Page 13 - GALIET FREEDOM: Kant and Rousseau IV

welfare of all. On this account, Rousseau does envision the possibility of freedom in the physical world subject to certain limitations. In this manner, Rousseau is very much like Kant for both condition freedom of thought and speech in the physical world.
According to Kant, an individual has unlimited freedom to actively express his ideas and thoughts publicly or for the world at large as long as he is a private man of learning and does not belong to an institution “by the public use of one’s reason I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the entire reading public” (Kant: 55). However, as a member of a collective or a public and/or private institution (i.e. individuals serving in civil posts, military, clergy, tax department, etc.), man is restricted in his freedom to argue, divulge and make public use of his reason because to invite argument is to invite dissent and disobedience to dogmas.
Therefore, for Kant, public man must make private use of his reason: “what I term private use of reason is that which a person may make of it in a particular civil post or office with which he is entrusted” (Kant: 55). According to Kant, these public or private servants must first pledge their loyalty and obedience to the common welfare by means of a social contract of some sort and, by doing so, they become passive or inactive members of
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