Animal-human-machine. Immediate context of “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?”

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Faculty of Philosophy, Blvd. Tzar Osvoboditel 15, 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria

^* Corresponding author: denkov@phls.uni-sofia.bg

Abstract

The guiding principles of enlightenment thinking – tolerance and renunciation of the prejudice of authority – are followed to demonstrate the possibility of interpretation, using all texts as equivalent and avoiding the one-dimensional representations of the Enlightenment. The aim is to give a description of the immediate texts and contexts around Kant’s “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in the “Berlinische Monatsschrift” in 1784: the fable “The Monkey” by Zöllner and the anonymous letter on Kempelen’s chess and speech machines with Biester’s comment. According to the hermeneutic-metaphysical approach “to understand the author better than he understood himself”, the article demonstrates that they are not only specimens of the most popular genres of the Enlightenment (fable, answering, letter) but also examples of the ethical issues surrounding the understanding of the relationship animal-human-machine, theory-practice, public-private, useful-harmful. The textual material is subjected to a contextual and universal examination, whereby the more general relationship between hypertheses and hypotheses is considered. Kant’s articles in the “Berlinische Monatsschrift” after his involvement in this dispute show the rethinking of the Copernican turn and demonstrate the transition from an individualistic to a public-oriented, yet not radical, position. Тhe answer to the question “What is Enlightenment?” turns out to be not only factually but also ideologically important in the transition from the first to the second version of the Critique of Pure Reason.