Sapere aude is a Latin phrase meaning "dare to be wise", or more precisely "dare to know". Originally used by Horace, after becoming closely associated with The Enlightenment by Immanuel Kant in his seminal essay, What is Enlightenment?. Kant claimed it was the motto for the entire period, and used it to explore his theories of reason in the public sphere. Later, Michel Foucault took up Kant's formulation in an attempt to find a place for the individual in his post-structuralist philosophy and to come to terms with the problematic legacy of the Enlightenment.

The original use seems to be in Horace's first book of Epistles: dimidium facti qui coepit habet: sapere aude, incipe ("He who has begun is half done: dare to know!"). It can also be translated as "Dare to be wise". The phrase forms the moral to a story where a fool (naive person) waits for the stream to stop before crossing it. "He who begins is half done. Dare to be wise. Make a beginning." is a loose translation. Horace's words suggest the value of human endeavour, of persistence in reaching a goal and of the need for effort in overcoming obstacles.

Aude (French pronunciation: [od]; Occitan: Aude) is a department in south-central France named after the river Aude. The local council also calls the department "Cathar Country".

Aude is also a frequent feminine French given name in Francophone countries, deriving initially from Aude or Oda, a wife of Bertrand, Duke of Aquitaine, and mother of Saint Hubertus's brother Eudo. Aude was the name of Roland's fiancée in the chansons de gestes.

Human traces have been found in the department from 1,500,000 years BCE in the form of hammers and worked tools on the hill of Grazailles at Carcassonne. The most interesting discovery, however, is that of the skull of ‘Tautavel Man’ made by Henry de Lumley in the commune of Tautavel in the Pyrénées-Orientales. It is the oldest skull known in Europe. It dates from about 450,000 years BCE. It is likely that Tautavel Man lived in all of this region.

The Romans, led by the consul-general Domitius Ahenobarbus, installed themselves first of all at Narbonne in 118 BCE on the oppidum of Montlaurès, which became the provincial capital and a very active mercantile port. The position was strategically important since it stood at the cross roads of two Roman roads, the Via Aquitania and the Via Domitia, as well as by the sea and near the mouth of the River Aude. Carcassonne became Latin in 30 BCE with the creation of numerous grain farms. For almost two centuries, the Aude enjoyed peace and strong economic growth.

Heiner Geißler (born March 3, 1930) is a German politician with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

Geißler studied law and philosophy in Munich and Tübingen, where he graduated in 1960.

Geißler was German minister for youth, family and health from 1982 to 1985 (so far the only male head of the ministry), and also general secretary of the CDU from 1977 to 1989. From being a conservative right-winger until the early 1990s, Geißler has become increasingly leftist in his views as far as social policy and globalization are concerned. In 2007 he announced he had become a member of attac network, this happened weeks before the 2007 G8 summit, which Germany, holding the 2007 G8 presidency, was hosting. Geißler himself said that his joining of attac has to be seen in the context of the upcoming G8 summit.

Media related to Heiner Geißler at Wikimedia Commons

Immanuel Kant (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (today Kaliningrad of Russia), who researched, lectured, and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) applying reason and logic.

Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.

He stated:

Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:

Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788) and the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics. And the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy.