What Enlightenment Is

Abstract

It is both awkward and appropriate that an essay on the Enlightenment today, or on its legacy, begin by invoking Kant's 1784 essay, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?' It seems appropriate because the essay is often treated as emblematic of the Enlightenment as a whole despite the sharp differences between Kant's model of enlightenment and other representative models of enlightenment, such as Lessing's, or those of the philosophes, or of the German popular Enlighteners, and despite the fact that its purported representative status is actually a late nineteenth century invention.2 But it is also awkward to invoke this essay partly because I am one of the few academics I know who unambiguously likes, and not only likes, but is inspired by Kant's essay. I have found a way to include it as the opening text in probably half of the courses I have taught at the university level, whether in seminars and lecture courses on the philosophy of the Enlightenment, in courses on media criticism, German film, or in introductory courses in the Humanities for