[Gutenberg 30821] • Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?

“Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?,” in Berlinische Monatsschrift (December, 1784), pp. 481-94. [Ak. 8:35-42] “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Translated by Ted Humphrey in Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), pp. 41-46. Translated by Mary J. Gregor in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, edited by Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 17-22.

J. F. Zöllner [bio] published an article in the December 1783 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift in which he opposed the institution of civil marriage — an idea suggested in an article anonymously written by the journal’s editor, J. E. Biester [bio], for the previous September issue and which claimed that tying marriage to religion was contrary to Enlightenment ideals. Zöllner countered that marriage was too important an institution for this and required a stability that only religion could provide. The very foundations of morality were being shaken, Zöllner wrote, and we should rethink our steps before “confusing the hearts and minds of the people in the name of Enlightenment” — at which point he asked in a footnote: “What is enlightenment? This question, which is nearly as important as ‘What is truth?’ should be answered before one begins to enlighten.”

Zöllner’s question led to a series of essays appearing in the Berlinische Monatsschrift and elsewhere, most famously Kant’s (Dec. 1784). An essay by Moses Mendelssohn (“On the Question: What is Enlightenment?”) was first delivered as a speech (16 May 1784) before the “Wednesday Society” to which he, Zöllner, Biester, and other leading figures of the Berlin Enlightenment belonged