Kant’s “What is Enlightenment” and the Evolutionary Model of Progress Kant’s essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” holds a very optimistic tone for the future of humankind. He defines enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity” (p. 54.) By this he means the immaturity of reason of which he believes the majority of the world is lacking in. This is not in itself a bad thing as he argues that the natural progression of mankind inevitably calls for the ultimate attainment of reason. Kant believes that if people throw off the chains of laziness and cowardice they will be one step closer to a successful end. This linear notion of progression has been rejected by anthropologists as misleading but it certainly fits its time-frame.In classrooms today we are still taught that humans emerged on a sort of ladder of higher achievement. The picture that many of us received to learn about evolution contained a straightforward line of progression: fish mouse monkey ape human. This is a similar formulation of progression that Kant portrays in his essay. Mankind moves historically from a time of chaos and little reason to more reason, to more reason, and so forth. He did not believe that he was living in an enlightened time but rather that he was living in an “age” of enlightenment. This thought process establishes himself and his society as being on the right route but not near the goal line. However, reaching the goal is inevitable because it is simply humankind’s natural progression. In his day and age nature was a fitting metaphor for the inevitability, or the innate right, of mankind’s passage through time. Of course, there was not much cloning going on even twenty years ago. Nonetheless the image of progression that this essay contains is that of a ladder of success: we will continue to climb up one rung aft...
