Immanuel Kant's Enlightenment Paper

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Published in 1784, Immanuel Kant’s paper on enlightenment was written during a time of transition and development. The common people began to educate themselves and in turn this allowed them to seek opportunities that fit their own interest. By tying enlightenment to a coming of age metaphor, this can apply to countries demanding reform and starting a new era. Kant’s paper on enlightenment was a key milestone in an age of enlightenment that outlined religious tolerance and free thinking as forms of enlightenment; be it in Europe with Martin Luther’s outright denial of the Catholic Church or in America with a new country based off of the word “freedom” being born. In 1575, Martin Luther nailed the The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy…show more content…
Kant wrote that a form of enlightenment is thinking and leading for yourself. The colonists in America realized that British rule is tyranny and they wanted freedom. In fact, Kant wrote that “enlightenment requires nothing but freedom” and preluding that statement with “for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable”. Once the patriots had broken free of British rule, they began to design their own government that was built on democracy and allowed the people to achieve what they wanted. It was now possible to move up in the class system in America. In terms of religious freedom, the people of the new United States of America had many different religions live on their soil. From conservative Quakers to more liberal Baptists, the nation was able to flourish and grow without an all-out war amongst the different religious preferences. Taking Kant’s quote, “A prince ought not to deem it beneath his dignity to state that he considers it his duty not to dictate anything to his subjects in religious matters, but to leave them complete freedom”, it relates to the United States when they wrote their constitution and amendments. Since a monarchy was not set up in the new America, we can translate “prince” to “leaders”. The founding fathers of the United States deemed that setting up a national religion would overstep the boundaries of
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