The paradoxes of Enlightenment. A rhetorical and anthropological approach to Kant’s Beantwortung

Abstract

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part (section 1), I shall expound the kantian concept of paradox and its three different senses, the anthropological, the rhetorical and the metaphysical. In the second part (sections 2-6), I shall examine the presence of these senses of paradox in Kant’s texts about Enlightenment (with special attention on the Beantwortung). The paradox of immaturity consists of the fact that we are responsible, as human beings, and non-responsible, as subjects of a State, of the exit from it. Another formulation of the same paradox, but in dynamical and metaphysical terms (which will specifically occupy section 3), is that of heautocracy, the paradox of selfconstraint, which implies that the subject is at the same time active and passive. Finally, the opposition between public and private use of reason also seems paradoxical, since private use seems to be a prejudiced use (and it is not, actually) while public use seems to be free and reasonable as such (although the freedom implied in Enlightenment is only methodical and is subject to rules).