Philosophy Of Freedom

is an existential philosopher, so this means that she is one of the philosophers that, starting from Kierkegaard's thought in the XIX century, think that existence comes before essence. What does this mean? This means that man is grounded in freedom, so he can decide his essence only when taking free decisions in his existence. At the beginning, man has to become a subject through a decision, then he starts existing, and in this way, he determines his essence. This is common to every existential philosopher, although this philosophical movement is quite various. Why did I choose Jeanne Hersch for reasoning on freedom? Because Jeanne Hersch is what can be defined a realist existentialist. She is an existentialist, so she thinks that freedom comes first in human being, but she is also realist, and we will see that realism is definitely her first interest, so, in her opinion, man has always to deal with reality, he has to test himself and his existence in the world he lives in. Today I am here to explain how this realist existentialism leads to a gradualist theory of freedom and, through it, what being free means for man. Since here I guess that there are no philosopher, or at least not only, I will try to speak easily and to reduce the theoretical part, in order to focus on the consequences that we can all understand just reasoning. For the ones that have read my abstract, I won't speak about political freedom and responsible freedom, I am sorry for having deceived you, but, if you are interested, you will have time to ask about it. (I mean, question can give me the possibility to add something to the unclear or incomplete passages of my speech, so please make questions). First of all, I will try to explain you briefly the gradualist theory of freedom. The first passion of Hersch is literature, with her university work Les images dans l'oeuvre de M. Bergson in 1931. Hersch appreciates Bergson's intention to give back importance to reality, but what interests us here is the definition of freedom as organic development, «necessary and free at the same time, because it realises itself through an internal law of the subject and actually identifiable with him». For Bergson, freedom is the possibility of freely and originally developing ourselves in the world, starting from the datum of where and when we live, or our particular nature with its behaviour. This is the realist root of Hersch, the awareness that freedom starts from the datum of being in the world and has always to deal with it. But this is not enough, since without something normative, a reality that is approached with freedom risks to flow without leaving traces. Here the existential part comes in. In 1929, Hersch spends one semester in Heidelberg to learn German and she meets Karl Jaspers by chance. Karl Jaspers is the most famous German existentialist philosopher with Martin Heidegger. In Karl Jaspers, with his attention to the dialogue between reason and existence, Jeanne Hersch finds a dam to reality flow, through the existential normative morality. Let us see how this is possible. In 1936, Hersch publishes L'illusion philosophique, in which she takes her conclusions from Jaspers' philosophy. The theory is quite simple: after philosophers like Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers, it is impossible to think that philosophy can reach a total and objective knowledge, because man has always a determined point of view, and he cannot catch totality from it. So a philosophy that wants to compete with science in giving true knowledge, is by now impossible. Philosophy risks its death. Here it is the important turn from Hersch. Today we still study old philosophical systems that are clearly untrue from a scientific point of view. This means that these systems must give something more than a scientific knowledge. The objective research of the Truth is just one root of philosophy. What is Hersch trying to say? While searching for Truth, the philosopher engages himself towards it and, in this way, he gains his existence. In 1981, Hersch publishes L'étonnement philosophique, in which she shows that every famous philosopher starts from a simple gesture that causes wonder in him, so the philosopher starts to build his whole existence on this simple gesture. This engagement towards the Truth is an illusion from a scientific point of view, but, at the same time, this engagement is total in terms of moral authenticity, since the philosopher devotes his life to the simple gesture and starts existing deciding for it. The reader of the philosopher searches for this model of authenticity when he reads a book of philosophy. In this sense, philosophy can survive, becoming a model of authenticity, a good example of how man can engage his existential freedom.

Ein ebenso intensiv wie kontrovers diskutiertes Problem in den anhaltenden Debatten um das zukünftige Verhältnis von Ökologie und Ökonomie ist der vermeintliche Konflikt zwischen den Werten Freiheit und Nachhaltigkeit. Auf den ersten Blick verwundert das kaum. Wer ökologische Nachhaltigkeit anstrebt, erlegt sich Bindungen auf, nimmt bestimmte Optionen nicht wahr und legt sich umgekehrt auf gewisse andere fest. Das schränkt spürbar den persönlichen Freiheitsraum ein – ob nun beim privaten Konsum, in der Wirtschaft oder in der Politik. Es scheint, wer mehr Nachhaltigkeit möchte, muss sich zu weniger Freiheit bequemen – oder umgekehrt.
Man kann diesen Konflikt von jeder der beiden Seiten her aufzulösen versuchen: Entweder lässt sich darlegen, weshalb bestimmte Formen ökologischen Handelns unsere persönliche, ökonomische sowie politische Freiheit gar nicht reduzieren, sondern eher wahren oder bisweilen sogar steigern; etwa durch Lebensstile, die im Reduzieren auf das Wesentliche gesteigerte Erfüllung versprechen, oder durch Wirtschaftsweisen und Politikstrategien, die erfolgreich win-win-Potenziale zwischen Ökologie und Ökonomie auszuschöpfen suchen. Oder aber man entschärft den Konflikt von Seiten der Freiheit her, indem man aufweist, dass und wie die Idee der Freiheit durchaus nicht in einem notwendigen Zielkonflikt mit Strategien der Nachhaltigkeit steht.
In diesem Artikel folge ich der zweiten Strategie. Dabei erörtere und kritisiere ich zunächst die vielen neoliberalen und libertären Theorien zugrundeliegende Konzeption quantitativer Freiheit, die nach dem Motto „Je mehr, desto besser“ auf eine Maximierung individueller Optionen zielt und so die Spannung zwischen den Zielen der Freiheit und der Nachhaltigkeit zu einem prinzipiellen Gegensatz zuspitzt. Dem stelle ich sodann eine Idee qualitativer Freiheit gegenüber, die jenen Konflikt auf der Prinzipienebene auflöst, um damit einer konkreten, pragmatischen Integration liberaler und ökologischer Interessen den Boden zu bereiten. Zuletzt fasse ich zentrale Überlegungen und Ergebnisse in einem kurzen Fazit zusammen.

A rare and lost preface to Animal farm; novella written by George Orwell. This preface better known as Freedom to Press was written by Orwell himself and It gives equal cult to the topic which Orwell tried to heed on. I just edited it into readable PDF.

The neo-republican conception of freedom as non-domination has emerged as a powerful framework for conceptualizing the dynamic relationship between power, democracy, and constitutionalism in modernity. Despite this, I argue that adaptations of republican freedom to the problem of slavery displace attention to race and foreclose more productive ways of addressing how racial slavery constitutes a distinct form of oppression. To illuminate the limitations of neo-republicanism, I turn to the political thought of abolitionists David Walker and Ottobah Cugoano. Both utilize comparative histories of race and slavery to reveal the specificity of modern slavery as a form of oppression, which cannot be captured as an issue of domination in the technical sense of the term. They thus pose challenges to neo-republican theory for its failure to fully appreciate the historical differences between ancient and modern slavery. To do so would illuminate how neo-republican theory faces severe limitations in providing an adequate conceptualization of oppression in the case of racial slavery.

Le rapport entre Platon et Rousseau est significatif en ce que ces deux philosophes présentent chacun un projet de refonte radicale de la société. L’un fondé sur l’égalité géométrique, telle qu’elle est précisée d’une manière fondamentale à la fin du Gorgias, et développée successivement dans la République et dans les Lois, l’autre fondé sur l’égalité arithmétique, dans le cadre d’un paradigme moderne promouvant l’idée de liberté, en ayant néanmoins perdu de vue le principe d’égalité géométrique. Cette différenciation doit néanmoins être nuancée par le fait que Rousseau, lecteur assidu de Platon, a retenu de son lointain devancier l’idée que la cité doit être un holon vivant (le corps politique). Se pose alors la question des modalités selon lesquelles doit s’établir l’intégration totale de l’individu dans le corps social, et le fait est que l’on s’est souvent demandé si les deux projets ne portaient pas en eux, par la représentation holistique de l'État, les germes théoriques du totalitarisme. Cette question, sitôt posée, se voit assez rapidement résolue par le fait que l’holisme chez ces deux penseurs ne peut aucunement être assimilé au processus de déshumanisation mis en œuvre par les totalitarismes récents de nature industrielle, dans lesquels l’homme a perdu sa dimension d’homo laborans, selon l’expression d’Hannah Arendt. S’il y a un totalitarisme chez Platon, il reste « artisanal » et n’a jamais pu voir le jour, alors que le totalitarisme industriel, lui, a pu malheureusement se concrétiser, comme s’il avait fallu compter sur la puissance des machines pour cela. Le totalitarisme de type artisanal poursuivait la mission d’harmoniser les classes et les individus, le totalitarisme industriel sera systématiquement uniformisateur. Les réflexions de Karl Popper et d’Hannah Arendt ont été sollicitées et discutées pour résoudre cette question récurrente.


The relationship between Plato and Rousseau is meaningful in that these two philosophers each present a plan to radically change society. One based on geometric equality, as it is specified in a fundamental manner at the end of the Gorgias, and developed successively in Republic and in the Laws, the other based on arithmetic equality, in the setting of a modern paradigm promoting the idea of liberty, having nevertheless lost from view the geometric equality principle. This differentiation calls for some nuance in the fact that Rousseau, a regular reader of Plato, kept from his distant predecessor the idea that the city must be a living holon (the political body). One of the issues that was raised is that of the modes according to which the individual's total integration in the social body could be achieved, and the fact is that it has often been wondered if the two plans didn't carry in them, by the holistic representation of the state, the theoretical seeds of totalitarianism. This question, as soon as posed, sees itself answered quickly enough by the fact that the holism in these two thinkers cannot be assimilated by any means to the process of dehumanization put in place by recent totalitarianisms of industrial nature, in which man lost his dimension of homo laborans, according to Hannah Arendt. If there is totalitarianism in Plato, it remains "artisanal" and could never actually have existed, whereas industrial totalitarianism, itself, could unfortunately be established, as if it had been necessary to count on the power of machinery to do it. The artisanal type of totalitarianism wanted to harmonize the classes and individuals, whereas the industrial totalitarianism would be systematically homogenizing. The arguments of Karl Popper and Hannah Arendt have been solicited and have been discussed to solve this recurrent question.

This dissertation talks about the philosophical overview and the problems related to the notion of Freedom. I have discussed the basic and the very general definition of freedom, along with what other notable philosophers think about what kind of freedom is really true and a genuine idea of freedom. Later I have discussed the difference between positive and the negative freedom and also Berdyaev's notion of freedom followed by the famous work called "The Philosophy of Freedom" by Rudolf Steiner. Lastly I have tried to consider all the philosophers and opinionated my own thinking about the idea of freedom.

La opción fundamental Grandes constantes metafísicas (borrador) La historia de la filosofía puede presentársenos como una acumulación de pensadores y de ideas contrapuestos entre sí. En este panorama, aparentemente caótico, tal vez haya un solo tema en el que todos los grandes autores han coincidido. Podríamos llamarlo "la opción fundamental". ¿Qué es un gran autor? ¿Por qué merecen ser estudiados por igual filósofos que han pensado cosas muy distintas entre sí? ¿Por qué Platón y Nietzsche, por ejemplo, son considerados grandes pensadores, dignos de figurar en lugares de privilegio en la historia de la filosofía, a pesar de que tienen visiones del mundo contradictorias entre sí? Si no se tratara sólo del contenido de sus doctrinas, ¿en qué consistiría el criterio para valorarlos? Un gran filósofo sería aquel que ha profundizado hasta el fondo, una de las grandes alternativas filosóficas, utilizando los elementos de que disponía en las circunstancias de su época, en relación con la problemática de su presente y con su historia. Los autores superficiales, en cambio, cuya fama suele ser efímera, serían aquellos que mezclaron ideas, que no fueron a fondo en una concepción del mundo. Por eso es que la lectura de todo autor profundo es orientadora, aunque sus pensamientos no coincidan con los del lector. Siempre es importante e iluminador conocer la alternativa a mi pensamiento, conocer la otra posibilidad. Esto me permite ser más consciente de mis propias ideas y de los motivos por los cuales he decidido asumirlas. Los autores superficiales, en cambio, confunden. Como decía Nietzsche, el pensamiento de todo auténtico filósofo está inspirado por una gran motivación unitaria, por una fuerza única que nutre y anima todas sus propuestas particulares. Toda su vida, su obra entera, constituye el intento de expresarla ¿Cómo descubrir esta intención fundamental de un autor? Si realmente se trata de una opción personal profunda, esta opción no puede ser homologada con ninguna característica meramente técnica de una filosofía. El estudio de la técnica y de las categorías del pensamiento de un autor es muy importante, es indispensable; pero por sí [2] solo no es suficiente para asomarnos a la opción fundamental del mismo. Esta opción se expresa en las cuestiones filosóficas últimas. Esto es, en cuestiones de naturaleza metafísica. Puede existir, a veces, una tensión entre la técnica filosófica de un autor y su intención profunda. El estudio de esta tensión puede ser iluminador para hacer justicia al pensamiento de ciertos autores. En efecto, en ciertos casos, un autor con una intención profunda realista sólo tiene a mano una técnica filosófica inmanentista, o viceversa. Soren Kierkegaard, el gran existencialista cristiano, criticó al hegelianismo pero, en cierta medida, debió utilizar su lenguaje y sus categorías. Por eso es que puede decirse que existen grandes constantes metafísicas correspondientes a cada alternativa. Ambas posibilidades podrían representarse mediante sendos triángulos, queriendo expresar que cada una de las opciones constituye una constelación de ideas, íntimamente relacionadas, que, si bien pueden ser expresadas de formas muy distintas, repiten un espíritu común y obedecen a una lógica propia. Los vértices de los triángulos representarían, cada uno, uno de las cuestiones fundamentales de la metafísica, una de sus grandes constantes. Los lados del triángulo, representarían la unidad indisoluble que existe entre las constantes metafísicas de determinada opción. A. REALISMO B. INMANENTISMO 2) Dios trascendente 2) Monismo/Dios inmanente 1) Orden natural. 3) Mal como 1) Orden artificial. 3) Mal ontológico, Límites naturales privación Sin finitud necesario, es la Finitud histórico finitud Libertad No hay libertad [3] El mundo En el primer vértice de ambos triángulos, el inferior izquierdo, se representaría la concepción del mundo que cada postura asume. Para la primera de las opciones, este mundo puede y debe ser contemplado, porque en él hay un orden natural. La idea de orden implica la de multiplicidad de elementos, cada uno de los cuales tiene un lugar propio. Cuando, por ejemplo, un ambiente se encuentra ordenado, nos referimos a que cada uno de los objetos que contiene está ubicado en su lugar. Que este orden sea natural significa que ese lugar, que esa armonía, nace con las cosas mismas y no es puesto desde afuera (de hecho, la palabra natural proviene de un verbo latino que significa nacer). Esta idea, a su vez, supone una visión positiva de los límites naturales. Si a una persona le dijéramos que es "limitada", seguramente se sentiría despreciada. No es ésa la idea que esta postura tiene de los límites. Conforme a ella, los límites "no limitan". Esto es así porque, si cada cosa tiene su lugar propio, interior a su ser, los límites serían los guardianes de ese lugar. Los límites, en efecto, distinguirían mi lugar de otros lugares. Los antiguos romanos acuñaron en esta línea el verbo exterminare, exterminar. Como sabemos, exterminar es aniquilar, destruir. Ahora bien, algo es destruido cuando se le sacan sus límites (terminus es límite; ex implica aquí "fuera de") y no cuando se encuentra contenido por ellos. Esta concepción, por lo tanto, afirma la existencia de una auténtica finitud, es decir, de cosas reales limitadas en su ser. Se piensa aquí a los entes finitos como dotados de una consistencia y valor propios. Puede ponérsele nombre a esta primera postura. Podría ser llamada de muchas formas. Entre ellas, una muy universal es realismo. Esta palabra proviene del latín res, cosa. Es decir, se trata de una postura que propone, como primera actitud frente a la

¿Debemos optar entre ser libres y respetar las normas? ¿Es más libre quien más transgresiones comete? ¿La enseñanza moral y religiosa atentan contra la libertad? ¿La libertad completa debería no tener límites? ¿Continúa vigente el ideal de libertad de los años 60 y 70? Se analizan aquí las respuestas a estas preguntas brindadas por dos tradiciones culturales presentes en la actualidad. "Sólo una vez tuve el sentimiento de que Dios existía. Había jugado con unos fósforos y quemado una alfombrita. Estaba tratando de arreglar mi destrozo cuando, de pronto, Dios me vio, sentí Su mirada en el interior de mi cabeza y en las manos; estuve dando vueltas por el cuarto de baño, horriblemente visible, como un blanco vivo. Me salvó la indignación; me puse furioso contra tan grosera indiscreción, blasfemé, murmuré como mi abuelo: «Maldito Dios, maldito Dios, maldito Dios». No me volvió a mirar nunca más. Acabo de contar la historia de una vocación fallida: yo necesitaba a Dios, me lo dieron, pero lo recibí sin comprender que lo buscaba. Al no poder enraizar en mi corazón, vegetó en mí durante algún tiempo y después se murió. Hoy, cuando me hablan de Él, digo con la diversión sin pena de un viejo que se encuentra con una vieja amiga: «Hace cincuenta años, sin ese malentendido, sin esa equivocación, sin el accidente que nos separó, podría haber habido algo entre nosotros»".

Hegel was often regarded as an ‘anti-individualist’, for whom the ethical universal is prior to the individual. In contrast, I argue that according to the teleological dynamic of the dialectical concept which aims to actualize freedom, Hegel should rather be understood as a thinker of ‘concrete individuality’. The logical ‘priority’ of the ethical universal is necessary for Hegel to think the social community from the perspective of the speculative concept. According to Hegel’s “Doctrine of the Concept”, the universal itself demands its concretion and individuation. Against this background, in his Elements of the Philosophy of Right  Hegel presents the structure of the concrete free will which finally actualizes itself in the sphere of ethical life. This actualization within the sphere of objective spirit takes place in an ongoing process of historical development and ‘education’. Here, the universal must be developed in such away that it satisfies modern freedom. Institutions are needed, in which the individuals are recognized and where they can participate. The state must be thought as a universal, in which the particular social spheres and the single citizens can unfold themselves freely. Likewise, the single citizen itself is a concrete individual, a human being with particular social and cultural identities. The ‘educated’ state then must be both ‘integrative’ and ‘receptive’ to a plurality of particular forms of life. With this end in mind, I stress the potentials, Hegel’s logic and philosophy of right hold ready for recent debates about the concept of ‘integration’ and a pluralist and ‘open’ society.

Scanlan (1958), in J.S. Mill and the Definition of Freedom, states that Mill was of the view that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent ‘harm to others’…his own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant”; which underlines the importance Mill attached to the freedom and desires of individuals. Insomuch as the individual in question doesn’t do anything that affects others, he/she is virtually free to do as he pleases, regardless of how perilous (even to himself) or “immoral” his actions may be. The only exception to which one’s preferences could be questioned or scrutinized by ethical or legal standards is “in actions harmful to others” (Mill, 1869: ch2). Mill’s view of freedom is one that can be described as “positive” or “descriptive”. Scanlan (1958) supports the notion that “the term freedom has no value connotations”(p196) because for one to be able to establish how free an individual is in a situation, it is vital to have knowledge of said individual’s desires as well as how he would choose to act on them. Defining ‘Freedom’ as acting based on desire, makes Mill’s definition quite similar to that of Hobbes and Locke. Especially bearing in mind that they don’t place any constrictions on desire; moral or not.

Tristram Shandy, de Laurence Sterne, et Jacques le Fataliste, de Denis Diderot, m'apparaissent aujourd'hui comme les deux plus grandes oeuvres romanesques du 18 e siècle, deux romans conçus comme un jeu grandiose. Ce sont deux sommets de la légèreté jamais atteints ni avant ni après. Le roman ultérieur se fit ligoter par l'impératif de la vraisemblance, par le décor réaliste, par la rigueur de la chronologie. Il abandonna les possibilités contenues dans ces deux chefsd'oeuvre, qui étaient en mesure de fonder une autre évolution du roman que celle que l'on connaît (oui, on peut imaginer aussi une autre histoire du roman européen…). 1 Cette affirmation de Milan Kundera dans L'Art du roman reste d'actualité, et elle nous pousse à affirmer que l'actualité de l'oeuvre de Diderot consiste justement dans le fait que sa littérature n'a malheureusement pas fondé une tradition. Ainsi, le retour à Diderot nous met devant des possibilités inexplorées par l'histoire littéraire, mais aussi devant certaines possibilités ouvertes par la pensée du XVIII e siècle que l'Histoire n'a pas pu réaliser. C'est-à-dire que la lecture de Diderot aujourd'hui nous rappelle les promesses de la Révolution française et de leur stupéfiante actualité. Tout commence et évolue de manière négative. D'abord, nous avons le titre qui nous présente les personnages, ensuite nous avons une petite introduction au récit, qui commence ainsi : Comment s'étaient-ils rencontrés ? Par hasard, comme tout le monde. Comment s'appelaient-ils ? Que vous importe ? D'où venaient-ils ? Du lieu le plus prochain. Où allaient-ils ? Est-ce que l'on sait où on va ? Que disaient-ils ? Le maître ne disait rien ; et Jacques disait que son capitaine disait que tout ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas était écrit là-haut. 2 Le narrateur joue avec le lecteur et présente les questions possibles qu'un lecteur se poserait devant un récit. D'abord il s'agit de savoir qui sont les personnages et comment ils se sont rencontrés. La réponse du narrateur donne le ton et présente la question qui sera celle de toute l'oeuvre. En posant les questions et en y répondant, le

Hannah Arendt’s examination of the existential and political conditions under which human beings create the world and her examination of thinking as an antidote to totalitarianism, make her thought ever more relevant as the 21st century unfolds. In this seminar we consider Arendt’s ‘The Human Condition’ (1958), in the main, with reference also to ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’ (1951) and ‘The Life of The Mind’ (1978).

In the anthropology of ethics there has been a growing interest in the concept of freedom, defined as the tool of consciousness that enables people to reflect on themselves and their circumstances, and make decisions about what they ought to do. The benefit of understanding freedom as a grounded ethical practice is that it allows us to appreciate how people constitute themselves through the choices they make. What this obscures, however, is an understanding of how freedom figures in situations where people no longer feel the need to consider what they ought to do and where choice becomes redundant. Through an exploration of nonviolent action in the 2011 Yemeni revolution, this essay proposes a notion of freedom as liberation from moral choice, where choice is a burden. It concludes by reconsidering the extent to which ethical thought can adequately account for the varieties of human freedom in different ethnographic contexts.

This paper attempts to understand the emergence of the concept of freedom under Sartre’s philosophy and dwell deeper into the understanding and implementation of the same. Furthermore this paper looks into the critical analysis of his theory and concepts pertaining to freedom prominently.  Although human freedom today is the most fundamental idea that has driven the development of democratic politics around the world. It is taught as one of the essential tenets of human life from a very early age. Lack of freedom is used as reason for meddling in the affairs of others. Rarely does something as fundamental as freedom emerge as a contentious issue and rarer does it get redefined. However, Sartre’s philosophy does redefine it in a way that it may change your way of looking at life

Michel Weber, La liberté est la première des sécurités, (écrit pour Kairos 2021)

Jamais la question de la liberté n'a été aussi instrumentalisée et donc aussi urgente à redéfinir. Les philosophes sérieux procèdent parfois en trois étapes : d'abord, ils font remarquer leur embarras car la liberté serait indéfinissable ; ensuite, il se réfèrent aux contingences de l'agir tel que le sens commun en rend compte ; enfin, ils proposent un concept qui cherche à faire vivre cette expérience ineffable. Pourquoi vouloir réfléchir à ce qui se donne dans l'évidence de l'agir et se voile dans les limbes de la pensée ? Parce qu'il y va du sens de l'existence personnelle et que celui-ci offre-ou refuse-une direction collective possiblement démocratique. On examinera ici la question de la liberté à l'aide de trois approches convergentes-politique, psychologique, et philosophique-parfois anticipées dans certaines de mes publications 1 .

Although the concept of natural liberty played an essential role in the abolitionist movement, black abolitionist appropriations of the concept are generally reduced to Enlightenment categories of political theory. Through an analysis of Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery, I argue that the abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano developed a novel conception of natural liberty through a process of creolization. Rather than a wholesale adoption of European political thought, Cugoano reinterpreted categories of natural rights philosophy by blending natural liberty with West African social practice and the experiences of the enslaved. His primary theoretical innovation was to divorce natural liberty from freedom as self-ownership and to reorient the concept away from a focus on self-possession, private property, and individual rights toward transnational obligations to end the slave trade. Cugoano is both representative and originator of a distinct tradition of black transnational thought that exceeds the limitations of European political traditions.

In this paper, I develop a functionalist theory of social domination to compete with current theories of this kind of social power that have arisen with and from the work of Philip Pettit. On the latter view, the basic structure of domination is seen as the capacity for “arbitrary interference” of one agent in the life choices of another agent.  According to this account, domination is performed by agents, acting arbitrarily, within structured social relationships, but are not seen as being caused by those social structures or systems themselves. On my alternative account, modern forms of domination need to be seen as outside of the interests of agents themselves and instead as part of the functions of the social systems and institutions within which agents are socialized, live, work, and to which they become adapted. On this view, domination becomes not a property of agency but a central property of the social facts that make up the process of socialization itself.  Domination is social and systemic, in this sense, and it persists because of the particular social forms that are held as legitimate by broad segments of any population.

If spirit is constituted through recognition, then the fact that recognition somehow depends on (first) nature – as I will argue in the first part of this paper – will have deep consequences on how we are to conceive the genesis and the structure of the social and historical world, and the very notion of social freedom that participating in this world makes possible. Secondly, I will argue that even at the spiritual level recognition cannot be conceived on its own terms, but must rather be thought by means of the notions of second nature and habit. The move from recognition to second nature implies a dialectical embodied notion of freedom.  Finally, in the third part of the paper I will argue that, once we understand recognition in terms of embodied second nature, then we have to take into account how much the contingency, the fragility and the plurality of second nature affect our notion of freedom.

