Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.

Kant formulates this definition in his 1784 essay “Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?” (“An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”), written during the European Enlightenment amid debates about religious authority, censorship, and the public use of reason in Prussia. He argues that “Unmündigkeit” (often translated as immaturity or tutelage) is a self-incurred condition in which people defer to pastors, doctors, or officials to think for them. The essay urges individuals to have the courage to use their own understanding and calls on rulers to permit free public discussion, presenting enlightenment as a gradual social process grounded in intellectual autonomy.

The quote defines immaturity not as a lack of intelligence but as a failure of intellectual independence: the inability (or refusal) to think for oneself without external direction. Kant’s point is moral and civic as much as cognitive—people remain “immature” when they surrender judgment to authorities out of laziness, fear, or convenience. In the Enlightenment framework, maturity means autonomy: using reason publicly and responsibly, even when it challenges established institutions. The definition also implies that emancipation is possible: since the condition is “self-incurred,” individuals can overcome it by exercising critical thought and accepting the risks of independent judgment.

1) “Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance of another.”
2) “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.”
3) “Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen.”