The following is a paper I wrote last summer in a class called The Enlightenment. It discusses Immanual Kant's philosophy, and some of my experience with academic suppression. This is my first post on Steemit, and I didn't participate on other platforms much at all. I've been waiting for an appropriate platform to start "throwing myself out there," and now I have one. So bear with me while I learn basic social media stuff? I'm sure there are grammar mistakes, and my APA sucked pretty hard back then! But the truth is truth regardless of the packaging. Our forefathers would be exceptionally proud today to see our projects and efforts take flight! Lastly, if any of you end up using parts of this paper for an assignment (quotes etc...) just make sure you find the original source. My essay would be considered a "secondary" source, in case you're new to academia.
Immanuel Kant's ideology is based entirely on freedom, and valuing the responsibility attributed to those who seek it. He discussed how authorities will dumb down their “cattle,” making them essentially complacent. He believed that if the reasoning of authorities were indeed sound, they would not be worried about people thinking for themselves. “The public use of one's reasoning must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private use of reason, on the other hand, may often be very narrowly restricted without particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment.”
Immanuel Kant had contrasting ideas between how a society becomes enlightened, and what an enlightened individual is. I'm deducing that the enlightenment of an entire society inadvertently relies, almost wholly on the; social dynamic, mimicry and adherence to agreeable worldviews. I say this because Kant described “man's release from his self-incurred tutelage[,]” (pp 1) as “...very difficult....” (pp 2). Kant explained that for the entire society to become enlightened it would merely require freedom, in that sense it's a simple evolution. However he acknowledged, firstly, that the process for the individual to liberate himself from his own; laziness, complacency, and comfort derived from the solace of social agreeability, is instead a difficult task. He mentions that there will always be free-thinkers, yet this is not enough for the entire society to progress.
A critical obstacle to this idea of freedom are the restrictions placed on people in certain roles. On page three in Kramnick's work, he talked about scholars having the freedom to say what they wish, while those in authority and clergy had to stay within certain bounds, which claim to benefit the community: That in fact, having freedom in those areas could be considered “ruinous” (Kramnick, 3).
His belief that scholars have “unlimited freedom” is false (in my experience)—at least in our time. Not just for the reasons I've suggested elsewhere in this course, but also due to peer pressure, stigmas, and fear of destroying hard-earned credibility. It seems much simpler to be a scholar supported by a single field, and engaging only with very closely linked content (where everyone agrees: a repressive force in my opinion): For others who wish to synthesize vast amounts of information into a single study, which aims to concretely find the intrinsic value of things (synoptic philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology etc...), it is exceptionally difficult to be perceived correctly.
Given that empirical science expects meticulous sourcing and citing, the creative necessity in my opinion is suffocated. In other words, not everyone knows what they know due to absorbing it from others' work. I adhere to a strong belief in reasoning for myself what can be knowable.
I don't believe that something which could be known is ever discovered, invented or constructed. Anything that can be known already existed in an undefined state (without bounds); we just define our perception of reality through our conscious faculty: Even if that conscious faculty is biologically perpetuated it is still relevant, and has intrinsic value simply for it functioning regardless of our awareness of it.
The system is structured in such a way that any diligent and broad effort is quickly squandered; since to stray like a vine is much different than growing in straight and sterile rows drenched in BT Round-Up (a metaphor; I assume you know what I'm getting at).
Previously these scholars did not source every single conceptual component of their views. They were not expected to cite and source every single minute idea that popped into their heads. On a sufficient level, their realizations were accepted from those capable of determining correctness as a cultivated human skill, and if anything, the person they studied under was their validation. Now, even if a “scholar” (academic/student etc...) were to mention a slightly complicated observation, and do so in a solidifying way, they are bombarded by expectations to then also be historians and find out where it came from. Essentially, I'm only allowed to have one or two dimensional observations.
