Immanuel Kant's Impact On Enlightenment Values

It is important here to understand Kant’s notion of space and time. This is because to Kant, space and time do not come from experience, but are the form of our apprehension of the world. He believes that space and time are both basic and necessary to form experiences. Our experiences take the form of space and time, but are not the content of our experiences. Everything that appears to us must have spatial properties.

Early Enlightenment thinker John Locke presented to the society documents which championed inalienable rights including life, liberty, and property. Liberty in specific becomes a most crucial topic in the debate deciding what conditions the state should prohibit speech offensive to some groups. Much later, John Stuart Mill built upon and constructed reformed ideas that contrasted the early enlightenment and would then be known as the Mature Enlightenment. In his works now classified as neoclassical utilitarianism- he was an avid follower of Jeremy Bentham, the father of Classical Utilitarianism-

In my rhetorical analysis of Immanuel Kant’s “What Is Enlightenment” I hoped to solve some of my own questions that I have concerning this consequential essay. Kant is a cornerstone of philosophy, and while this piece does not relate to one specific philosophic discourse, it is uncontrovertibly written in a philosophic manner. Yet within Kant work, he veers dangerously close to making what seem to be appeals to a to authority. I would like to think that Kant is not making this appeal in order to justify his own argument.

Epictetus was a stoic philosopher who preached the value of free thought. I found his approach to life to be more laid back then the other two philosophers mentioned so far. Epictetus mentions very early on in his writing “Encheiridion”, that he doesn’t believe in material importance. To him the only thing we can control in life are our “...opinions...impulses, desires, [and] aversions” (Cahn, line 2). Basically, anything that was not of our own doing does not belong to us, nor is it apart of one’s true self.

The Enlightenment, a movement in which thinkers try to apply principles of reason to every aspect of life. Enlightenment philosophers shared ideas which had an impact on the American Democracy & French Revolution. John Locke, montesquieu, voltaire, etc all were a part of this development, they all believed in different things. Locke believed in the natural rights. Voltaire believed and fought for religious tolerance.

Locke's idea of natural rights and of the Two Treatises of Government, Voltaire’s idea of religious freedom that infringed on the people's rights and freedoms and set the basis for modern democracy. Along with Smith’s idea of freedom of economics and Wollstonecraft’s ideas on gender equality. John Locke was an Enlightenment philosopher and he

Consequently, space and time, being pure forms of sensible intuition, are also conditions attached to the subject who intuits and without these the subject would make it impossible to receive representations. This is how Transcendental Aesthetic is the first stage of knowledge of the subject, and that is directly related to sensory perception of objects of experience. The origin of all our knowledge is in the senses. Space is the way we provide for external representations.

Enlightenment was created by the English philosopher John Locke. The ideas that were influenced by enlightenment were life, liberty, and property. This also gave to the idea of natural right. Enlightenment influenced the way people finally realized that divine right wasn’t right and start to doubt it. Throughout time enlightenment has influenced a lot of important events in history.

Kant places “the main point of enlightenment… chiefly in matters of religion because our rulers have no interest in playing guardian with respect to the arts and sciences” (109). Kant explains that religion is one of the greatest threats to enlightenment because, unlike other fields, there is significant incentive to spread the way of a certain religion. The unchecked power of the church and of religious members is one of the results of this, as seen in Candide. Kant goes on to write that “religious incompetence is not only the most harmful but also the most degrading of all” (109). He recognizes too the downsides that result from not questioning the higher institutions

Also, in 1695, Gottfried Leibniz, a German philosopher in his “New Stems of Nature” said “God governs mind...these very movements of matter being produced for the happiness of the good and the punishment if the evil”(D12). Leibniz’s purpose here is to say that things happen for a reason and that good acts will be rewarded and bad would be punished. As political, social, and religious factors affected the Scientific Revolution, the political and social ones try to help and encourage people to continue doing what they are doing. On a contrary, religious factors caused many conflicts for people for the scientific revolution. The Scientific Revolution made people doubt things that were customs, thoughts and ideas that were passed on from

The Enlightenment was a time where people were beginning to find out that they could speak out against their oppressive leaders and bring to light many of the wrongdoings happening within the many institutions at the time. Two main philosophes who argued for the Enlightenment and its benefits to society in the 18th century were Immanuel Kant and Voltaire, also known as Francois Marie Arouet. These two prominent thinkers criticized the current social, political, and religious systems in place at the time. While both philosophers argue that the Enlightenment is essential to human growth, they both use different ideas and criticisms to prove their point. Both Kant and Voltaire argued that Enlightenment is important in mankind’s growth as a whole