Kant

In December 1784 the Berlin journal Berlinische Monatsschrift published a short essay that would become the most quoted definition of an entire century: “Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?) by Immanuel Kant. The question had been raised in the journal itself by Johann Friedrich Zöllner, a clergyman and Prussian official, who had remarked in a footnote in December 1783 that no one had yet answered satisfactorily what “Aufklärung” is, a word then in wide circulation without a precise definition. That the age of the Enlightenment had to ask itself publicly what it was says a good deal about the movement. From the start it was a reflection on itself, on the limits and rights of reason, and on who may exercise them. ...