This is a study of the treatment of library patron privacy in licenses for electronic journals in academic libraries. We begin by distinguishing four facets of privacy and intellectual freedom based on the LIS and philosophical literature. Next, we perform a content analysis of 42 license agreements for electronic journals, focusing on terms for enforcing authorized use and collection and sharing of user data. We compare our findings to model licenses, to recommendations proposed in a recent treatise on licenses, (...) and to our account of the four facets of intellectual freedom. We find important conflicts with each. (shrink)

Contemporary political philosophers discuss the idea of freedom in terms of two distinctions: Berlin's famous distinction between negative and positive liberty, and Skinner and Pettit's divide between liberal and republican liberty. In this essay I proceed to recast the debate by showing that there are two strands in liberalism, Hobbesian and Lockean, and that the latter inherited its conception of civil liberty from republican thought. I also argue that the contemporary debate on freedom lacks a perspicuous account of the various (...) conceptions of freedom, mainly because it leaves aside the classic contrast between natural liberty and civil liberty. Once we consider both the negative/positive distinction and the natural/civil one, we can classify all conceptions of freedom within four basic irreducible categories. In light of the resulting framework I show that there are two distinct conceptions of republican liberty, natural and civil, and that the former is coupled with an ideal of individual self-control. (shrink)

Four different notions of freedom can be distinguished in Kant's philosophy: logical freedom, practical freedom, transcendental freedom and freedom of choice ("Willkür"). The most important of these is transcendental freedom. Kant's argument for its existence depend on the claim that, necessarily, the categorical imperative is the highest principle of reason. My paper examines how this claim can be made plausible.

So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with it enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four realms: art, sex, drugs, and (...) climate. Drawing on a vast range of material, Maggie Nelson explores how we might think, experience, or talk about freedom in ways responsive to the conditions of our day. Her abiding interest lies in ongoing "practices of freedom" by which we negotiate our interrelation with others, with all the care and constraint that entails, while accepting difference and conflict as integral to our communion. As with all of Nelson's work, how she thinks-and how that thinking expresses itself in style-is crucial to the book's achievement. Through her generosity, rigor, and willingness to critically engage reigning pieties, Nelson shows that new forms of thinking and talking are available to us, ones that welcome a chorus of voices, and recommit us to our entanglement, even at its most difficult. On Freedom is an ambitious, essential book that reinvigorates the art of criticism. (shrink)

Mainstream addiction science is today widely marked by an antinomy between a neurologically determinist understanding of the human brain ‘hijacked’ by the biochemical allure of intoxicants and a liberal voluntarist conception of drug use as a free exercise of choice. Prominent defenders of both discourses strive, ultimately without complete success, to provide accounts that are both universal and value-neutral. This has resulted in a variety of conceptual problems and has undermined the utility of such research for those who seek to (...) therapeutically care for people presumed to suffer from addictions. This article contrasts these two contemporary discourses to two others that played vital historical roles in initiating both scientific and popular concern for addiction. These are the Puritan and civic republican discourses that dominated scholarly discussions of addiction in the early modern era. In each case, the place of values in these discussions is highlighted. By comparing them to their early modern historical antecedents, this article seeks to reflexively explore and develop more intellectually sound and therapeutically relevant alternatives to the troubled attempts at universality and value-neutrality now fettering debates in mainstream addiction science. (shrink)

David Basinger and Randall Basinger present four different answers to the question "If God is in control, are people really free?" Contributors include John Feinberg, Norman Geisler, Bruce Reichenbach and Clark Pinnock.

This article analyses the relationship between power and freedom. In the first part, two ideal types of freedom are distinguished: natural freedom and social freedom. These forms of freedom are theorized as in tension relative to levels of social integration, mutual dependence and power-to. Social freedom consists in the duality of structure, where constraints limit natural freedom, but simultaneously enables power-to. In the second half, the four dimensions of power are analysed, relative to these two forms of freedom. The (...) first dimension concerns decisional freedom; the second structural bias which actors are aware of; the third concerns epistemic reasons for accepting a disadvantageous trade-off of natural to social freedom; and in the fourth dimension, relations of un-freedom and freedom are explained relative to the construction of social ontology. The article argues that in complex modern society social freedom requires restraint upon natural freedom. (shrink)

An introduction, designed for the lay reader, developing four central issues with as little technical language as possible.—S. A. E.

