Kantova pećina: nesamostalnost i maloletnost
Kant’s Cave: Lack of Independence, and Minors

Author(s): Dragan Prole
Subject(s): Epistemology, Early Modern Philosophy
Published by: Akademija Nauka i Umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine
Keywords: Kant; Enlightenment; Immaturity; Critical Philosophy; Independence;
Summary/Abstract: The article starts from the premise that independent thinking, free from authority despite dominant institutions that favor obedience, command, and vertical hierarchy, represents a high demand of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. The author argues that a kind of critical heroism in Kant’s standpoint consists in treating what is very rare in reality as constantly present and universally pervasive. One of the results of Kant’s philosophy suggests a too-rapid transition from temporary independence to permanent self-reliance. If enlightenment is not conceivable as a one-time emergence from immaturity, but rather as a continually renewed effort of emerging, then self-reliance is not an acquired state, but rather a permanently renewed task. The tendency towards routine, the power of habit, and the inertia of a lazy mind cannot be discarded once and for all. The conclusion suggests that within this gesture lie the reasons why the enlightenment project can simultaneously be declared both successful and unsuccessful.

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