What Is Enlightenment?

• Originally Kant wrote in the opening paragraph:
  
  Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit is das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung and des Muthes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines andern zu bedienen. Sapere aude! Habe Muth dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! is also der Wahlspruch der Aufklärung.
  
  
  1. Translation by an unknown author:
     
     Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!
     
     
  2. Translation by Lewis White Beck, from Immanuel Kant, On History, ed., with an introduction, by Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), p. 3:
     
     Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!" — that is the motto of enlightenment.
     
     
  3. Translation by A.F.M. Willich, from Immanuel Kant, Essays and Treatises on Moral, Political and Various Philosophical Subjects (London, 1798, 1799); reprinted in Frank E. Manuel, ed., The Enlightenment (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 35.
     
     Enlightening is, Man's quitting the nonage occasioned by himself. Nonage or minority is the inability of making use of one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This nonage is occasioned by one's self, when the cause of it is not from want of understanding, but of resolution and courage to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. Sapere aude! Have courage to make use of thy own understanding! is therefore the dictum of enlightening.
     (Nonage = the condition of "not [being] of age" )
     
     
  4. Translation by Peter Gay, from Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West, 2 vols., 2nd Ed. (1954), I, 1071; reprinted in Gay, The Enlightenment: A Comprehensive Anthology (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), p. 384.
     
     Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
     
     
  5. Translation by Lyman A. Baker, Instructor of English, Department of English, Kansas State University
     
     Enlightenment is getting out of the childhood that you've kept yourself in. Mentally, you're still a minor if you can't use your mind without having someone else tell you what and how to think. This is your own fault if the problem is not that you have the bad luck to be retarded or brain-damaged, but that you just can't make up your own mind, and are afraid to use your brains without someone else dictating what you think. Sapere aude! Dare to know! "Have the guts to use your own wits," is thus the slogan of the Enlightenment.