Sartre's interventions at the Vienna, Berlin, and Helsinki Congresses of the World Peace Council are examined in depth. Neglected and overlooked for over a half-century, it is argued that the themes Sartre elaborated in these speeches were consonant with the political and intellectual projects he had been developing since the mid-1930s. Although Sartre spoke as a Marxist who had allied himself with the Communist Party, his deepest concern was to build international unity in opposition to the escalating threat of nuclear (...) war, and to restore political and economic sovereignty to a Western Europe crushed by dependency on America. Freedom for all the world's peoples, Sartre argued, depended on mutual interdependence between nations, built from the ground up by the popular masses. (shrink)

The hero of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four defends a seemingly modest claim: "There was truth and there was untruth."1 It may be incoherent to deny this, but, as the novel shows, those who set no store in truth will not be browbeaten by contradictions. Orwell's last novel reflects his conviction that a commitment to "objective truth" was fast disappearing from the world—a prospect that troubled him more than bombs.2 Truth meant little in this "age of lies" and was neither (...) the aim nor horizon of intellectual debate (CW, 17, p. 11). Standards of rationality were opportunistically enlisted and jettisoned in the service of particular ends. Politics, he concluded, was "a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and .. (shrink)

The topic of alienation has fallen out of fashion in social and political philosophy. It used to be salient, especially in socialist thought and in debates about labor practices in capitalism. Although the lack of identification of people with their working lives—their alienation as workers—remains practically important, normative engagement with it has been set back by at least four objections. They concern the problems of essentialist views, a mishandling of the distinction between the good and the right, the danger (...) of paternalistic impositions, and the significance of democratic authorization. This paper recasts the critique of alienation in a way that vindicates its importance for social and political philosophy and rebuts these objections. First, it provides an analytic framework to understand alienation—distinguishing its various conceptual, explanatory, and normative dimensions. Second, it accounts for the normative aspect of the critique of alienation by articulating it in terms of prudential and moral ideas of positive freedom regarding human flourishing and solidaristic empowerment. Finally, the normative account is developed further, and sharpened to respond to the four objections, through the introduction of the Dignitarian Approach—the view that we have reason to organize social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable features of individual human beings that give rise to their dignity. (shrink)

Although these essays are usually read apart from their original context, Hume clearly intended the four works -- The Natural History of Religion, A Dissertation on the Passions, Of Tragedy, and Of the Standard of Taste -- to stand together as a unified whole, showcasing his psychology of the passions and demonstrating its applications to both religion and aesthetics. This edition also includes Hume's extended Dedication, a passionate endorsement of intellectual and artistic freedom which has been out of print (...) since the original publication in 1757. (shrink)

Freedom of thought is a fundamental human right, enshrined in many human rights treaties. It might very well be the only human right without any practical application. The paper reconstructs scope and meaning of this forgotten right and proposes four principles for its interpretation. In the age of neuroscientific insights and interventions into mind and brain that afford to alter thoughts, the time for the law to define freedom of thought in a way that lives up to its theoretical (...) significance has come. (shrink)

"Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century", Historical Inevitability", "Two Concepts of Liberty", "John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life". These four essays deal with the various aspects of individual liberty, including the distinction between positive and negative liberty and the necessity of rejecting determinism if we wish to keep hold of the notions of human responsibility and freedom.

