IMMANUEL KANT "Risposta alla domanda: che cos' é l' illuminismo? "
[the paragraphs are numbered to make it easy references to the text when reading associated]
(1) The 'light, and the' out of 'minority man from the state of which he is entitled to hold himself. Immaturity is the 'inability to make use of his intellect without the guidance of another. Due to himself and this minority that the case it does not depend on lack of understanding, but lack of decision and courage to use their intellect without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! - Is the motto of 'enlightenment. (2) Laziness and cowardice are the reasons that so many of the men, after che la natura li ha da lungo tempo fatti liberi da direzione estranea (naturaliter maiorennes), rimangono nondimeno volentieri minorenni per l' intera vita, per cui riesce tanto facile agli altri erigersi a loro tutori. Ed è così comodo essere minorenni ! Se ho un libro che pensa per me,un direttore spirituale che ha coscienza per me, un medico che decide per me sulla dieta che mi conviene, ecc., io non ho più bisogno di darmi pensiero da me. Purchè io sia in grado di pagare, non ho bisogno di pensare: altri si assumeranno per me questa noiosa occupazione. A far sì che la stragrande maggioranza degli uomini ( e con essi tutto il bel sesso ) ritenga il passaggio allo stato di maggiorità, oltrechè difficile, anche molto dangerous, shall have those guardians who have so kindly taken the 'high supervision over them. After being initially dazed as if they were pets and carefully prevented these peaceful creatures who dared take a step out of the walker as a child in which they were imprisoned at a later time to show them the danger which threatens if they try to walk alone. Now this danger is not so great as they do believe, as some fall in price in the end they learn to walk, but one example of this kind, however timid and usually makes it distracts people from any further attempt. (3) E 'is therefore difficult to disentangle each man the minority which for him has become almost second nature. And 'even come to love it, and now is really unable to use his own intellect, without his having never been allowed to test. Rules and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use or rather misuse of his natural, are the strains of a perpetual minority. Even if they managed to melt, would simply jump over insecure even more narrow ditches, as it would not be trained to such free movement. So only a few have succeeded, with the 'education of their own spirit, to extricate himself from the minority and yet to walk with sure-footed. (4) On the contrary, that un pubblico si illumini da sè é ben possibile possibile; e se gli si lascia la libertà, é quasi inevitabile. In tal caso infatti si troveranno sempre, perfino fra i tutori ufficiali della grande folla, alcuni liberi pensatori che, dopo aver scosso da sè il giogo della tutela, diffonderanno il sentimento della stima razionale del proprio valore e della vocazione di ogni uomo a pensare da sè. V’é a riguardo il fenomeno singolare che il pubblico, il quale in un primo tempo é stato posto da costoro sotto quel giogo, li obbliga poi esso stesso a rimanervi, non appena abbiano a ciò istigato quelli tra i suoi tutori che fossero essi stessi incapaci di ogni lume. Seminare pregiudizi é tanto pericoloso, proprio perchè they end up falling back on their authors or the successors of their authors. Thus a public can only slowly reach enlightenment. Perhaps a revolution may well determine the fall of personal despotism and put an end to oppression greedy of gain or power, but never a true reform will not result in the way of thinking, new prejudices will serve rather like the old to lead the crowd those who do not think. (5) Except that this enlightenment is not necessary that the more freedom, namely the most harmless of all freedoms, that is, to make public use of one's reason in all fields. But from all I hear shouting: - Do not argue! - The Journal says: Do not argue but drill! The director of finance: Do not argue, pay! The clergyman: Do not argue but believe! (There is only one man in the world says: Argue as much as you want and everything you want, but obey!) There is limitation of freedom everywhere. But that restriction is an impediment to enlightenment? Which is not, in fact it promotes? I reply: The public use of his right to be free at all times, and it alone can bring about the enlightenment among men, whereas the private use of reason can often be very close restrictions without which the progress of enlightenment it is particularly hindered. I intend to use the public's right to use that one makes as a scholar before the entire reading public. I call the private use of reason that anyone can use it in a civil or function entrusted to him. (6) Now, for many operations taking place in the 'interest of the community should be some "mechanism", whereby some members of it must behave in a purely passive to compete for common or at least not contradict, harmonizing their conduct with the work of the government. Here without doubt is not allowed to think, but you must obey. But at the same time as these members of the government machine consider themselves as members of all the community and indeed of cosmopolitan society, and are thus in the quality of scholars with his writings are aimed at an audience in the