On the Formation of Intellectual Habits

Sapere Aude! "Dare to know!" declares Immanuel Kant in his short essay What is Enlightenment?. By freeing himself from a self-imposed tutelage, so believes Kant, man is able to achieve enlightenment, to have the courage to use his own reason. Kant saw in the academics of his time (and especially of the time preceding his) a tendency to entrust their minds and moral beliefs to certain unquestionable authorities. Whether these authorities came in political or religious forms, or in an exaggerated reverence for antiquity, 18th century life was built upon prior principles and tradition. "If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay -others will readily undertake the irksome work for me." Such was, according to Kant, the common attitude of most people at the time. This tutelage of society under authority is self-imposed because man has not the courage to stray from the designated path, to leave behind the old and outdated and discover the new. Man must cast off the chains and make use of his own reason without the direction from another. Only then will he achieve true intellectual and spiritual freedom, true enlightenment.

As one continues to read Kant's essay, one cannot help but be moved by his energy and enthusiasm, his bold exhortation. Yet one is left asking himself: Is such an intellectual freedom truly realistic? Is each man's mind capable of handling such ungrounded movements? It is my intention to answer these questions.

We must first analyze the human intellect and see how it comes to the knowledge of things naturally. We see that all knowledge stands upon certain principles which are deemed by the knower as being, in a way, self-explanatory. For example the mathematician takes as his principles the notions of quantity and numerical difference, and he sees these notions as being independent, able to stand on their own; for we clearly experience quantity and numerical difference constantly in our lives. Such is the case with all knowledge. There are, however, two types of principles which exist in the mind: those which are truly self-evident (which all men hold as true) and those which only seem to be self-evident. An example of a truly self-evident principle would be the principle of contradiction: something cannot both be and not be in the same respect and at the same time. This everyone holds to be true and it cannot be denied (for in order to deny something, one has to invoke the principle of contradiction). Knowledge built upon truly self-evident principles is firmly valid. Knowledge which is built upon the only seemingly self-evident can only really be called strong opinion or belief.

Some questions immediately arise. We can see clearly where truly self-evident principles come: experience. We come to know the principle of contradiction through our experience of the exterior world. If you are A, you cannot be not A. And if you are not A you cannot be A. But where does the other type of principles come from? And why are they deemed self-evident by the intellect if they are not truly so? The answer to the first question is authority. Someone tells us something and because we trust them we take it as true. The answer to the second question is nature. When we are young we naturally trust our parents, family, and culture almost to the point of accepting what they say to be self-evidently true. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, for this natural instinct in the young is necessary (survival depends on it), but merely that it is a real thing and should be taken seriously. Now these seemingly self-evident truths become so deeply rooted in the intellect that they become like a second nature. And since nature is something permanent, what we learn from our parents and community is almost impossible to detach one's self from. Hence Aristotle says in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics that it is almost impossible for those who are not raised in the correct way to become virtuous, for they are so habituated in their vice that they are beyond reform. So it is with the intellect. If a man develops bad intellectual habits it becomes very difficult for him to achieve true and certain knowledge. Thus it becomes all important to raise one's children in the proper manner, and to be careful when choosing their educator.

We must now return to the questions raised by Kant's essay. First of all I believe that we are forced to say that complete "liberation" from our upbringing is altogether impossible, and even a partial "liberation" is difficult. And even if achieved, one would immediately be vulnerable to the hasty acceptance of new seemingly self-evident principles and would be "enslaved" once again. The reason for all this is that the human intellect is weak and needs assistance from others in order to achieve anything significant. This is not to say that the human intellect is incapable of understanding anything on its own, but that it is easily seduced from the truth. Therefore, even if Kant's enlightenment were possible, it would be undesirable, for each man would be isolated from others and would get no where. Therefore we must not be afraid to use the help of other wise men that have come before to guide us on the path to wisdom.