Freedom and security are often portrayed as things that have to be traded off against one another, but this view does not capture the full complexity of the freedom-security relationship. Rather, there seem to be four different ways in which freedom and security connect to each other: freedom can come at the cost of security, security can come at the cost of freedom, freedom can work to the benefit of security, and security can work to the benefit of freedom. (...) This paper analyses each of these connections in turn. It shows that particular understandings of freedom can help us to see particular connections between freedom and security. The practical examples used to illustrate these connections are drawn from the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be suggested that, in the face of challenges such as this one, taking into account all four connections between freedom and security can ultimately help decision-makers in upholding both. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that according to Malebranche mental attention is the corrective to epistemic error and moral lapse and constitutes the essence of human freedom. Moreover, I show how this conception of human freedom is both morally significant and compatible with occasionalism. By attending to four distinctions made by Malebranche throughout his writings we can begin to understand first, what it means for human beings to exercise their freedom in a way that has some meaningful consequence, and (...) second, how this meaningful consequence does not conflict with occasionalism. The distinctions are: mind/matter, nothing/real, moral/physical, union of the human mind with God/union of the human mind with the human body. By getting clear about how Malebranche sees the overlap between and interconnection among these distinctions we can get a better handle on the metaphysical nature of human freedom, what kind of power it confers on us, and what it entails. I will discuss each distinction is turn starting in 1) with the mind/matter distinction. This first pair will be analyzed by way of a comparison between extended things and thinking things introduced by Malebranche early in *The Search After Truth.* Taking note of where the comparison breaks down, and why, leads directly into 2) where I discuss the nothing/real distinction. This pair is discussed at length in the first Elucidation to *The Search*, the stated objective of which is to clarify what was written in the course of the comparison between mind and matter at the outset of *The Search.* In 3) I analyze the moral/physical distinction, developed in Malebranche’s final work *Réflexions sur la prémotion physique*, and suggest that this pair exactly parallels the nothing/real distinction. In 4) I suggest that the only way to fully understand what is a stake with these distinctions and what Malebranche is trying to do with them is by looking at them in relation to the most important distinction of them all –between the union of the mind and God/union of the mind and body. I conclude in 5) by suggesting a way to understand our power to unite our minds to God. This power does not conflict with occasionalism because it is neither an efficient cause nor does it produce any real effects. It does, nevertheless, have a meaningful role in our moral lives. (shrink)

Raw (pragmatic) and potential (theoretical) power is seen as the key to press freedom in various global settings. Because the locus of power determines the locus of freedom, the authors suggest a model to understand where the raw and potential power resides within a matrix consisting of the State, the Media Elite, the Journalists, or the People. Numerous questions concerning accountability and ethics are raised concerning the practical application of a model that purports to overcome cultural biases inherent in traditional (...) theories of press and society. (shrink)

I take it that liberal justice recognises special protections against the restriction of speech and expression; this is what I call the Free Speech Principle. I ask if this Principle includes speech acts which might broadly be termed ‘hate speech’, where ‘includes’ is sensitive to the distinction between coverage and protection , and between speech that is regulable and speech that should be regulated . I suggest that ‘hate speech’ is too broad a designation to be usefully analysed as a (...) single category, since it includes many different kinds of speech acts, each of which involves very different kinds of free speech interests, and may cause very different kinds of harm. I therefore propose to disaggregate hate speech into various categories which are analysed in turn. I distinguish four main categories of hate speech, namely (1) targeted vilification, (2) diffuse vilification, (3) organised political advocacy for exclusionary and/or eliminationist policies, and (4) other assertions of fact or value which constitute an adverse judgment on an identifiable racial or religious group. Reviewing these categories in the light of the justifications for the Free Speech Principle, I will argue that category (1) is uncovered by the Principle, categories (2) and (3) are covered but unprotected , and that category (4) is protected speech. (shrink)

"Early in the 1960s Adorno gave four courses of lectures on the road leading to Negative Dialectics, his magnum opus of 1966. The second of these was concerned with the topics of history and freedom. In terms of content, these lectures represented an early version of the chapters in Negative Dialectics devoted to Kant and Hegel. In formal terms, these were improvised lectures that permit us to glimpse a philosophical work in progress." -- Cover, p. [4].

