I'm not really sure how great my paper is in the real world.
It's kind of beginner philosophy. But I figured you guys would
enjoy it.
A World Amongst The Pines
A forest blanketed by the black of night engulfs all its
inhabitants. A man that would otherwise be highly capable in
the freedom of day becomes the most deliberate and instinctive
of creatures. Each blind movement is made in ignorance of the
last or the next. Man becomes an infant. Many people avoid
wilderness because of a fear of this existence in the unknown.
Yet would it surprise them to find out that they spend much of
their life roaming aimlessly through such a metaphorical
forest of their mind? Henry David Thoreau once declared,“To be
awake is to be alive.”("Walden" 303) What Thoreau
attempts to translate is the interaction between man's level
of consciousness and the ability to comprehend the
surrounding universe. Similarly, Andres Bello and Immanuel
Kant see the benefits of man's emergence from the murky depths
of an unconscious existence.
In his speech given to the University of Chile, Bello states,
“Letters and science, while they give delicious play to the
intellect and imagination, elevate moral character.”(Bello )
To Bello, all of life's pleasures come from the study of
sciences and philosophy. Even in the darkest of times, when
all hope seems lost, the appeal to the intellectual side of
humanity always seems to bring comfort. Bello explains that
even as execution was mere minutes away, Chenier, a French
poet and revolutionary, was writing his last philosophical
thoughts. The idea of a man so close to death continuing to
perform philosophy comes as a stark contrast to the crude
world that wishes to kill him. And so we come to the second
benefit of letters and science: the elevation of moral
character. As we stimulate our mind through science and
philosophy, we are able to better understand the existential
questions surrounding our place in the world. In turn, we can
lift ourselves up from the ignorance of immorality.
As Immanuel Kant attempted to define enlightenment, he
explained, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his
self-imposed immaturity.” To Kant, immaturity would be the
lack of intellectual growth. Intellectual growth is key to
elevating ones moral character, so it seems that the idea of
enlightenment and Bello's development of morals are one and
the same. Kant goes on to explain that immaturity can be
“self imposed” when the problem is not simply the lack of
understanding, but also the unwillingness to learn. Many
people might be unwilling to learn because of laziness or
fear.
To better illustrate this philosophy, we can look to the
metaphor of a night in the forest. A man is standing in a
forest that constitutes his life. The darkness that surrounds
him is his own immaturity. What can he see? How can he
navigate? The man can do nothing but stumble through the woods
blindly like a child learning a new world. However, the man
could have a lantern. He could use that lantern to illuminate
his surroundings. Still, the darkness may strike such a great
fear into the man's heart that he sits still, frozen, unable
to strike a match to light the lantern. In the dark, the man
might build an idea that the world around him is frightening
and that he is better off not understanding it. This is the
epitome of the cliché, “Ignorance is bliss”.
It seems as though both Kant and Bello want man to understand
that the frightening world in the dark is really just a
figment of his immorality or immaturity. The only way to break
the cycle of fear and ignorance is to light the metaphorical
lantern, and study philosophy and science. In the end, the man
will realize that a life dimly lit is still more intriguing
than a life in the dark.
This concept of “emerging” from the darkness of ignorance
into the well lit realm of enlightenment can also be seen in
Henry David Thoreau's work. In Thoreau's “Walden”, he states,
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by
mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn,
which does not forsake us in our soundest
sleep.”("Walden" 303) When Thoreau speaks of
someone being awake, he means that on multiple levels. The
first level is of course being physically coherent. The second
level is being intellectually awake. By being intellectually
awake, Thoreau means that someone is capable of applying
philosophical and scientific arguments to the world around
them. He explains that millions of us are physically awake
throughout the day, but “only one in a million is awake enough
for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred
millions to a poetic or divine or divine
life.”("Walden" 303) Thoreau goes on to state
that he has never met a man that was fully awake. In other
words, he has never met someone who has been able to achieve
full intellectual consciousness and he believes that very few
are even able to break out of their own unconscious existence.
Thoreau is not discouraged by this unfortunate news. It seems
that, to him, reward is not necessarily in the unattainable
ideal of enlightenment. Instead, the reward lies in purely
achieving any enlightenment at all. Just as Kant and Bello
believe, Thoreau argues that we should strive to awaken
ourselves because any progression in someone's intellectual
consciousness is still more pleasurable than the ignorance of
the past. And to Thoreau, man should never give up the search
for enlightenment because it will always exist even in the
darkest hour of human history. Like the man in the forest, he
believes that while the lantern he carries may not illuminate
the entire woods, it lights up his path one step at a time,
making it possible to move forward.
Kant seems to think that this slow progression towards
enlightenment is most certainly a benefit. He argues that man
can and should only “attain enlightenment slowly” for the sake
of stability. He believes that men who are “awoken” too
quickly to the conscious world may, in an actualization of the
allegory of the cave, revolt against the instigator. This
could not only halt all progress of someones consciousness,
but could create even greater fear of the unknown.
Both Kant and Thoreau seem to believe that the real issue
behind man's unwillingness to “light the lantern” lies in the
fact that their ignorance has become so natural and comforting
to them. This comfort mirrors the attitude of the man in the
forest who has grown accustomed to the darkness and finds
comfort in not knowing the “horrors” that exist around him.
However, it seems as though Thoreau wishes to say that the
reason why man so often chooses to live an unconscious life is
because it comes naturally. Kant, on the other hand, believes
that society seems to not only encourage, but condition us to
live an unconscious existence.
While their methods of explanation may differ, it seems that
Bello, Kant, and Thoreau have all come to similar conclusions
on the relationship between ignorance and enlightenment. Their
conclusion is that mans ignorance and immorality can be
overcome by studying science and philosophy. Furthermore, we
must never succumb to the fear felt as a result of being in
the dark world of ignorance. Through consistent stimulation of
the mind and a willingness to be free, man can move step by
step towards a new level of intellectual consciousness.
Through this heightened state of consciousness man can achieve
a greater moral good in the world. Beauty that was once
obstructed by the dull haziness of our ignorance would shine
with a new radiance. Dogmas brought about by the weight of a
claustrophobic world will seem small as our horizons are
expanded. We can only hope that the man in the forest
overcomes his fear of the dark, lights the lantern and
ventures on to discover the mysterious world that envelopes
him.
Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden."Classics of Western
Thought:The Modern World. 4th. 1992. Print.
Bello, Andres. Speech Delivered to the University of Chile.
1843. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. 1st.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company Inc.
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