Athena Kennedy
Philosophy
Professor Berendzen
Kant vs. Foucault
December 1, 2015
Kant vs. Foucault
Humans question their surroundings every day, weather it is “is how I am acting the way I want to portray myself,” “am I doing the right thing in this situation?” All questions can and should be debated, In philosophy we find new ways to questions everything, weather it is another’s opinion or our own, we form new ways of thinking critically and new ways to obtain answers that will satisfy our thirst for knowledge. Philosophers believe that you need to be able to question everything because there is always new knowledge out there for us to absorb and to question. In critical thinking you evaluate an issue you believe is present in order
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His answer, “Enlightenment is man 's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity,” in this statement the reader can incur that Kant believed that unless we reach enlightenment we aren’t able to reach a maturity level to take care of ourselves, we as humans put ourselves in the position of immaturity, we have full control over where we stand in life, but some chose to be immature and unenlightened. Kant believed that in order to reach enlightenment we need to be able to do things for ourselves, if we aren’t able to we are immature and not capable of reaching …show more content…
This expression is the exact opposite of the Kantian view on enlightenment and the idea of humans needing to be autonomous.
Foucault views the Kantian way of thinking about enlightenment to have a certain attitude or ethos. Foucault says that this ethos or attitude about enlightenment is “described as a permanent critique of our historical era.” Foucault puts in it two general ways or options to think about the enlightenment. “You either accept the enlightenment and remain within the tradition of its rationalism or else you criticize the Enlightenment and then try to escape from its principles of rationality” In my personal opinion both of these essays and their authors have their strong points, I personally believe that I side more with Kants views in his essay about freedom and autonomy. People should be able to stand up for themselves and have a strong presence in politics, government, and religion. Our country should not be run behind the peoples backs, we should be able to have a voice in any political matters that could possibly pertain or effect society as a whole. Human beings need to be able to effectively make change in society. People should have the right to defend themselves judicially and should obviously have the right to religious
Introduction: After the prolonged and disparaging Thirty Years War, philosophers took up a new notion of life and how, what and why things are the way they are in the world. Many also took into effect believing in scientific reasoning’s over biblical outlooks, looking for logical answers to all the many mysteries of the world and the afterlife. Enlightenment philosophers also constructed ways in which they thought people should act. For example, philosopher Voltaire explained his reasons for how “people should be citizens of the world” (Voltaire, “Patrie, in the philosophers dictionary”, 1752). THESIS:
While influenced by others the human race is individually minded, and has been able to obtain much knowledge at a substantial rate because of enlightenment. Throughout history man was able to shape the face of the earth by controlling others, but until the age of enlightenment man was not fully aware of the accomplishments he could achieve. In this period the ideals of society having a voice, changed history through bringing light to the genius and talent of not one but the vast majority of the world. To challenge one’s self-worth enlightenment must be achieved through leaving a cowardly stage to become mature. Presently, the enlightenment ideals have given many people around the globe a chance at a free life through natural rights and tolerance,
The Age of Enlightenment lasted from the 1620s to the 1780s, and was a period of time where many great thinkers emphasized individual freedoms and logical reasoning. Enlightenment challenged many prominent organizations, such as the Roman Catholic Church and some governmental organizations. One Enlightenment thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Voltaire), thought that “government should be responsible for the people and supply to them freedom and happiness. The people thus agree to be governed on such terms1”. Voltaire believed that the government should cater to the people’s needs, and not control its citizens and take away their freedoms.
The Intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment occupies an important position in the growth of Western civilization. How it totally affected society, especially French society is a subject of debate, from the beginning of the Revolution to today. In fact, two schools of interpretation are involved. The first school is the conservative school, Edmund Burke is the best example.
Enlightenment was a time of embracing logic and reasoning whilst rejecting untested beliefs and superstition. This time period occurred from the year 1694 until 1795. During this time writers used their medium of the written word to express their beliefs based on logic while denouncing old-world ideologies . During Enlightenment human nature was often put under scrutiny as thinkers strived to find what qualities resulted in the best possible human. In this piece of writing, the reader will be able to see the opinions of human nature held by three great thinkers from this time period: Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe.
In my eyes the solution to this problem is to make the ruling based upon protection of a person’s wellbeing first. I don’t believe it fair for one person to endanger another person or a group of people just so that they can express what they believe. A person’s safety is something sacred that a society should work to protect. This works around something called the reasonable limits clause6, which works to protect all rights up until they promote hate speech, violence or inequality. To solve conflicts I believe it best serves the interest of the people to violate the right that could endanger another person.
The Enlightenment questioned authority and ordered for natural rights. There were important thinkers of the Enlightenment who impacted the way people think today. John Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Paine were all of the major thinkers. John Locke believed experiences will cause more knowledge which is how his idea of the blank slate is. He also believed everybody was born with natural rights.
“The most perfect education, in my opinion,is…to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as well render [her] independent” (Doc D). The Enlightenment was a time period from the early 17th century to the late 18th century. There were many philosophers who contributed to making The Enlightenment. John Locke was a man who wanted freedom of government during 1690 (17th century) in England. He wanted this because he believed everyone was born with natural rights and the government should respect them and whoever didn’t, the people would have the right to impeach them.
When studying philosophy, a student becomes very aware of the contradiction and different opinions of highly remarked philosophers. Many students become frustrated with the opposition and question the importance of the study all together. Others choose to indulge in these differences to further their understanding beyond what he/ she thought capable of beforehand. The obvious contradictions between Kant’s deontology, and Bentham’s and Mill’s utilitarianism is a perfect example of such occasion in philosophy.
According to our studies, the Enlightenment was a movement that prioritized the human capacity for reason as the highest form of human attainment (Lecture Insert Cite). The Enlightenment originally began in Europe and found it 's way to the colonies. Before the Enlightenment, people had always believed that the social class in which they were born into would be the one in which they would die. People would follow their leader 's words without daring to question them and believed that when they died they would either face eternal salvation or eternal damnation. There was no room for thought.
Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill are two of the most notable philosophers in normative ethics. This branch of ethics is based on moral standards that determine what is considered morally right and wrong. This paper will focus on Immanuel Kant’s theory of deontology and J.S. Mill’s theory of utilitarianism. While Mill takes a consequentialist approach, focused on the belief that actions are right if they are for the benefit of a majority, Kant is solely concerned with the nature of duty and obligation, regardless of the outcome. This paper will also reveal that Kantian ethics, in my opinion, is a better moral law to follow compared to the utilitarian position.
This restriction of freedom allows humans to become lazy and immature which prevents them from becoming Enlightened. Kant argues that once people embrace laziness and immaturity, it becomes difficult to think by one’s self. He believes in the use of two types of reason, the public and private use of reason. He claims that the public use of reason alone can bring mankind into Enlightenment because it is this reasoning that allows groups of people with similar thoughts and criticisms to take a stance on a specific issue and bring it to the attention of the king.
Employing the Foucaultian discursive approach, Edward Said’s
The Age of Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, refers to the time of the guiding intellectual movement, called The Enlightenment. It covers about a century and a half in Europe, beginning with the publication of Francis Bacon 's Novum Organum (1620) and ending with Immanuel Kant 's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). From the perspective of socio-political phenomena, the period is considered to have begun with the close of the Thirty Years ' War (1648) and ended with the French Revolution (1789). The Enlightenment advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government, and even religion, which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the whole of reality.
There is such a variety of definitions regarding discourse that make it difficult to stick to one definition, therefore the context to which discourse is used is helpful to narrowing down a less diverse definition. Michel Foucault (philosopher, social theorist and literary critic) used various definitions of discourse at separate instances. The rough definition that Foucault suggests for Discourse is ‘the general domain of all statements’. He also defines discourse as an adapted cluster of statements, which could relate to the distinct structures in discourse. Discourse has to do with distinguishing groups of statements which are controlled in a way that they match and reach a mutual effect.