We had our first meeting and it was great!
The venue was changed from CIL lawn to our dear musty Mphil Classroom.
Participants: Shyma, Bipin, Praveen, Ambili, Sowmya, Sreebitha, Rathan and Viju
The meeting started off with Shyma's presentation. She introduced Kant, his obscure scientific discoveries and responded to the religious premise of the essay.
Bipin had issues with the initial passage itself saying how 'the self imposed immaturity' is not quite self-imposed, but rather a result of social conditioning.
Praveen brought in Ambedkar's perspective on enlightenment here.
Rathan tried to connect the spiritual nature of enlightenment, relating it to Buddha's nirvana.
Sowmya elaborated on the assumptions of the essay about the mind/body and nature/reason dichotomies.
Sreebitha pointed out that the 'intellectuals' were the only ones capable of enlightenment according to Kant. Though at the beginning of the essay, the mass seems to have included in the 'men', they seem to be missing towards the end.
Viju saw a major public sphere/private sphere divide that Kant seems to make in the essay.
The many discussions evolved out of this include
* Shyma said that while we are aware of the political readings of the essay, the religious interpretations of this are unavailable or inaccessible. Why?
* Bipin commented on the balancing act which Kant attempts at, which was a disappointment when considering the initial promise he holds out in the essay.
* The religious aspect branched off to several mini-discussions that involved issues like western enlightenment, Kant's intentionality, the essay's original premise, and 'Nirvana' as enlightenment.
* Foucault's essay, which we are discussing along with this one on 21st this month may probably give more insights on the essay and its implication
Miscellany
Praveen suggested that the topic of the next month to be 'Pulp Fiction' and everyone agreed heartily.
Fiction: A Mills and Boon Romance
Theory: Janice Radway on romance novels
Fiction: A translated pulp fiction from any local languages
Movie: Pulp Fiction
The movie screening (Dev D) is on Friday, 10th July, 1.30 pm at New Lecture Hall. Everyone is invited!
People! Put your typed responses to the essay as comments after this post. The discussions can continue after the responses.
-Viju
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)—an 18th century German philosopher who is supposed to be the most influential thinkers of modern Europe. He is known for his three critiques—Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgement (1790) apart from several other works. A compromise between empiricists and rationalists. For him reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. His transcendental idealism differs from traditional idealism which held that we can directly know the ideas in our minds, not the objects that they represented. According to TI, the mind plays a central role in influencing the way that the world is experienced, we perceive phenomena through time, space and the categories of the understanding. TI maintains that human experiences of things consists of how they appear to us – implying a fundamentally subjective based component, rather than being an activity that directly comprehends the things as they are in themselves. (The essay was return in response to an issue relating to a govt. proposal not to engage the clergy any longer when marriages are conducted.)
ReplyDelete“An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” may be seen in relation to his larger view of defining mind and reality. The freedom that he proposes , and which leads to enlightenment, comes from a conception that the interpretation of the world is largely a subjective experience, depending one how one’s mind looks at the objects outside rather than have a pre conceived idea of it, in which case, everyone would probably have a unified vision and thereby opinion. In that case, there would be no chance of an alternative perception, which Kant argues is something required for enlightenment. He discusses the importance of people with a different perspective or perception a s a pre requisite for enlightenment, be it from the ruling class or the ruled. Though he mentions courage being indispensable for enlightenment, the way in which he distinguishes between public reason and private reason makes one doubt whether he too falls into the ambit of those who says, "Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!" this must have also accounted for his talking about religion over others when it comes to private matters. Religiosity, above all other private aspects like arts and sciences, is represented as bringing about unrest in society, which thereby ought to be given more care. That’s why it becomes “that form of immaturity which is both the most pernicious and disgraceful of all.”
Response - Viju
ReplyDelete--
“Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!”
- Frederick the Great of Prussia
Immanuel Kant’s essay, ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment’ defines enlightenment as man’s emergence from his ‘self imposed immaturity’. The possibility to think for oneself is hampered by the so-called guardians of humanity who proposes that any such endeavours are not only difficult, but also, downright dangerous. These ideas are so pernicious, even the guardians themselves believe in them, and transfer them to posterity. (Ideology and its insidious implications on the impossibility of action outside ideology.)
He is talking about some kind of restricted freedom, and thereby creates a divide between a public and private space. For the smooth progress of the society and its functions, and even to allow an enlightening use of reason(‘before the entire literate world’), there need to be a mechanism which allows the private use of reason through which people exercise their societal functions ‘towards public ends’. This makes possible the use of one’s own reason by not giving it up to external forces. (Public and private space boundaries)
His examples are from the religious domain. The cleric will continue his clerical functions which doesn’t prevent him from commenting on the outdated aspects of his practice publicly. (Enlightenment and its origins opposing religion)
Kant praises the then king, Frederick the Great, of Prussia for not prescribing strict religious norms in his kingdom, and according to Kant, this is a major step towards mankind thinking for itself, shaking itself out of its self-imposed immaturity and giving momentum towards enlightenment. (Answering in a newspaper and exercising his freedom)
It is not possible to be enlightened through a revolution as it can only provide outward changes in the level of governance and not people continue to be enslaved (French Revolution?). Even a greater degree of freedom is disadvantageous for enlightenment. According to the paradoxical pattern, as Kant brings out, it is only a lesser degree of freedom which brings out people’s latent thinking abilities.
