is heavily influenced by Rousseau whose
  innovative ideas on human equality, individual
  freedom and pedagogic autonomy turn into a
  philosophical force behind the French Revolution.
  
• 3.11 What are the three mottos of the French
  Revolution?
• 3.12 And how is Kants philosophy of the
  Enlightenment related to those three motives?
  Locate the clues and examples in What is
  Enlightenment?.
• 3.2 In terms of questioning old authority,
  especially that of the clergy and the monarch,
  there are some notable points of intersection
  among the ideas and practices of Kant, Luther and
  even Machiavelli. What are they? Based on your
  learning so far, draw some large picture of the
  modern genealogy of a theological critique.
• 3.3 In terms of introducing a new authority,
  Kant, Luther and Machiavelli differ
  significantly. What are the natures of those
  replaced authorities?