Teodor Nicula-Golovei

Clare College, 17.10.2017

“Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen
zu bedienen” (Kant): Write a critical comparison of the conceptions of human cultural
development advanced by Lessing and Kant in the light of this statement.

While it is true that there are differences in terms of style, intended reception, and some very
particular theological views, Kant and Lessing rather seem to be on the same page when it
comes to their views about the basis on which human culture should develop further. The
argument here will be that most differences between the two texts – “Die Erziehung des
Menschengeschlechts” (Lessing, 1780) and “Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?”
(Kant, 1784) – rather show that the works complement each other, as both are indeed
committed to outlining the need for human society to overcome “Unmündigkeit” as defined
by Kant, in order for human culture to progress. In spite of subtle differences, the views
cannot be said to contradict each other and the way the two texts reinforce each other’s
arguments regarding the transitory character of the age they describe. This prompts anyone
who studies them to retrospectively ponder how human culture did develop in relation to
those initial ideas. The inconsistent historical effects, destructive like never before, but also
positive in many ways, provide fertile ground for unfaithful reinterpretations and
anachronistic conclusions, which is why this essay will focus on the comparison of Kant and
Lessing’s ideas about human cultural development as they appeared in their original socio-
historical context.
First of all, the difference in style between the two texts which is so obvious at a first reading
shows a difference in personality and aesthetical conceptions rather than one related to the
vision on the development of human thinking and culture. Both support the idea that critical
thinking is the necessary faculty for a man to be enlightened, but each of them expresses this
in a different way. As H.F. Allison argues, Lessing preferred suggestive fragments to
systematic works in Kant’s style1. This is also true of the two texts compared here: Kant
gives a plain theoretical response to a question addressed by J.F. Zöllner one year earlier in
the Berliner Monatsschrift, while Lessing appoints an unnamed author to postulate one
hundred – sometimes contradictory and stylistically inconsistent – paragraphs on the
development of the interrelation between revelation and reason. Rather than proving inability
to think systematically or write proper philosophical texts, this difference in itself proves
Lessing’s point about the importance of continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of
metaphorical and poetic language as the way in which humans pursue truth. He applies his
point about the Old Testament’s language opening up a range of meanings to his own text, in
belief that this way it “facilitates the growth and development of a childlike understanding
into the adulthood of rationality”2. Although up to now one might have said that my argument
leads to the conclusion of a complete distinction between the views of Lessing and Kant, this
observation made by P. Hayden-Roy represents the point of convergence between the two
texts. Kant’s “Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit” is
exactly that: an escape from an immature way of thinking. The use of the term
“Unmündigkeit” primarily refers to the lack of autonomy due to not being of age. Kant
extrapolates the word as a metaphor for a “Denkungsart” which is still unable to break free
from prejudice, superstition, ‘and paternalism’ by “Vormünder” like priests, doctors, or even
books. Thus, although one uses a metaphorical style, while the other a direct theoretical one,

1
Henry E. Allison, ‘: Reason, Revelation, and History in Lessing and Kant’, in Essays on Kant (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012), p. 21
2
Priscilla Hayden-Roy, ‘Refining the Metaphor in Lessing’s “Erziehung Des Menschengeschlechts”’,
Monatshefte, 95.3 (2003), p. 403
 Teodor Nicula-Golovei
Clare College, 17.10.2017

both Lessing and Kant advocate a negative definition for the development of human culture:
the escape from a tutored, childlike way of thinking by using one’s own reason.
Another apparent difference can be encountered in the use of the term “Erziehung”. Lessing
considers that education is for the individual what the revelation is for humankind (§1). As
H.B. Nisbet suggests, trying to make sure whether the term is used literally or as a metaphor
or analogy is problematic3. If one were to take it as a literal process, this should also imply
the presence of an educator, which would come very close to what Kant considers a
“Vormund“. A second, and in Nisbet’s view more plausible interpretation is that the term
refers to a natural process in which man is educated by trying to decipher the allegories and
instructive narratives of metaphorical and poetic texts. This second interpretation seems to be
confirmed by the fact that Lessing replaces the word “Gott” by “Natur“ two times in the
second half of the work. On the issue of education as knowledge Kant had rejected the
Mendelssohnian view identifying enlightenment with the posession of knowledge4. He held
that what was needed was not that everyone became a scholar, but that the reading mass
dared to think for itself. Thus, one can argue that both texts actually refer not to a form of
literal education and accumulation of given knowledge, but to a change in the mode of
thought. Lessing’t texts might seem more didactic than Kant’s, but a closer look shows
internal inconsistencies in “Erziehung des Menschengeschlechtes” which are there to show
Lessing’s belief in the plurality of truth and a form of Spinozist perspectivism. The most
illustrative example is the contradiction between §4: “Also giebt auch die Offenbarung dem
Menschengeschlechte nichts, worauf die menschliche Vernunft, sich selbst überlassen, nicht
auch kommen würde” and 77: “durch eine Religion, mit deren historischen Wahrheit, wenn
man will, es so mißlich aussieht, gleichwohl auf nähere und bessere Begriffe vom göttlichen
Wesen, von unsrer Natur, von unsern Verhältnissen zu Gott, geleitet werden können, auf
welche die menschliche Vernunft von selbst nimmermehr gekommen wäre?”. Nisbet argues
that the reasons for this contradiction were “to avoid any hint of dogmatic inflexibility” and
also pedagogical: “didacticism lies not so much in the ideas it puts forward […] its form
[works by] stimulating the critical intelligence of its readers”5. It is this second reason that I
wish to concentrate on, because it brings the views of Lessing and Kant to an agreement. This
attitude shows that Lessing was trying to make his readership think, rather than give
definitive laws to be learnt by his contemporaries. Such an interpretation is reinforced by the
way he introduces his narrator: “Der Verfasser hat sich darum auf einen Hügel gestellt, von
welchem er etwas mehr, als den vorgeschriebenen Weg seines heutigen Tages zu übersehen
glaubt.” He is placed higher than the majority of the people, but only thinks he is able to see
farther than them. This prompts any reader to take that what he says with a grain of salt.
Moreover, Lessing places himself somewhere above his narrator, proving that the message
that he wants to convey must be searched by analysing the bigger picture: Lessing’s intent is
to provide the readers with a narrator who is not entirely reliable (given the internal
contradictions of which his text suffers), thus prompting them to use their capacity to reason,
to think critically about it rather than taking its truthfulness for granted. And this message is
very close to Kant’s motto: “Sapere aude! Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu
bedienen!”.