The media have become an important arena where struggles over the symbolic legitimacy of expert authority take place and where scientific experts increasingly have to compete for public recognition. The rise of authoritarian and populist leaders in many countries and the growing importance of social media have fueled criticism against scientific institutions and individual researchers. This paper discusses the new hidden forms of suppression and self-censorship regarding scientists’ roles as public experts. It is based on two web surveys conducted among (...) Finnish researchers in 2015 and 2017. We focus on answers to the open-ended questions in these surveys, where respondents reflect upon issues of freedom of expression and the feedback they receive in public arenas. Building on previous research on suppression, “research silencing,” and the “chilling effect,” we discuss the connection between freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry. We make a distinction between four forms of suppression: political and economic control, organizational control, control between rival academics, and control from publics. Moreover, we make explicit and discuss the means, motives, and practices of suppression within each of these four forms. (shrink)

Introduction: Critical realism, hegelian dialectic and the problems of philosophy preliminary considerations -- Objectives of the book -- Dialectic : an initial orientation -- Negation -- Four degrees of critical realism -- Prima facie objections to critical realism -- On the sources and general character of the hegelian dialectic -- On the immanent critique and limitations of the hegelian dialectic -- The fine structure of the hegelian dialectic -- Dialectic : the logic of absence, arguments, themes, perspectives, configurations -- (...) Absence -- Emergence -- Contradiction I : Hegel and Marx -- Contradiction II : misunderstandings -- On the materialist diffraction of dialectic -- Dialectical arguments and the unholy trinity -- Dialectical motifs : tina formation, mediation, concrete universality, etc -- On the generalized theory of the dialectical remark, the failure of detachment, and the presence of the past -- Dialectical critical naturalism -- Towards a real definition of dialectic -- Dialectical critical realism and the dialectic of freedom -- Ontology -- The dialectic of truth -- On the emergence and derivability of dialecticized transcendental realism -- 1m realism : non-identity -- 2e realism : negativity -- Space, time and tense -- Social science, explanatory critique, emancipatory axiology -- 3l realism : totality -- 4d realism : agency -- The dialectic of desire to freedom -- Dialectical critical realism and the dialectics of critical realism -- Metacritical dialectics : irrealism and its consequences -- Irrealism -- The problems of philosophy and their resolution -- Contradictions of the critical philosophy -- Dilemmas of the beautiful soul and the unhappy consciousness -- Master and slave : from dialectics of reconciliation to dialectics of liberation -- The metacritique of the hegelian dialectic -- Marxian dialectic i: the rational kernel in the mystical shell -- Marxian dialectic ii: the mystical shell in the rational kernel -- Metacritical dialectics : philosophical ideologies, their sublation and explanation -- The consequences of irrealism -- Diffracted and retotalized dialectics -- Dialectic as the pulse of freedom. (shrink)

This paper draws on the philosophies of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty and Hannah Arendt in order to explore the nature of free action. Part one outlines three familiar ways in which we often understand the nature of freedom. Part two argues that these common understandings of freedom are rooted in impoverished conceptions of time and subjectivity. Part three engages with Arendt’s conception of natality alongside Merleau‐Ponty’s conception of expression in order to argue that the freely acting self draws in improvisational manners on (...) the resources of a shared past in order to open unprecedented spaces of meaning for the future, and in so doing at once discovers and institutes herself as the self that she is. Part four draws on an example of anti‐oppressive political action in order to argue that free action not only has the power to inaugurate new spaces of shared meaning for the future, but also to change the sens of the shared past. By the same token, free action is vulnerable in its ontological status and ethical meanings to the events and judgments of the future. Part five argues with both Merleau‐Ponty and Arendt that ethical‐political actors can do no better than to cultivate a political virtù while facing up to the inherently transgressive dimensions of free action in a shared historical world. (shrink)

Freedom of information requests are increasingly used in sociology, criminology and other social science disciplines to examine government practices and processes. University ethical review boards in Canada have not typically subjected researchers’ FOI requests to independent review, although this may be changing in the United Kingdom and Australia, reflective of what Haggerty calls ‘ethics creep’. Here we present four arguments for why FOI requests in the social sciences should not be subject to formal ethical review by ERBs. These (...) class='Hi'>four arguments are: existing, rigorous bureaucratic vetting; double jeopardy; infringement of citizenship rights; and unsuitable ethics paradigm. In the discussion, we reflect on the implications of our analysis for literature on ethical review and qualitative research, and for literature on FOI and government transparency. (shrink)

