ABSTRACT
Foucault interprets Kant’s text Was ist Aufklärung? (What is Enlightenment?) in this passage from his first lecture of 7 983 at the Collège de France. In this revised version, Foucault suggests why this text represents for him a philosophical riddle or “fetish” which reveals the critical tradition underlying his theoretical heritage. He examines here the Kantian conception of the present as a process that embodies thought, knowledge and philosophy and the role that the thinking subject plays in it. What Foucault finds captivating in Kant’s essay is his response to a historical situation which poses the question of modernity as an ontology of the present. The notion of the Aufklärung thus becomes an exemplary concept in modern thought because of its ability to interrogate itself concerning the nature of its present. The following passage appeared in Magazine littéraire 207 (May 1984), 35—39. The translation is by Alan Sheridan.
