Question
Updated on
6 Dec 2022
- Simplified Chinese (China)
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English (US)
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Japanese
Question about English (US)
What is the meaning of "enlightenment imperative"? Some simple explanation?
What is the meaning of "enlightenment imperative"? Some simple explanation?
Answers
6 Dec 2022
Featured answer
- English (US)
I don't think you can give a simple explanation of that. Would need to know more context to be able to say, because this sounds like it could be a very specific term from an academic paper.
Taking the words apart though, we have:
enlightenment: to gain wisdom. Not just knowledge, but the idea is like bringing light to a dark room, where the dark was your ignorance. This is a big change. Often considered spiritual.
imperative: a command. Something you must do.
Put together, it's harder to say. Either "a command to seek wisdom", it is imperative that you seek enlightening... like a call to action.
It for also mean the imperative of your enlightenment, meaning that your enlightenment requires you to do this. This would be like, you learned that something is harmful, so your enlightenment demands that you don't participate.
I strongly suspect though that this is a fancy name an author is giving to a specific idea. abd would need to know the source to say for sure. Philosophers and academics like to give their ideas names like this. "A Modest Proposal" means an idea that is simple and humble, but it's also the name of a famous paper about cannibalism.
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- English (US)
I don't think you can give a simple explanation of that. Would need to know more context to be able to say, because this sounds like it could be a very specific term from an academic paper.
Taking the words apart though, we have:
enlightenment: to gain wisdom. Not just knowledge, but the idea is like bringing light to a dark room, where the dark was your ignorance. This is a big change. Often considered spiritual.
imperative: a command. Something you must do.
Put together, it's harder to say. Either "a command to seek wisdom", it is imperative that you seek enlightening... like a call to action.
It for also mean the imperative of your enlightenment, meaning that your enlightenment requires you to do this. This would be like, you learned that something is harmful, so your enlightenment demands that you don't participate.
I strongly suspect though that this is a fancy name an author is giving to a specific idea. abd would need to know the source to say for sure. Philosophers and academics like to give their ideas names like this. "A Modest Proposal" means an idea that is simple and humble, but it's also the name of a famous paper about cannibalism.
- English (US)
@Fodagus BigRain Jack is reading Kant... I just looked it up on the Internet. Sorry, BigRain, Kant is way above my head.
- English (US)
@darrowamy I don't recall "Enlightenment Imperative" in Kant's writing. I tried Google and couldn't find the exact phrase outside of some ranty blogs.
Kant talks about the Categorical Imperatives, but I don't think he uses that phrase. I'm not super intimate with Kant, but his imperatives are more about integrity than Enlightenment, so I don't think that's it. 1) the ends do not justify the means, 2) behave the way you think people should.
If it truly is Kant, you have the issue that his original works are in German, but English, so an English reading of Kant is suspect to translation artifacts. German has a wide array of words that poorly translate to English. Like Angst. (Kant speaks of Angst a lot. English just borrows the word and did try to translate it because it is kind of hard to describe).
This is honestly more a question of philosophy than language. Quora or philosophy stack exchange are better.
Edit: my gut instinct is the author is saying that humans are subconsciously compelled, to seek Enlightenment, or at least academics. He had an essay that everyone seeks truth (could consider that an imperative towards Enlightenment), but this is me speculating and with old European Philosophers, that's not always safe :D
- English (US)
@Fodagus Maybe I can find the article, although I only skimmed it. It seems to me there were three imperatives summarized. I'll look for the reference.
- Simplified Chinese (China)
@Fodagus Thanks! The explanation helps a lot, the meaning of "imperative" in the dictionary is confusing for me. It's not Kant, just some speech I've watched.
- English (US)
@BigRainJack re- reading, I think I missed part of it. Imperative also has a sub-meaning of "important". I think "command" is still the main thing, but it can take a meaning that is like, "this is so important you must do it,". Like, the reason you follow it is because it's important, not just because you were told.
"It is imperative that you turn off the stove before going to bed".

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