Freedom! Freedom! The word "rings" with meaning to each of us! Yet, what does it really mean? Only the tyrant, living in a secure environment and operating above the law, is theoretically free to do as he chooses. For the remainder of society freedom is an elusive condition, circumscribed by a wide spectrum of personal, social, economic, and governmental restraints. Freedom is bounded most fundamentally by the nature of man and the physical universe. Merely to remain alive human beings must (...) accept a myriad of restrictions on individual appetites, actions, and desires. Personal choices are limited by levels of intelligence and the capacity to think. Effective propaganda or advertising can affect the freedom of those unable to analyze or resist it. Poor health and poverty can set serious limits to choice. No less significant are the intellectual and moral limitations which society imposes on those whom it intends to respect and honor. Social customs and mores, and the restraints they impose, set limits of necessity and respectability and thus, for most, the limits of free choice. Freedom is boundless for none. Those are most free who accept personal and social restraints as the necessary price which they and society must pay for minimum of order, decorum, security, and satisfaction. Freedom with restraint for none creates chaos; freedom with restraint for some creates injustice. Thus restraints must be public no less than private, for freedom, in practice, must be limited by regard for the freedom and welfare of others. This book brings together fourteen outstanding and concerned scholars to acquaint readers with the history, nature, and significance of freedom in America since the Declaration of Independence. Its publication should cause the reader to reflect on the meaning of freedom for the future. Following a "stage-setting" introduction, the chapters are organized to cover four essential areas of concern: Foundations of Freedom, Freedom and Governmental Processes, Freedom and the Human Condition, and Freedom and the Physical Environment. As would be expected, various points of view are presented. However, the differences are not over the facts, but over their meanings and their significance for the future. Certainly this is one of the better efforts to capture the meaning of democratic thought in American history. (shrink)

_Dialectic_ is now widely regarded as a classic of contemporary philosophy. This book, first published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy. The first chapter clarifies the rational core of Hegelian dialectic. (...) Chapter two then proceeds to develop a general theory of dialectic. Isolating the fallacy of 'ontological monovalence', Roy Bhaskar then shows how absence and other negating concepts such as contradiction have a legitimate and necessary ontological employment. He then goes on to give a synoptic account of key dialectical concepts such as the concrete universal; to sketch the further dialectical development of critical naturalism through an account of what he calls four-planar social being; and following consideration of the dialectical critique of analytical reason, he moves on to the real definition of dialectic as absenting absence and in the human sphere, the axiology of freedom. Chapter three extends and deepens critical realism’s characteristic concerns with ontology, science, social science and emancipation not only into the realms of negativity and totality, but also into the fields of reference and truth, spatio-temporality, tense and process, the logic of dialectical universalizability and on to the plane of ethics, where it articulates a combination of moral realism and ethical naturalism, whereby consideration of elemental desire involves commitment to the eudaimonistic society. This is then followed by a sublime discussion of key moments in the trajectory of Western philosophy, the tradition of which can now be seen to be based on what the author calls the unholy trinity of the epistemic fallacy or the reduction of being to knowledge, primal squeeze or the collapse of structure and alethic truth, and ontological monovalence. (shrink)

The article describes Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec's perspective on four classic philosophical images of man and the resulting theoretical and practical implications for the nursing profession. The first three images, namely man as a set of elements, man as a soul imprisoned in the body and man as a rational animal, are regarded by Krąpiec as reductionist anthropologies and are thus inadequate for nursing. The first image reduces man to a biological element. The second one reduces man to a soul (...) and treats a body as something an obstacle in personal development. The third image absolutizes reason in man. While the body is not rejected in this image, it is viewed as an indifferent mass. The last image, which regards man as a person, is an adequate image for nursing. The exceptional character of man emphasized in this image is determined by the following personal qualities: the ability for cognition, freedom, love, religiousness, dignity, subjectivity to law and completeness. These characteristics reveal the specificity of personal being in both the body and the spirit. By viewing man as a person, a nurse discovers a wide range of possibilities of providing effective help to the patient. (shrink)

