It is usual to read Freud as a critic of Enlightenment, specialy of the kantian way of thinking moral autonomy. However, all Freud did was discover in human nature a great difficulty that enlightenes philosophy just cannot ignore. This difficulty, which directly affects conceptions about the age of majority, refers to certain heteronomy mechanisms which main characteristic is the skill to supplant the voice of moral autonomy: exactly the same as moral law in Kant, super-ego -once internalized during childhood and once culture imperatives have been assumed as one's own (regardless of their rationality)- orders without promising anythig (external) or threatening anything (external). So, the political project of enthroning reason as the top authorithy (project shared by both, Kant and Freud) depends on the existence of a republican organization that guarantees a pedagogical program for which "age of majoriry" does not mean any more naming "ego" to ancient customs internalized but the capacity of being ruled by one's own reason (which becomes, once psychoanalysis developed, not only a moral imperative but also a therapeutic imperative).
Freud; Kant; Age of majority; Minority; Enlightenment