3
H B Nisbet, ‘The Hybrid Discourse of Lessing’s Erziehung Des Menschengeschlechts’, Publications of the
English Goethe Society, 80.2–3 (2011), p. 72.
4
Henry E. Allison, ‘: Kant’s Conception of Aufklärung’, in Essays on Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012), p. 6
5
Nisbet, p. 75.
 Teodor Nicula-Golovei
Clare College, 17.10.2017

While their views on the role of Christianity differed to a rather large extent, both still
envisaged a gradual development of human culture in which Christianity in its current state
represented just one stage. Lessing had a non-theistic conception and considered Christianity
a middle phase of transition between Judaism and an Eternal Gospel which would follow.
This coincides with his historicised view of revelation which Allison describes: “an implicitly
rational content is initially presented in a way that is accessible to those who are not yet in
position to grasp it in its rational form”6. Kant was a theist, regarded Christianity as a moral
religion from the start and saw no need to overcome it. However, similarly to Lessing’s
belief, he believes that this Christianity must be grasped and accepted in its rational form,
with no need for the external factors connected with belief in revelation. Both these views
show the conception that although revelation will eventually be outgrown in importance by
rationality, it would still be relevant: in Lessing because the poetic form in which it appears
makes one think critically, in Kant because he considered revelation as a vehicle that
subjectively teaches reason the quicker way to a religion that is otherwise objectively natural.
Thus, both the Eternal Gospel and the objectively natural Christianity were yet to be reached
by humanity, so both Lessing and Kant acknowledged that they were not yet living in an
enlightened age. In this sense, both texts educate, because they aim to define a concept that
had been around for long and very much discussed since the 1760s, but never really grasped,
let alone attained. The cohesiveness of Lessing’s and Kant’s works from 1780 and 1784 is all
the more impressive when we consider that Lessing’s work was not prompted, as Kant’s, by a
direct question about the implications of the term “Enlightenment”. And still, we encounter
the same spirit of the necessity of a change in Denkungsart.
To conclude, as we have seen by now, despite all apparent or real divergences between the
views expressed by Kant in “Was ist Aufklärung?” and by Lessing through “Erziehung des
Menschengeschlechts”, both seem to advocate the change in the way of thinking of the
masses as the way for culture to progress. This is a project that depended greatly on the
responsiveness of the reading public to their ideas, because it proposed a “model of social
interaction, a set of practices, a culture”7. Hence, both ahead of their time, basically
envisaged the creation of a new culture based on the new Denkungsart, namely the ability to
critically consider that which is assumed to be true. Lessing has a more artistic, and rhetorical
style, while Kant is the systematic theorist par excellence, but at a close analysis, their major
views about the development of human culture converge: both defined Enlightenment as an
escape from tutelage by using reason, both rejected education as accumulation of given
knowledge and rather advocated critical thinking, and both viewed Enlightenment as a
transitory period, an unfinished process in the development of humankind. All in all, the
similarities outweigh the differences and provide us with a fairly unitary vision of what
“Aufklärung” meant, or perhaps more importantly, what it did not mean.

Bibliography
Allison, Henry E., ‘: Kant’s Conception of Aufklärung’, in Essays on Kant (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012)
———, ‘: Reason, Revelation, and History in Lessing and Kant’, in Essays on Kant (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012)

6
Allison, ‘: Reason, Revelation, and History in Lessing and Kant’, p. 20
7
Katerina Deligiorgi, Kant and the Culture of Enlightenment / Katerina Deligiorgi. (Albany: Albany : State
University of New York Press, c2005., 2005), ch. 2, p. 97.
 Teodor Nicula-Golovei
Clare College, 17.10.2017

Blanning, T. C. W., ‘The Enlightenment in Catholic Germany’, in The Enlightenment in National

Context, ed. by Mikuláš Teich and Roy S. Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
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