I was immediately reminded of a wiki page about enlightenment (Immanuel Kant) [0] after reading through the essay, which may an interesting additional reading to some. The English translation of the essay that the wiki page is based on can be found here [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answering_the_Question:_What_i...

[1] http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html