For Kant’s 300th birthday today, I looked up some important ideas and their translations. There is one term that seems very topical, but I am not sure if its translation has sufficiently strong connotations: Unmündigkeit — minority, as in this quote:
“Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority.”
(Source: Kant, 1784, An answer to the question: What is enlightenment? in: Practical Philosophy. Ed. and trans. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.)
I wonder how much the term and its opposite remind English-speaking readers just of legal minority/ majority rather than of a much wider context? In German, ‘mündig’ means a lot more than ‘of full age’, and in particular, the absence of a ‘Vormund’ ~ guardian who does ‘bevormunden’ ~ patronize me. (We also feel a connotation with ‘voice’ because of the word component of ‘mund’ = mouth, although this is etymologically unrelated).
As my feed subscribers will know, the topic of patronizing software and user interfaces has engaged me for a long time. Working in IT, I do know what is possible, and I can recognize what are unintended excusable glitches and what is deliberate patronizing. The latter make me increasingly furious.
Now that ‘Tools for thought’ and AI are getting popular, I realize how much the spreading ‘minority’ is voluntarily opted for, and indeed self-incurred.
So, “Sapere aude!” is as very timely advice by Kant, “Have the courage to make use of your own understanding!” (ibid.)
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I think the equivalent in English might be ‘learned helplessness’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
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Thank you Stephen, for this aspect. I did not think of it.
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