Question

Compare Kant’s purposes in “What is Enlightenment?” to those of Dante Alighieri in Inferno. How are the ambitions of each author different and what do these ambitions reflect about the age in which each author wrote? Your answer should be at least one hundred words.

Answer 1

Immanuel Kant’s purpose is defining enlightenment and to make people aware that laziness and cowardice is the hindrance towards goodness. He campaigns that we should be responsible for our own actions. As Kant said, “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage.” In other words, enlightenment is one’s rise from self-immaturity. On the other hand, Dante Alighieri wrote Inferno to make people realize what are the consequences of sinfulness on earth and that afterlife exists with either eternal happiness or punishment. Dante also reimagines the mysteries of the afterlife through the 9 circles of hell and that the graveness of sin has a  corresponding circle or punishment.   

Answer 2

Answer:

-Kant aims to define and explain the Enlightenment and encourage the individuals to use their reason to seek knowledge and freedom.

-Kant mentions religion only as a means by which the guardians attempt to control the minors. He clearly views reason as superior to religion, and believes that an individual’s relationship with God should be just that—individual. In this he represents an Enlightenment perspective. -Dante’s purposes sought to define and explain the moral order of hell and affirm the superiority of a Christian God. He clearly sees religious practice and adherence as more important than reason. In this, he represents a medieval perspective.

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Explanation: