{"id":25586,"date":"2026-08-25T09:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kabul-24.com\/en\/?p=25586"},"modified":"2026-08-25T09:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:17:21","slug":"self-incurred-captivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kabul-24.com\/en\/self-incurred-captivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-incurred captivity"},"content":{"rendered":"
In his essay “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, Immanuel Kant defines enlightenment as man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity: the inability to use one’s own understanding without guidance from another.<\/h6>\n

Kabul 24:<\/a> As Kant himself emphasizes, the cause of this immaturity lies not in a lack of understanding, but in a lack of resolve and courage. The immature individual possesses the capacity to think independently, but lacks the courage to exercise it.<\/p>\n

Alongside this self-incurred immaturity, one can also speak of a “self-incurred intellectual captivity.” If in immaturity an individual recognizes other possibilities but willfully chooses to abstain from them, in intellectual captivity, a person becomes so trapped within a single epistemological framework that this repeated, long-term abstention gradually blocks and renders impossible the very ability to imagine an alternative.<\/p>\n

In other words, the deeper an individual’s dependence on their framework grows, the more their minimal awareness of alternative possibilities vanishes. Anything<\/a> outside that framework becomes almost unimaginable, prompting them to claim: “Such a thing is fundamentally impossible.”<\/p>\n

The causes of this dependence are manifold, but one of its primary roots lies in the human desire to escape the burden of freedom\u2014a central topic detailed by Erich Fromm in his book *Escape from Freedom*.<\/p>\n

In Fromm’s view, freedom is not merely liberation from guardianship and domination; it inherently carries responsibility and, consequently, can induce deep anxiety.<\/p>\n

A free individual must be capable of autonomously charting their own path without a leader, viewing the world through their own eyes, enduring uncertainty, and accepting the weight of their choices\u2014all without relying on continuous guidance from others.<\/p>\n

Many people lack the capacity to endure such a degree of freedom, which in turn stirs within them a desire to flee from it. In such a state, the individual willingly seeks refuge in a guardian to relieve them of the burden of choice and the duty of independent thought.<\/p>\n

This guardian is not necessarily an external person or institution; it can be the very conceptual framework in which the individual gradually settles, substituting it for independent judgment. Such a framework provides answers in advance, defines right and wrong, and spares the person from the difficulty of confronting the world autonomously.<\/p>\n

From this perspective, if Enlightenment is the emergence from self-incurred immaturity, emerging from self-incurred intellectual captivity can be understood as the deepening of that very project.<\/p>\n

Enlightenment reaches its full depth only when human beings\u2014in addition to summoning the courage to use their own understanding\u2014remain vigilant against intellectual dependence and refuse to let repeated abstentions from free thought gradually rob them of the very capacity to think differently.<\/p>\n

Jamshid Mehrpoor \u2014 Kabul<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his essay “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, Immanuel Kant defines enlightenment as man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity: the inability to use one’s own understanding without guidance from another. Kabul 24: As Kant himself emphasizes, the cause of this immaturity lies not in a lack of understanding, but in a lack of resolve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSelf-incurred captivity - Kabul24<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In his essay "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?", Immanuel Kant defines enlightenment as man's emergence from his self-incurred\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kabul-24.com\/en\/self-incurred-captivity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Self-incurred captivity - 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