The Shifting Scope of the Public Use of Reason: On Kant's Conflict of the Faculties

In What Is Enlightenment ? and What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking ? Kant champions the right of all citizens to make public use of their reason and condemns any form of state censorship. However, according to the prevalent reading, in The Conflict of the Faculties , Kant seems to adjust to absolutism by reserving the public use of reason for university teachers and subjecting all other citizens to state censorship. In contrast to this reading, I argue that the concessions to absolutism that Kant makes are aimed at defying absolutism on its own ground and that the public use of reason is fully reaffirmed in its scope, requirements, and function.