Abstract

Elzenberg opposes the rightness of violence. This is a horizon on which appears a space for freedom in its two dimensions, which contemporarily is defined as negative and positive. Elzenberg’s negative freedom—necessary and essential—is freedom from one’s own biologicality but also from violence, whilst positive freedom—desired and valuable—the freedom to pursue values, is conditioned by the first.Man can be enslaved by his own body, the force applied by political authority or by ideology. He will not pursue truth then. He can do this only by freeing himself through satisfying his elementary needs and by way of asceticism from biological determinism, ignoring the sphere of political pressure, and reaching the truth in order to contemplate and realize beauty and good. Freedom is opposed on the one hand by biology and on the other, by violence. Force therefore, even when it is used in the name of truth, opposes the very principle in whose defense it has been enlisted.