Furthermore science fields have become so specialized that in some cases synthesis becomes an area to tread lightly if someone intends to be taken seriously. I think the idea of a “scope of practice” (or specialization) seems to be creating cliquish mentalities which undermine other fields prematurely, without utilizing the relevant and useful invested efforts.
In my History and Systems of Psychology course, we learned about Kurt Danziger through Brock's interview called “Rediscovering the history of psychology: Interview with Kurt Danziger.” In it Danziger discusses the fissures being created between specialized fields in psychology and the actual historians which clarify its past.
He discussed the devastating reality that new-historians assume history to be a black and white field when it isn't; that modern beliefs look nothing like those of previous philosophers, and that the idea of psychology before “Psychology's” history functioned within a different type of format: A format I function within which is abstract, broad and conceptualized by mere effort, not rigorous biological experimentation: A cognitive endeavor only applicable at the post-graduate level perhaps.
Ultimately, his point was that our idea of the history of psychology can be a bit inaccurate to its reality, and that a great majority of our current systems of understanding are based on these inaccuracies. Furthermore, he acknowledged that “psychology” doesn't actually have a “history” before the term “psychology” was coined; that what can be considered “psychology” before that point was actually something else entirely: A field not based on psychological objects, biology and materialism. It was rooted in knowable concepts and philosophies, not the study of the human machine as a “subject.” In fact, it was a form of psychology which considered the psychologist to be “the subject” instead. Lastly, he mentioned that the terminology used in the pre-history versions of psychology semantically contradict, in many cases, how we use it today in its medical context. The lack of empiricism is a reason why it was “easier” to be a free-thinker in Kant's time, of course it doesn't come close to the difficulty we have today.
It's extremely hard to function as a scholar when presented with narrow perspectives, too focused on specialization which do not value philosophy in general. Let alone, those who delude themselves into believing that the only truth worth talking about is what's already in literature (hmm sounds like the problems discussed in the text regarding religions...) Considering the nature of what we call history, it seems clear that to depend solely on it, rather than our own “free reasoning” is a mistake.
So no, I think Kant's claim that scholars are entirely free is unfortunately not true today. I get smacked with “cohesiveness” issues when someone doesn't want to invest the effort to read a work with several parts, (of course I can appreciate the fact that teachers don't really get paid enough to do so either...) I get cornered with “relevance” when someone doesn't like tertiary variables or components in that work. I also get slammed with “academic integrity” when I talk about my own synthesized concepts and definition without having first gone through the overwhelming amount of names and faces in history who may have touched on the subject... it's ridiculous to say that there is academic freedom-- let alone any freedom.
What bothers me is the reality that a PhD title seems to make someone seem infallible to most demographics. As we know, having faith was an issue we desperately got away from during this Enlightenment era. Ironically now, having a PhD automatically wins the approval from the majority of demographics, without question. It's like having a PhD means I'd be infallible to those Kant descries in his work:
“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians... ...If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a consciousness for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay-- others will readily undertake the irksome work for me” (Kramnick, 1).
This is exactly why we're enslaved in almost every way in society. THe purpose of government was to protect the people; the power government has over its people is supposed to be in proportion to the control willingly given up by those people. Overtime, we have become lazier and lazier, which is "why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as [our] guardians."
“The public use of one's reasoning must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men”
(Kramnick, 3).
Open Source projects and now, especially, cryptocurrencies, are the most recent and effective means to break the chains of out-dated systems which imprison our minds and bodies, under the guise of "safety." We do not need to be safe to become enlightened, we simply need to be free to cultivate ourselves how Natural Law demands by consequence.
REFERENCES
Brock, A.C. (2006). Rediscovering the history of psychology: Interview with Kurt Danziger.
History of Psychology, 9(1), 1-16. doi: 10.1037/1093-4510.9.1.1
Kramnick, I. (1995). The portable Enlightenment reader. New York: Penguin Books. (pp 1-7).
Images:
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/08/27/3-things-sheeple-do-that-you-dont-have-to/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag
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