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Question Marx

A New Twist on Old Ideas

Lucian Lupescu sees how far Kant’s and Marx’s ideals overlap.

In 1784 Immanuel Kant described humanity as being in a state of immaturity, which to Kant is “the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another” (An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’, trans Mary C. Smith). The reasons for this immaturity are “laziness and cowardice.” For progress to occur, we must “have courage to use [our] own understanding.” And for Kant, historical progress must yield some form of freedom: “For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom.

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