»Mit Heideggers Eintreffen in Marburg begann … für das philosophische Denken eine neue Epoche.« – So erinnert sich Hans-Georg Gadamer an Heideggers Marburger Zeit, und nicht nur Heideggers eigenes Schaffen, auch die anhaltende Wirkung von Sein und Zeit und den anderen in Marburg verfassten Schriften und Vorlesungen, geben diesem Diktum recht. Seit diese Texte in der Gesamtausgabe vorliegen, wird immer deutlicher, wie sich Heidegger in Marburg philosophisch entwickelt hat, welche Ideen, Lektüren und Begegnungen diese Zeit prägten und welche Wege Heideggers Denken in Marburg nahm. Als Ergebnis der »Übergangsarbeit« der Marburger Zeit hat Heidegger mit Sein und Zeit einen Text geschaffen, der zur Mitte seines Denkens werden sollte, und dies auch und gerade deshalb, weil dieses Werk Heideggers unvollendet geblieben ist. In einer Anmerkung zur letzten Seite heißt es in diesem Sinne, das Buch stelle einen Weg des Denkens da, aber »nicht ›den‹ einzigen«. Dass Sein und Zeit das in der Einleitung gesteckte Ziel nicht erreicht und Fragment geblieben ist, ist nur ein Anzeichen für die Komplexität, die wesentliche Schwierigkeit und innere Spannung der Themen, Argumente und Konstellationen, mit denen Heidegger sich in Marburg beschäftigt hat. ...

Cílem předkládaného textu je ukázat, že problém svobody v politické sféře je u Hobbese zásadní a představuje jeden z centrálních bodů jeho politické filosofie. Východiskem úvah je Hobbesovo hlavní vymezení pojmu svobody jakožto neexistence vnějších překážek a přímým důsledkům, které z něho plynou. Následně přecházíme k pojmu metafyzické svobody, kterou Hobbes jakožto determinista odmítá, a k problému vztahu strachu a svobody, tedy především otázce, nakolik je strach z represe omezením svobody. Další oddíly vnáší do hry druhý významný pojem svobody, který u Hobbese nacházíme, tj. svobodu jako vynětí ze zákonů a třetí Hobbesův pojem svobody, svobodu poddaného. Na závěr je pozornost věnována i méně významným a odvozeným formám svobody, tj. svobodě slova a svobodě státu; zároveň se na jejich vymezeních zkoumáno, zdali je Hobbesovo propojení těchto různých pojetí svobody konzistentní, či spíše zmatené, nakolik se Hobbesovi daří dosáhnout filosofických cílů, které si vytknul, jak zařadit jeho koncepci svobody ze systematického hlediska.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher and writer, as well as a key influencer in the years leading up to the French Revolution of the late 18 th century. He was famous for his own theory of human nature, as were many of his predecessors including John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Their theories attempted to explain the nature of humans, of society, and how to better form a relationship between the two in order to make the life of man more fulfilling and fruitful. Rousseau put forth that humans, in their natural state, we good and loving creatures, and that the existence of property and the subsequent social contract that enforced control over that property was harmful to the nature of humans. In response to this derogatory form of social contract that existed to damn the then-prevalent nature of humankind, he proposed an alternate social contract which would allow the development of humans in society. In

This paper focuses on the rule of metaphor in Paul Ricoeur's philosophy of language. In his MultiDisciplinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language (1975), the French philosopher shows the fundamental power of human language in constructing the world we perceive. He reveals the processes by which linguistic imagination creates and recreates meaning through metaphor. He develops a "linguistic philosophy of freedom," and a hermeneutics of the subject based on human capabilities. According to Ricoeur, to exist is to act: speaking, doing, telling, and assuming responsibility for the act committed. The very "being" of human beings is to act and the effort to be. In this perspective, the human interiority is considered as dynamic production (enérgeia, conatus): it is a complex ontology of homo capax based on the human freedom and possibilities of language. Being as act and potentiality is the dominant meta-category that governs Ricoeur's philosophical anthropology, widely developed in the work Oneself as Another (1990).

THE FREE MAN THINKS OF NOTHING LESS THAN DEATH:
SPINOZA AGAINST HEIDEGGER


In this essay a theoretical comparison is presented between the perspective developed by Heidegger in Being and time regarding authentic existence and the analogous one afforded by the ethics of Spinoza. The bearing thesis is that these two perspectives have a common theoretical presupposition: the essence of every entity is founded in its rooting in the world or nature in which it exists. Nevertheless, it appears that the results which the two authors reach are opposite. While Heidegger develops a radically contingentist approach that through the concept of being-for-death and anticipatory decision transforms being-in the-world itself into a mere unfounded accident, Spinoza’s ontology works out this affiliation in terms of absolute necessitarianism, ultimately identifying the essence of every entity with the activity
that it carries out in nature. This leads to a diametrically opposite conception of freedom: while for Heidegger this must be thought of first of all as emancipation from dispersion and dejection in the world, for Spinoza being free means being adequate causes of the effects that necessarily derive from one’s nature.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe contends that the fact that a person has the capacity to argue entails that she has the moral right of exclusive control over her own body. Critics of Hoppe’s argument do not appear to have pinpointed its flaws. I expose the logical structure of Hoppe’s argument, distinguishing its pragmatic-contradiction and its mutual-recognition components. I provide three counterexamples to show that Hoppe’s mutual-recognition argument is invalid and I argue that the truth that appears to motivate the argument is simply a banality. I show that Hoppe’s pragmatic-contradiction argument is invalid, has a false premise and fails to link up with his mutual-recognition argument in the way that he requires to reach his conclusion. I conclude by outlining three perils of pragmatic-contradiction arguments, the weakness of mutual-recognition arguments, and the implausibility of attempts to derive a universal moral status from a specialised activity such as argumentation.

