Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

What it is

This short essay was written by Immanuel Kant and published in December 1784 in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, a Berlin magazine. Kant was answering a question first posed a year earlier by Johann Friedrich Zöllner, a clergyman and Prussian official, about what Enlightenment actually meant.

Why it matters

Kant's essay became the most famous of several replies written by intellectuals at the time, and it remains one of the most widely read texts of the Enlightenment. His opening definition — that Enlightenment means escaping 'self-imposed immaturity' and daring to think for yourself — captures a key idea of the era: that people should use their own reason rather than blindly following authority.

Look closer

• Why do you think Kant blames 'laziness and cowardice' rather than lack of ability for people's dependence on others?
• What does it mean that this essay was written as an answer to someone else's public question?
• What groups in Kant's society might have found his message dangerous or liberating?