Immanuel Kant’s essay ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment’ sets out as a radical essay questioning human beings’ endeavour and various constraints that hindrance ones maturity. But, it reaches a balance perspective towards the middle of the essay. I say balance because Kant does not go beyond the boundaries of collective and larger responsibilities of the society for ones maturity. ‘Immaturity’ which is a ‘self-imposed’ according Kant is problematic. Immaturity cannot be a self imposed. It can be because of the society to which one belongs; human beings’ faculty of enlightenment (Kant’s idea) differs from one person to another person. To have courage to use one’s own ‘understanding’ is a matter of social upbringing. Kant contradicts himself in his argument of enlightenment and freedom. Freedom, which, if it is allowed to prevail, enlightenment is inevitable, but has to be sacrificed for the larger cause of the society and the guardians of the society have the right to suppress this freedom. He does not make it clear to which one is of societal importance or which one to object by using our ‘courage’ and ‘understanding’.
ReplyDeleteAgain his argument about living in an ‘enlightenment’ age or ‘enlightened’ age is again problematic. In my opinion we can never attain something without defining what we want, without a particular yardstick. And if we define, it becomes..... For example, when can we say that we are living in a civilised modern democratic world? There will always be beyond that. For this we have to define what is modern, civilised and democracy. If we have attained all these, there will be other forms and notions of modern, civilised, democracy. Likewise, enlightenment is (should be) an open ended concept. It cannot be a closed ended idea. We never can live in an enlightened age. If we live, human civilisation becomes stagnant, stops growing up.
However, the essay is an essay of enlightenment for it anticipates for self discovery, for self reliance. It gives as I said a balance perspective by giving importance to societal responsibilities, not only to the commoners but also to those guardians who are in a way responsible for suppressing common peoples’ courage.
bipn
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletesorry the earlier post is by sreebitha and not by shyma....
ReplyDeleteKant says, a man is enlightened only when he is free from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is defined as one’s inability to go by reason as well as to question the authority. Kant proposes that only the public use of reason can bring enlightenment among mankind. By the public use of reason Kant mean one’s (most often scholars) use of reason before the entire literate world. A private use of reason is restricted into private realm. Kant gives series of examples where one as a community member remains passive and as a scholar dare to question it. Here, the scholar has unrestricted freedom to use his rationalities and to address to a mass which can only bring enlightenment. This in a way points out that only a scholar is enlightened or can bring enlightenment.
here is my response, a little modified from what i read out the other day.
ReplyDeleteWhat is enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, 1784,
SD-7th July 2009
What struck me in reading the first page was the words/terms Kant uses in his “What is Enlightenment?”. Immaturity, maturity, Understanding (reason), thinking – it should not be surprising that all these features he attributes to an enlightened man is connected to mind of an individual. Set within the understanding of liberal humanitarianism, what also interested me in the first page are two things:
1. “the guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult” – he is already talking about how women are constructed as weak and how they are carefully built into that mode, in 1784, too good.
2. why have we been immature? Because we have not used our “natural reasoning” as much as we use “rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use”. At this point it is a contradiction. When we are talking of reason as essential feature of enlightenment, how do we distinguish natural reason from reason and not rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use – a consequence of reason?
I do think Kant’s thoughts are quite revolutionary for he saw that the essential condition for enlightenment is freedom [entrenched guardians of the great masses who only think of themselves]. Though he spoke in convoluted sentences, what he was really saying was there were/are a minority of men who guard/control the rest majority in order to guard their own interests.
He also seems to suggest that social reform/religious reform need to go hand in hand with political reform and his questioning of Church is something that is really noteworthy.
I need to know a lot more on what kind of public sphere Kant had in mind—during his period—because as viju pointed out, he seems to be making a clear differentiation between public use of reason and its use in private.
The essay is full of unwritten binaries… rational/irrational, mature/immature, public/private, enlightened/unenlightened, argue/obey, civil freedom/spiritual freedom, natural reason/machine…
The following is in Kant words. Though they are very restricted in their framework, I think it is serious and deserves attention especially because it was written in 1784.
*reason and more importantly, propriety in reason is must.
*reason under certain conditions.
And the best of Kant for me is what he said about freedom, dignity and the connection between state and religion and how enlightenment gets hindered in a condition of no-freedom. “Freedom and dignity needs to be guaranteed by the state which is the guardian of its subjects. Free thinking acts mutually—on the subjects and on their guardians”