In the essay “The Politics of Truth,” Michel Foucault examines what criticism is. Foucault begins his explanation of criticism by relating it to Immanuel Kant's definition of Enlightenment. In the essay “What is Enlightenment?” ”, Kant argues that society has developed an “immaturity” that relies on the guidance of authority. Kant states: “If I have a book that serves as my understanding, a pastor that serves as my conscience, a doctor that determines my diet for me, etc., I must try very hard” (3). Kant believes that this “immaturity” leads to constraints in society. Kant believes that “the use that the public makes of its own reason must always be free and that it is the only one that can bring illumination” (4). Kant gives the example of a taxpayer who pays his taxes but also questions them. Kant states that the taxpayer's “[civic duty is] to publicly express his thoughts on the impropriety, even injustice, of such taxes” (5). In Kant's example, a connection can be made to Foucault's argument "what is critique?" Foucault’s examination of critique begins with his question “how can we be governed in this way” (44)? Foucault uses this question and its connection with Kant's “Enlightenment” to take a critical look at the history of “power and knowledge.” Foucault's definition of critique is closely related to Kant's definition of Enlightenment. Foucault asserts that “critique is the movement by which the subject gives itself the right to question the truth on its effects of power and to question power on its discourses of truth” (47). Foucault mainly wants to apply criticism to what he calls the art of governing or “the movement by which individuals are subjected in reality to a social practice by means of mechanisms of power which adhere to a truth” (47). A... middle of article... here asserts that criticism allows us to discover cracks in the power-knowledge relationship. At this stage, the public may ask the question “how can we not be governed like that”? At this point we can determine the purpose of Foucault's question, "what is critique"? Foucault's definition of critique provides a tool for finding fissures in power-knowledge relationships by analyzing the genealogy of a power-knowledge relationship. Foucault states "we are dealing with something whose stability, rooting and foundation are never such that we cannot in one way or another envisage, if not its disappearance, at least identify by what and from which its disappearance is possible” (65). ). Foucault believes that using his method of critique, a relationship of power and knowledge is not permanent. Questioning and knowledge can be used to take the leash off authority.