Kant's Philosophy: Reason, Ethics, and Enlightenment

Kant and the Enlightenment: A Philosophical Perspective

The Enlightenment was a broad movement of ideas and culture that permeated all literary, artistic, historical, and religious spheres from 1650 to 1800. In Germany, the Enlightenment was characterized by the analysis of reason, with the idea of finding and establishing its principles as the governing system for the knowledge of nature, moral action, and human policy.

Immanuel Kant, an Enlightenment theorist and critic, defined it as humanity's entry into adulthood, or the ability to use one's own understanding (autonomous reason without civil or religious constraints). However, emerging from that minority requires a critical examination of reason itself (to think for oneself). For Kant, the autonomy of reason and will are a function of humanity's full realization. It signifies a critical attitude against the Old Regime (Enlightenment implies opening a new order).

Characteristics of Enlightenment Reason

• Trust in Reason: Confidence in the power of reason to solve all human problems.
• Critical Reason: Reason must be critical, examining itself to understand its possibilities and limits.
• Practical Reason: Reason is practical, with theory subjugated to human needs. It must serve ethics to end wars and establish peace for life (achieved through reason).
• Secular Reason: Reason is secular, unlike in Greek and Christian thought, or Descartes. The Enlightenment secularized reason, viewing it as a capacity that every individual must develop through education (an idea of infinite progress through reason).
• Foundation of Liberal Thought: The Enlightenment served as the foundation of liberal thought (e.g., the French Revolution).
• Education for Progress: The path for humanity's progress is education (ignorance is detrimental).
• Indefinite Progress: Indefinite progress will be the consequence of these principles.

Critique of Pure Reason

Kant addressed two conflicting interpretations of reason:

1. Rationalism: Reason, when self-sufficient, often ends in dogmatism, overvaluing its capabilities without sufficient basis.
2. Empiricism: Experience as the origin and limit of knowledge, leading to skepticism, where only mathematics is considered reliable.

The critical function is reason's primary role. To solve this problem, reason must criticize itself: examining its limits and inquiring into the necessary and sufficient conditions and possibilities of knowing. However, humanity must also ask how to act (ethics). Theoretical and practical reason are two uses of the same faculty.

Is Metaphysics a Science?

This inquiry starts from the factum of the validity of logic, mathematics, etc., as sciences (e.g., Newton versus Hume). Metaphysics is at a disadvantage: it neither advances nor achieves unanimous agreement. It can be understood as both a science and an inextinguishable human tendency. However, it must draw from science a priori synthetic judgments (universal, necessary, and increasing knowledge).

Kant's Answer: The Kantian Theory of Knowledge