Similarities Between Kant And The Enlightenment

“Foucault’s work gave the terms discursive practices and discursive formation to the analysis of particular institutions and their ways of establishing orders of truth, or what is accepted as ‘reality’ in a given society” (Goldberg). Discursive formations display hierarchical arrangement and are understood as reinforcing certain already established identities or subjectivities- in matters of sexuality, status, or class for example. These dominant discourses are understood as in turn reinforced by existing systems of law, education and the media”. Foucault’s work is to show that members of society such as intellectuals, “are implicated in discourse and in the discursive regimes or systems of power and regulation which give them their livelihoods

Immanuel Kant was one of the most influential philosophers of the eighteenth century. His ideas helped shape societal revolutions for decades after his death. He argued that reason, rather than religion, should dictate a person’s morality and life choices. Ideas like this flourished in the Age of Enlightenment. One of Kant’s most prominent contributions was a 1784 essay in a monthly magazine, where he defined what it means to be enlightened and outlined the steps to achieve it. The purpose of the essay was to raise awareness and encourage people to pursue intellectual freedom. One of its most interesting characteristics was a paragraph where Kant commented on the current state of Enlightenment in his native Prussia. The passage was

Enlightenment is described as a period of intellectual growth. Immanuel Kant is a German philosopher and a leading figure of modern philosophy. In 1784, Kant released an essay titled, “Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” The essay was written during a period of intense political and social changes in Prussia. The essay is a plea for society to think autonomously and with free will. In the essay, Kant asserts that one must have an enlightened approach to life. Kant describes enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self imposed immaturity” (Kant 41). He goes to describe immaturity as, “the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance of another” (Kant 41). Kant states the motto of enlightenment as ““Have courage to use your own understanding”” (Kant 41). In the essay, Kant also outlines the obstacles of enlightenment. The author provides the definitions of private and public use of reason to further elucidate the concept of enlightenment. The aspect of public and private reason can be easily muddled. Immanuel Kant uses the essay to distinguish between the act of collectively deciding on a course of action and the act of implementing those collective decisions privately. The distinction is critical: public reason is a matter of acting in accordance to oneself, whereas private use of reason is a matter of submitting to authority. To provide this distinction, the author uses various examples of how public and private use of reason is evident I all

This week’s readings have been informative and powerful in their content. All three philosophers brought forth some thought-provoking assertions in their theories around human kind’s individuality that are within our control or choice for that matter. I have been able to relate to the content that they have provided. This week I felt a little more connected personally to Kant’s texts more than the others. This is because of my own beliefs that I feel are important. For this discussion, I did choose Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?”

The panopticon is a prison with a big watch tower in the middle. It was built like this so the prisoners can be efficiently watched and guarded. The prisoners every move was watched and monitored. This was another way of punishment because they weren’t being punished physically, but mentally. The prisoner’s minds were being controlled, instead of their bodies. Foucault believes that modern society is the same way as the prison was run, maybe not to the same extreme, though. Everything is run by the state like for example, schools, hospitals, police stations, jobs, and many more.

Douglas Keller will Foucault’s thought to the development is divided into three stages: the early

Foucault is a very famous name when it comes to political theory. In our contemporary theory politics course, one of the required reading materials was Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Foucault had these very strong ideas about punishment, especially about, the “modern penal system” or otherwise known as prison. Foucault was very analytic about discipline and punishment prior to the eighteenth century. In the beginning of Discipline and Punish, Foucault explains how prior to the eighteenth century, punishment was something that was used as severe torture to the human body, as well as explaining how when people were punished, punishments usually were public and or ceremonial. Foucault had strong ideas and he mentioned some very important terms to make his argument. To help the reader of this essay, some very important key terms will be defined. These key terms include, knowledge, power, discipline, panopticism, and politics. Hopefully these key terms can help the reader understand Foucault’s beliefs and ideas, as well as the second part of the essay where Foucault’s ideas will be related to modern day pop culture. Two very important terms that are the foundation of Foucault’s work are, knowledge and power. The root of Foucault’s analytic would be those two previous words. Foucault does not view power as a negative thing, because he believes it is something that is always going to exist. Foucault

Foucault is best remembered for his historical inquiries into the origins of “disciplinary” society in a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Today, however, under the conditions of global modernity, the relevance of his contribution is often called into question. With the increasing ubiquity of markets, the break up of centralized states and the dissolution of national boundaries, the world today seems far removed from the bounded, disciplinary societies Foucault described in his most famous books. Far from disciplinary, society today is “post panoptic,” as Nancy Fraser has argued — in a move which seems to confirm Jean Baudrillard’s demand that we “forget Foucault.”

In the Essay “What is Enlightenment?” writer Immanuel Kant expresses that it is often troublesome for individuals to emerge out of adolescence. He says that individuals would frequently stay content in a condition of immaturity. As indicated by him, guidelines and formulas tie individuals to a condition of immaturity. A man, he says, who might set out to resist the standards and equations would just make a little stride towards development since he is unaccustomed to this sort of free development. Just a couple of individuals, as indicated by Kant, have prevailing with regards to rising out of immaturity. He says that such individuals have done so by developing their minds.

‘Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority. Kant means emergence from a form of slavery, in which one is not free to think for oneself, but instead is told what to think. In a sense, I think it relates to religious and state imposed rules. This is reinforced when Kant suggests to ‘have the courage to make use of your own understanding’, making that the motto of the Enlightenment.

Foucault is the author behind Panopticism. While reading his article, for starters it was very hard to comprehend what he was trying to say, I found this article very confusing and irritating! However, this article does provide different types of elements that can be used to agree to his theory. In this article, he uses Ethos to persuade people that he knows what he’s talking about. He used Logos to persuade other about the effects discipline. He uses Kairos, to address different points about discipline. He lastly uses Pathos to connect to the audience emotionally to prove his theory about discipline.

In her article, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, Bartkey begins by summarizing philosopher Michel Foucault’s literary analysis of the Panopticon and how the prison system works tying it to modern society. Foucault begins by using the example of a student who is forced to sit in assigned seating based of class ranking. The scrutiny the student faces forces him to sit upright; he must keep feet his feet on the floor; his head must stay erect; and he may not slouch or fidget. With

Foucault seeks the potential for an ethical self-creation in the emergence of the new, be it a form of power, counter-conduct or an ethical culture of the self. As part of this move, Foucault relies upon transcendent referents which are utilized to ground a new form of freedom for the individual. In contrast, Agamben avoids all reference to transcendence, contending that politics involves the deactivation of

In modern society, we are always being watched and documented by a certain power or institution, an authoritative one in certain cases. This creates a sense of carcerality in these societies. The powers or institutions that are always observing the individuals in a population and analyzing them do so in order to classify each individual and to judge them so that they don’t deviate from the masses in terms of behavior and health. The institution that illustrates this the best, which is what Michel Foucault focused on most as an example for

In 1784 Immanuel Kant wrote a brief essay in response to the question “What is Enlightenment?” It is one of his most important performances, commencing with a definition of enlightenment – “mankind’s exit from its self incurred immaturity” – that has achieved canonical status. Indeed the idea of an “immaturity” for which agents are themselves somehow responsible has attracted a fair amount of criticism, too. It goes on to offer a succinct summary of the attitude that characterizes the Enlightenment.