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Kant Vs Foucault Analysis

1116 Words5 Pages

Athena Kennedy
Philosophy
Professor Berendzen
Kant vs. Foucault
December 1, 2015

Kant vs. Foucault

Humans question their surroundings every day, weather it is “is how I am acting the way I want to portray myself,” “am I doing the right thing in this situation?” All questions can and should be debated, In philosophy we find new ways to questions everything, weather it is another’s opinion or our own, we form new ways of thinking critically and new ways to obtain answers that will satisfy our thirst for knowledge. Philosophers believe that you need to be able to question everything because there is always new knowledge out there for us to absorb and to question. In critical thinking you evaluate an issue you believe is present in order …show more content…

His answer, “Enlightenment is man 's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity,” in this statement the reader can incur that Kant believed that unless we reach enlightenment we aren’t able to reach a maturity level to take care of ourselves, we as humans put ourselves in the position of immaturity, we have full control over where we stand in life, but some chose to be immature and unenlightened. Kant believed that in order to reach enlightenment we need to be able to do things for ourselves, if we aren’t able to we are immature and not capable of reaching …show more content…

This expression is the exact opposite of the Kantian view on enlightenment and the idea of humans needing to be autonomous.
Foucault views the Kantian way of thinking about enlightenment to have a certain attitude or ethos. Foucault says that this ethos or attitude about enlightenment is “described as a permanent critique of our historical era.” Foucault puts in it two general ways or options to think about the enlightenment. “You either accept the enlightenment and remain within the tradition of its rationalism or else you criticize the Enlightenment and then try to escape from its principles of rationality” In my personal opinion both of these essays and their authors have their strong points, I personally believe that I side more with Kants views in his essay about freedom and autonomy. People should be able to stand up for themselves and have a strong presence in politics, government, and religion. Our country should not be run behind the peoples backs, we should be able to have a voice in any political matters that could possibly pertain or effect society as a whole. Human beings need to be able to effectively make change in society. People should have the right to defend themselves judicially and should obviously have the right to religious

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