A Shadow on the Enlightenment Mind, i.e. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Hugo Kołłątaj on Women, Their Social Role and Education

Abstract

The eighteenth century – the age of reason, the era of liberating the mind from errors, the improvement and development of humanity – is also often considered to be a particularly important time of progressive discussion about woman, her social role, a time paving the way for her institutional education and, consequently, emancipation. Analyzing the content of the works of significant thinkers of the Enlightenment, one should come to the conclusion that Kant’s words indicating the guiding idea of the Enlightenment: “Dare to use your own mind!” do not refer to a woman. The subject of philosophical thinking remains a male, although the term “human” used with pleasure and consistency in the philosophical works of this period may seem to indicate a general interest in both sexes and equal treatment of men and women. Women are still perceived being inferior in mind. They are placed in the trap of marriage understood as a relationship that creates a “one moral person” or “one spiritual person.” Changes in women’s education, although they took place in the era of the Enlightenment, still rely on the control of knowledge passed on to them, and moreover knowledge directed at the formation of specific features related to the role of wife and mother. The indicated issues are considered in the article on the example of three thinkers of the Enlightenment: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Hugo Kołłątaj.