thumb|300px|The first page of the 1799 edition
"Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (), often referred to simply as "What Is Enlightenment?" (Was ist Aufklärung?), is a 1784 essay by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. In the December 1784 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift (Berlin Monthly), edited by Friedrich Gedike and Johann Erich Biester, Kant replied to the question posed a year earlier by the Reverend , who was also an official in the Prussian government. Zöllner's question was addressed to a broad intellectual public community, in reply to Biester's essay titled "Proposal, not to engage the clergy any longer when marriages are conducted" (April 1783). A number of leading intellectuals replied with essays, of which Kant's is the most famous and has had the most impact. Kant's opening paragraph of the essay is a much-cited definition of a lack of enlightenment as people's inability to think for themselves due not to their lack of intellect, but lack of courage.
See also
- Enlightenment (philosophical concept)
- Age of Enlightenment
- Anti-intellectualism
- Golden Age of Freethought
- Higher criticism
- Natural philosophy
- Public reason
- Self-efficacy
References
Further reading
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- English translation and commentary.
External links
- An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? Translated by Ted Humphrey. Annotated. Hackett Publishing, 1992.
- An Answer to the Question: 'What is Enlightenment? (with endnotes). Evergreen State College, 1994.