true sense of the word, they can certainly argue with this without damaging the activity which they are used as members of the government. Thus it would be pernicious if an officer, who was given an order from his superior, the service would publicly discuss the appropriateness and usefulness of this order: he must obey. But it is not fair stop him as a scholar to make his comments on the errors committed in the war operations and submit them for evaluation by the audience. The citizen can not refuse to pay taxes that are imposed , And a reprimand inappropriate of these charges, which must be performed by him, may even be punished as a scandal (since it could lead to an overall rejection). However, he fails to act against the duty of a citizen if, as a scholar openly expresses his thoughts on the impropriety or even on the 'unfairness of these charges. So a church is to teach the catechism to the students and his congregation by the creed of the Church from which it depends, because in this condition he was engaged, but as a scholar he has complete freedom and even their responsibility to communicate to the public every thoughts that an examination suggested the severe and well-intentioned about the defects of that belief As well as its proposals for reform of the religion and the Church. And there is nothing that might offend the conscience, because what he teaches as a result of his office, as an official of the Church, he exposes it as something around which has no freedom to teach according to what seems right to him and he has the task to teach according to what has been prescribed and in the name of another. (7) He will say: Our church teaches this or that, and these are the tests to which it applies. All the 'practical usefulness that his congregation can come, then he will derive from the principles that he would not himself subscribe with complete conviction, but the teaching of which can still commit because it is not impossible that they did not conceal some veiled truth, and in any case, at least, we find nothing in them that are contradictory to inner religion. As if he thought of finding something that contradicts, he can not exercise its function conscientiously and should resign. 'S use official that a teacher makes of his reason before his congregation is therefore only for private use, and this because that community, however large, is always just a home meeting, and in this respect he, as a priest, is not free, nor can it be, as it performs a task that comes from others. Instead, as a scholar who speaks through his writings to the public as such, ie the world, thus as in ecclesiastical 'public use of his reason, he enjoys unlimited freedom to make use of his reason and speak in his own person. That the guardians of the people (in spiritual things) should themselves remain juvenile, is a 'nonsense that tends to perpetuate the nonsense. (8) But a society of clergymen, such as an 'ecclesiastical assembly or a "venerable class" (as it calls itself at the Dutch), is not entitled to be bound by oath to a certain unalterable symbol in order to exercise so over each of its members , e attraverso essi sul popolo , una tutela continua, e addiritura per rendere eterna questa tutela? Io dico che ciò è affatto impossibile . Un tale contratto, teso a tener lontana l' umanità per sempre da ogni progresso nel rischiaramento , è assolutamente nullo e di nessun effetto , anche se dovesse essere sanzionato dal potere sovrano, dai parlamenti e dai più solenni trattati di pace. Nessuna epoca può collettivamente impegnarsi con giuramento a porre l' epoca successiva in una condizione che la metta nell' impossibilità di estendere le sue conoscenze (soprattutto se tanto necessarie) , di liberarsi dagli errori e in generale di progredire nell'illuminismo . Ciò sarebbe un crimine contro la natura umana , la cui original purpose is precisely in such progress, and then later generations are perfectly entitled to reject those agreements as unauthorized and unholy. The touchstone of all that the law can establish itself as a people is in question: if a nation could impose such a law to himself. Now this could be a possible thing, as it were waiting for a better law and temporarily, in order to introduce a certain order, provided that in the meantime, let every free citizen, especially the 'man of the Church, to the defects of 'imposition force his comments publicly, in his capacity as a scholar, that is, through his writings. Meanwhile the established order will still be in force until the new views in this matter have not achieved much in the public dissemination and credit for individuals, with the 'union of their votes (though not all), are able to submit the proposal to the sovereign to protect those communities that were d 'Agreement for a change for the better of the constitution according to their religious beliefs, no to those who wished to remain in the old constitution. But in concert to keep up a religious life that no one immutable publicly call into question, even within the limits of the life of a man, and thereby to stop for a certain period of time the path of 'humanity toward its improvement and make space and thereby detrimental to posterity, it is absolutely possible. (9) A man may certainly for his own person, and even then only for a time, defer to light about what he itself is bound to know, but give it up for themselves and even more so for posterity, is to violate and trample upon the sacred rights of 'mankind. Now that a people can not decide for himself, he can still less a monarch to the people, as its legislative authority is based precisely on the fact that in his will he summarizes the general will of the people. As long as he will ensure that any real or perceived improvement does not conflict with the 'civil order, he may leave for the rest of his subjects are free to do what they believe necessary for the salvation of their souls. This does not concern him at all, and only have to worry about preventing the 'not an obstacle with the violence' in other 'activities that he, with all the means that are within its power, exercised in view of its purposes and to meet the their needs. Offends the monarch in his own majesty when intervening in these matters under the control of the government's writings in which the subjects make it clear their ideas, and ch 'he does this by invoking its sovereign power and exposing themselves to reproach: Caesar is not East grammaticos above both, and a fortiori , se egli abbassa il suo potere supremo tanto da sostenere il dispotismo spirituale di qualche tiranno nel suo Stato contro tutti gli altri suoi sudditi . (10) Se ora si domanda : viviamo noi attualmente in un' età illuminata ? allora la risposta é: no, bensì in un' età di illuminismo . Che nella situazione attuale gli uomini presi in massa siano già in grado, o anche solo possano essere posti in grado di valersi sicuramente e bene del loro proprio intelletto nelle cose della religione , senza la guida d' altri , é una condizione da cui siamo ancora molto lontani . Ma che ad essi , adesso , sia comunque aperto il campo per lavorare ed emanciparsi verso tale stato , e che gli ostacoli alla diffusione del generale rischiaramento or to 'exit from the minority to themselves due to gradually decrease, instead of what we have signs. In this regard, this' age is the 'age of' enlightenment or the century of Frederick. (11) A prince who does not believe himself unworthy of saying that treats it as a duty to prescribe nothing to men in matters of religion, but leave them in this freedom, and therefore by itself also rejects the proud name of tolerance, is himself enlightened and deserves from the world and posterity be grateful to be praised as the man who first liberated mankind from the minority, at least from the government, leaving everyone free to use its own reason in all that is a matter of conscience. Under him venerable ecclesiastics, without prejudice to their duty 's office, they can freely and publicly, as scholars refer to' examination of the world their opinions and their views here and there that I deviate from the traditional and the more anyone can do is not limited by a duty to 'office. This spirit of freedom also extends outside, even where it must struggle against external obstacles raised by a government which misunderstands itself. Since Fred is a clear example that there is nothing to fear in freedom for the public peace and harmony in the community. The men on their own to seek out a little a poco dalla barbarie , purchè non si ricorra ad artificiosi strumenti per mantenerli in essa .(12) Ho posto particolarmente nelle materia religiosa il punto culminante del rischiaramento , cioè dall' uscita dell' uomo dallo stato di minorità che egli deve imputare a se stesso ; poiché in fatto di arti e di scienze, i nostri reggitori non hanno alcun interesse a esercitare la tutela sopra i loro sudditi. Inoltre la minorità in cose di religione é fra tutte le forme di minorità la più dannosa ed anche la più umiliante . Ma il modo di pensare di un sovrano che favorisce quel tipo di rischiaramento va ancora oltre , poichè egli vede che perfino nei riguardi della legislazione da lui statuita non si corre pericolo a permettere the subjects to make public use of their reason to publicly expose the world and their ideas on a better structuring of the legislation itself, even openly criticizing the existing one. We have what a wonderful example, and also in any monarch that exceeded that which we worship. (13) but it is true that only those who lit himself, not afraid of darkness, and simultaneously provides a guarantee of the public peace of a large army, well disciplined, it can be stated that instead of a republic can not venture to say, reasoned what you want and everything you want, just obey! We revealed here a strange unexpected course of human affairs. In view of this course in great almost everything in it seems paradoxical. A greater degree of civil freedom seems in favor of freedom of the spirit of the people, but it poses, however, limits beyond which, to a lesser degree of civil freedom, on the contrary, the spirit offers the space to grow with all his might. So when nature has developed under this hard shell the seed of which it takes the most tender care, the tendency and the vocation to free thinking, then reacting this trend and calling on the people way of thinking (so that, little by little, it becomes increasingly capable of freedom of action), and eventually on the principles of government, which eventually understand that it is advantageous for him treat the 'man who is now more than a machine, in accordance with that dignity. Königsberg in Prussia, September 30, 1784
0 comments:
Post a Comment