What Is the Eternal Enlightenment?

What is the Eternal Enlightenment, and how does it relate to the historical Enlightenment? These questions concern the foundations of modernity and guide this article. The analysis begins with the historical tension between relations of domination and the construction of freedom. It examines instrumental relationships, in which persons are treated as means to ends external to them, and considers bureaucratic forms of power, totalitarianism as a rupture in history, and the emergence of new elites who present themselves as guardians of truth. Today, digital and computational technologies, which raise the prospect of an “artificial human,” may reinforce new forms of domination. This article argues, however, that the historical Enlightenment is a historically situated expression of the eternal Enlightenment, whose emancipatory force persists through the ongoing and unredeemed development of criticism. The affirmation of human dignity, which is central to the Enlightenment project of emancipation, therefore remains a continuing normative demand. To Kant’s call Sapere Aude, this article adds Disputare Aude: the courage to engage others in constructing a shared space for democratic debate. The unfolding of freedom persists.