在上一節的內容中，康德講到“大眾式的啟蒙”是個體獲得啟蒙最有效的途徑，即少數有良知、有智慧的學者告訴大眾正確的思維模式，告訴他們正受困于思想的枷鎖，從中可以看出康德非常重視社會環境對個體的影響。那么在什么樣的情況下，學者可以對大眾進行啟蒙呢？在這一節中，我們將重點探討這個問題。
But which sort of restriction prevents enlightenment, and which, instead of hindering it, can actually promote it? I reply: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted, however, without undue hindrance to the progress of enlightenment. But by the public use of one's own reason I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the entire reading public. What I term the private use of reason is that which a person may make of it in a particular civic post with which he is entrusted.
Now in some affairs which affect the interests of the community, we require a certain mechanism whereby some members of the community must behave purely passively, so that they may, by an artificial common agreement, be employed by the government for public ends (or at least deterred from vitiating them). Here arguing is not permitted: one must obey. But in so far as this or that individual who acts as part of the machine also considers himself as a member of a complete community or even of cosmopolitan society, and thence as a man of learning who may through his writings address a public, he may indeed argue, and the affairs with which he is associated in part as a passive member will not suffer.
▍生詞好句
hinder: vt. 阻礙
promote: vt. 促進；提升
hindrance: n. 障礙；妨礙
address: vt. 對……說話；演說
particular: adj. 特定的
entrust: vt. 委任；委托
mechanism: n. 機制；原理
end: n. 目標
permit: vt. 允許；許可
cosmopolitan: adj. 世界性的
thence: adv.? 因此；從那里