L’art. 16 della Dichiarazione dei diritti dell’uomo e del cittadino del 26 agosto 1789 afferma: «Una società, nella quale la garanzia dei diritti non sia assicurata e la separazione dei poteri fissata, non ha una Costituzione». Non per questo la Rivoluzione francese riuscì a garantirli, essendo priva di un organismo, indipendente dalle maggioranze temporanee e provvisorie, che potesse impedire abusi e oppressione da parte di tali maggioranze. Secondo i giacobini, che seguivano le teorie illuministiche di Jean-Jacques Rousseau sulla «volontà generale», essa non poteva che manifestarsi attraverso l’Assemblea nazionale, intesa come corpo rappresentativo dell’intera cittadinanza.

I princìpi della Rivoluzione francese continuarono a diffondersi con Napoleone, seppure il condottiero corso sia stato autore di una svolta autoritaria, e la Restaurazione non riuscì ad impedirne la rivendicazione popolare, fino alla concessione di costituzioni ottriate ed al definitivo avvento delle democrazie parlamentari, che pongono la libertà di espressione tra i diritti fondamentali che lo stato ha l’obbligo di garantire.

Risalendo il fiume della storia ritroviamo sempre una contrapposizione tra diritto e forza o tra legge positiva (nomos) e legge della natura (physis), ma constatiamo che entrambe le prospettive e le pratiche del diritto sono efficaci, se è vero che gli esseri umani non hanno sino ad ora abbandonato né l’una né l’altra prospettiva argomentativa sull’origine e sul fondamento della legge. Ma da dove viene il diritto?

È possibile tentare di giustificare i diritti umani a partire da Dio, dalla Natura, dallo stato, persino dalla Storia o dalle consuetudini. Forse una più modesta argomentazione potrebbe individuare nei diritti costituzionalmente garantiti e protetti un rimedio, uno strumento di difesa nei confronti di abusi che si sono storicamente realizzati. Nulla di sacro o naturale, dunque, bensì una debole, ma imprescindibile, forma di difesa, la quale andrà a sua volta difesa contro i tentativi di utilizzarla per fini contrari a quelli per cui è stata codificata (come le più recenti dichiarazioni dei diritti non mancano di constatare).

This article analyses John Stuart Mill's views on liberty and freedom of expression. The ideas of John Stuart Mill had great impact on the liberal ideology and western political thought. His work has not lost its relevance today. John Stuat Mill explains in detail why there should be freedom of expression and why the individual must be protected from political despotism. According to him without liberty and freedom of expression there is no progress in society. A culture devoid of freedom has never created a broad liberal mind. According to John Stuart Mill the despotism of custom and censorship can inflict enormous harm on any nation and stifle progress in such a society.

The topic of habitus is one of Thomas Aquinas's greatest contributions to moral theology, but it has been generally neglected in theological scholarship until now. Habits and Holiness is the first work in English to explore Aquinas's rich theology of habit in all of its grandeur and depth. Habits and Holiness shows that most facets of human life and behavior are greatly influenced by habits, which Thomas appraises as an analogous concept that is much broader than previous scholarship has recognized.

The topic of habits is a golden thread that helps readers find their way through Aquinas's extensive writings on morals. By describing the many kinds of habits we possess, and their widespread but often hidden effects in our lives, this book offers a new and unique reevaluation of many issues central to the moral life. It addresses childhood development, pagan virtue, akrasia, circumstances that limit free choice, how heroic virtue operates, and more.

By seeing habits in general as a prism for understanding human action and its influences, Habits and Holiness provides a unique and appealing synthesis of Thomistic virtue theory, the contemporary science of habits, and best practices for eliminating bad habits and living good habits.

Controversy has arisen on the left around attempts to curb provocative expression, particularly hate speech directed at vulnerable social groups. Yet that coupling of leftism with censorship is historically recent.  Karl Marx, stemming from a converted family, was maligned both for ‘being’ and ‘looking’ Jewish. He knew all about 'powerful interests' and all about offensive speech. Yet he makes abundantly clear his rejection of censorship.  The " property right " paradigm does indeed represent the type of individual right that Marx pervasively condemns because he condemns the underlying socioeconomic interest.  But Marx also tacitly adopts a second paradigm, called here a " free speech " paradigm, to represent interests that Marx by no means rejects. For those interests —including free speech, freedom of torture, and other essential goods—Marx condemns rights not because he rejects the concomitant interests but, to the contrary, because he sees the right as betraying an utterly vital interest.

The Ancient Stoic doctrine of the human soul as a spark (apóspasma) of the Divine Nature is specially important in the authors of the Imperial era. Some Roman philosophers rely on the universal Fatherhood of God to attribute an impregnable inner freedom to all humans. In Epictetus, this dignity - shared by men and women, slaves and free men- demands to be protected in each person by an appropriate use of their faculties, and requires also to tolerate (anékhomai) other humans as brothers and sisters. Now the tolerantia of the Stoic sage is still very far from challenging the rigid political structures and social roles of their time, which supported strong inequalities and abuses of all kinds. Meanwhile, the authors of the Patristic tradition inherited the link between Divine filiation and the value of each person, very akin to the Biblical topic of the 'Image of God', but we have to wait until the late Fourth Century for this thesis to be carried into further consequences and for some of the social models and asymmetries to be put into question. This is evident in the work of Gregory of Nyssa, whose view of women, children and slaves distances itself from many of the Ancient paradigms prevailing in his time.

The chapter on 'The Nature of Freedom' from one of the most original essays ever written, exploring freedom from the standpoint of Post-Kantian Idealism. F.W.J. von Schelling's essay is challenging to read but it has been re-edited into chapters and presented in a new way so as to make it more easily read. Edouard d'Araille has also provided the briefest of introductions to the life and work of Friedrich Wilhelm Josef von Schelling. In his 'Prefatory Note' he provides a biographical sketch of the author and discusses his work and influences. It is followed by an extract of Josiah Royce's on Schelling which gives a larger picture of the romantic-idealist philosopher. It is a valuable contribution to the philosophy of freedom, surpassed only by Schopenhauer's 'Essay on the Freedom of Will'. This meticulous edited version of von Schelling's essay includes three portraits (one in colour) and full textual annotations.

In der Rechtsphilosophie wie in der akademischen und politischen Debatte überhaupt stellt die Freiheit eine so umstrittene wie unverzichtbare Idee dar. Sie trägt erkennbar das Signum metaphysischer Konzepte: Man bekommt sie nicht einfach zu fassen und kann sich gleichwohl ihrer Wirkung nicht leichthin entziehen. Wer sich an das Thema einer Metaphysik der Freiheit wagt, muss damit rechnen, dass ihm aus zweierlei Gründen die Gefolgschaft verweigert wird: zum einen, weil vielen heute jedwede metaphysische Rede obsolet erscheint und zum anderen, weil die neuere Neurowissenschaft den Fall der Freiheit doch, so hört man oft, bereits erledigt habe: Was früheren Jahrhunderten als Freiheit erschienen sei, hätte sich mittlerweile als bloßes Epiphänomen biologischer Determination herausgestellt. Stimmt das? Ist die Metaphysik der Freiheit zu den Akten zu legen? Diesen Fragen möchte ich mich im Folgenden widmen. Dabei gehe ich zuerst dem Verhältnis von Freiheit und Metaphysik nach (II.) und erörtere sodann die Rolle neuerer naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse (III.). Danach widme ich mich der Frage, welche Rolle bei der Analyse der Determiniertheit des Willens die gewählte wissenschaftliche Methode spielt (IV.) und welche die inhärente Verantwortungsdimension unseres Freiheitsbewusstseins (V.), bevor ich einige – optimistische – Schlussfolgerungen ziehe (VI.).

The permissibility of actions depends upon facts about the flourishing and separateness of persons. Persons differ from other creatures in having the task of discovering for themselves, by conjecture and refutation, what sort of life will fulfil them. Compulsory slavery impermissibly prevents some persons from pursuing this task. However, many people may conjecture that they are natural slaves. Some of these conjectures may turn out to be correct. In consequence, voluntary slavery, in which one person welcomes the duty to fulfil all the commands of another, is permissible. Life-long voluntary slavery contracts are impermissible because of human fallibility; but fixed-term slavery contracts should be legally enforceable. Each person has the temporarily alienable moral right to direct her own life.

Као постмодерна, вишеслојна и вишезначењска, приповетка Борислава Пекића представља извесни изазов за сваког методичара практичара. У раду се нуди један од могућих методичких приступа за обраду, од којег су могућа извесна одступања при самом раду, што ће зависити од самог састава разреда, потом од њиховог интересо-вања, предзнања и мотивације за рад. Представљени приступ се ослања на проблем-ску наставу и наставу путем откривања, а делом и на оно што Младен Вилотијевић објашњава као претичућу наставу, када се садржај, који је неопходно обрадити у току само једног или два часа, унапред дозира, а ученици припремају и мотивишу за ус-вајање нових знања. Одлучили смо се да се у обради у највећој мери осврнемо на порт-ретизацију главног лика, те појам слободе, слободе избора и одговорности коју такав избор са собом носи.
Кључне речи: постмодернизам, приповетка, Пекић, Нови Јерусалим, проблемска настава, слобода, портретизација

A postmodern, multifaceted and multimeaningful Borislav Pekic's short story represents a challenge for any methodist, especially those in applied methods of teaching. One possible approach is represented in this paper and deviations are possible, which mainly depends on group organisation and composition, students' interests, previous knowledge and motivation. Problem solving method and discovery learning method are applied in this approach and partly a method explained by Mladen Vilotijevic as an outpacing teaching. This way of teaching is used when the content, meant for only one or two lessons, is being dosed in advance and students get prepared and motivated for learning process. In this paper a character portrayal prevails as well as the following topics: concept of freedom, freedom of choice and responsibilities that choices bring.

Sviluppando un commento analitico ai concetti di causalità adeguata e azione si intende chiarire il significato dell’idea spinoziana di “libera necessità”, mostrando come e in che misura Spinoza possa essere considerato un compatibilista. Il risultato dell’analisi getta luce sul fondamento stesso della vita politica, fornendo argomenti per respingere l’idea di uno “Spinoza sovversivo” e restituendo l’autore allo sfondo del liberalismo classico cui appartiene.

[This is an essay from the second year of my undergraduate Philosophy degree] In this essay, I will show that Simone de Beauvoir presents the view that women are denied their freedom through a system of patriarchal oppression. To do so, I will investigate the philosophical influences that formed her conception of freedom by looking at Jean-Paul Sartre and de Beauvoir in combination, then highlighting how de Beauvoir's conception of freedom differs from that of Sartre. Following this, I will discuss the process by which women's freedom is denied, this will take two parts: firstly, showing how women have come to occupy an inferior position, then secondly showing how this situation has been maintained. Ultimately, my aim is to demonstrate that de Beauvoir viewed this oppression as an absolute evil.