The dissertation consists of four parts. Part One, "Freedom and the Will in Early Modern Philosophy," sketches an approach to the problem of freedom in early modern philosophy from the perspective of the faculties of the mind. It shows that attention to the faculties of the mind in general, and the will in particular, clarifies the changes in early modern conceptions of freedom from Descartes to Reid. Part Two, "Could Freedom Be a Miracle? Mind, Nature, and Human Freedom in (...) Leibniz," takes its starting point from a passage that recently has been the subject of considerable discussion by interpreters of Leibniz, the 'private miracle' passage from Leibniz's paper "Necessary and Contingent Truths," in which Leibniz seems to claim that freedom is a miracle. I argue that this interpretation is based on a misunderstanding of Leibniz's conception of nature. Freedom is no miracle; it is attributable to the Leibnizian mind in virtue of its nature. This raises the question of how the nature of the Leibnizian mind accounts for freedom, to which I return in Part Four. Part Three, "The Occasion of Freedom in Malebranche," considers a question first raised by Malebranche's contemporary Antoine Arnauld and thereafter posed by many of Malebranche's readers: "Is it not to say two things that undermine each other, to say that on the one hand, God does all things, and on the other, that man has free will?" I argue that Malebranche's conceptions of attention and the will provide the resources to answer Arnauld's question. According to Malebranche, agents determine themselves, and consequently are responsible for their free choices, but do not thereby cause any real change in the physical world that would require God's causal intervention. Part Four, "Freedom, Indifference, and the Will in Suarez, Leibniz, and Malebranche," returns to the interpretive theme sketched in Part One, examining the interrelations between Leibniz's and Malebranche's conceptions of freedom and the faculties of the mind. Against the background of the will-based account of freedom developed by the late Aristotelian philosopher Francisco Suarez, it assesses the place of the will in Leibniz's and Malebranche's conceptions of freedom. (shrink)

We propose four policies of ethical design of human-grade Artificial Intelligence. Two of our policies are precautionary. Given substantial uncertainty both about ethical theory and about the conditions under which AI would have conscious experiences, we should be cautious in our handling of cases where different moral theories or different theories of consciousness would produce very different ethical recommendations. Two of our policies concern respect and freedom. If we design AI that deserves moral consideration equivalent to that of human (...) beings, that AI should be designed with self-respect and with the freedom to explore values other than those we might impose. We are especially concerned about the temptation to create human-grade AI pre-installed with the desire to cheerfully sacrifice itself for its creators’ benefit. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 515-529, May 2022. Much of the recent literature on freedom of speech has focused on the arguments for and against the regulation of certain kinds of speech. Discussions of hate speech and offensive speech, for example, abound in this literature, as do debates concerning the permissibility of pornography. Less attention has been paid, however, at least recently, to the normative foundations of freedom of speech where three classic justifications still prevail, based (...) on the values of truth, autonomy and democracy. In this paper we argue, first, that none of these justifications meet all four intuitive desiderata for an adequate theory of free speech. We go on to sketch an original relational view of free speech, one which grounds its value in the recognition that speakers grant each other when engaging in speech practices, and its limits in the republican ideal of non-dominated co-exercisable liberty. We briefly illustrate the relational approach’s implications for the debate on hate speech regulation and for the response to fake news. (shrink)

Anthropology has recently seen a lively interest in the subject of ethics and comparative notions of morality and freedom. This masterclass brings together four of the most eminent anthropologists working in this field--Michael Lambek, Veena Das, Didier Fassin, and Webb Keane--to discuss, via lectures and responses, important topics facing anthropological ethics and the theoretical debates that surround it. The authors explore the ways we understand morality across many different cultural settings, asking questions such as: How do we recognize the (...) ethical in different ethnographic worlds? What constitutes agency and awareness in everyday life? What might an anthropology of ordinary ethics look like? And what happens when ethics approaches the political in both Western and non-Western societies. Contrasting perspectives and methods- and yet in complimentary ways- this masterclass will serve as an essential guide for how an anthropology of ethics can be formulated in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls (...) towards the other end of the spectrum. Second, inspired by Hoefer, we argue that an interval of auxiliary conditions corresponds to a region in phase space, and to a bundle of possible block universes. We thus make room for a form of non-nomological indeterminism. Third, we combine crucial elements from the works of Hoefer and List; we attempt to give a libertarian reading of this combination. On our proposal, throughout spacetime, there is a certain amount of freedom that can be interpreted as the result of agential choices. Fourth, we focus on the principle of alternative possibilities throughout and propose three ways of strengthening it. (shrink)

This is a transcript of a dialogue between Lisa Downing and Maggie Nelson about Nelson’s recent book, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (2021). The interlocutors discuss the rise of cultural authoritarianism, the role of care in shaping and delimiting freedom, the ways in which freedom and care signify differently according to the sex of the ‘free’ subject, and the vexed question of what freedom will mean in an uncertain future foreshadowed by the spectre of climate change (...) — and potential apocalypse. (shrink)

Translated by Bencivenga from the original Italian of his philosophical best-seller, this dialogue provides a comprehensive statement on the role of freedom in the realms of morality, psychology, metaphysics, and aesthetics. Taking as his motto Galileo's claim in Dialogues in the Great World Systems that "every small connection should be worth introducing with almost as much liberty as if we were telling stories," Bencivenga lets his four characters embrace a wide range of topics in their eclectic discussion. A guide, (...) a libertarian, a determinist, and an open-minded intellectual (who seeks only to understand the strengths of various positions) offer thoughtful considerations of quantum physics and deconstruction, the Gothic novel and detective stories, the structure of desire and the mathematics of infinity, penetrating comments on Freud, Raymond Chandler, and Wertverlaufe, and a reasonable explanation of why Kant's first Critique is longer than either the second or third. What results is less a systematic account than a composite picture for the student of philosophy to piece together. (shrink)

This paper begins the last instalment of a six-part project correlating the key aspects of Kant’s architectonic conception of philosophy with a special version of the Chinese Book of Changes that I call the “Compound Yijing”, which arranges the 64 hexagrams (gua) into both fourfold and threefold sets. I begin by briefly summarizing the foregoing articles: although Kant and the Yijing employ different types of architectonic reasoning, the two systems can both be described in terms of three “levels” of elements. (...) Starting at an unnumbered level devoid of any element (the tao or thing in itself), the system proceeds by elaborating a key fourfold distinction (or “quaternity”) on the first level, a twelvefold distinction on the second level, and twelve quaternities (grouped in four quadrants, each with a set of three quaternities) on the third level. Each set of three quaternities (i.e., each quadrant) on the third level corresponds to one of the four “faculties” of the university, as elaborated in Kant’s book, The Conflict of the Faculties. Previous papers have examined the correlations between three key quaternities that Kant defends in relation to each of three faculties (philosophy, theology, and law) and the 12 gua that correspond to that faculty in the Compound Yijing. The final step is to explore the fourth quaternity on the third level, the 12 gua corresponding to the medical faculty. The “idea of reason” in Kant’s metaphysics that guides this wing of the comparative analysis is freedom, and the ultimate purpose of this faculty of the university is to train doctors to care for people’s physical well-being, as free agents imbedded in nature. But this paper will focus only on the four gua that correspond to four basic concepts in Kant’s theory of medicine. The two quaternities in the “yin-yang” (medical) quadrant of the Compound Yijing that will be skipped here are as follows. First, Kant’s account of the idea of freedom itself, which gives rise to the area of traditional metaphysics known as rational cosmology, comes in the first Critique’s Dialectic, in the section on the Antinomy of Reason (CPR A405-567/B432- 595). There he examines four irresolvable issues: whether the world has a beginning in time; whether composite substances consist of simple parts; whether a causality of freedom operates in the natural world; and whether an absolutely necessary being exists. Later I will argue that these correspond to the quaternity consisting of gua 15, 22, 36, and 52. (shrink)

This paper argues that Peter van Inwagen’s argument for the mysteriousness of metaphysical freedom does not establish its conclusion. Van Inwagen’s argument involves the notion of ‘chance’. This paper explores how Van Inwagen’s argument fares when the notion of chance is unpacked in four different ways and two different semantics for conditionals are applied. This paper concludes that the mystery argument fails to establish that freedom is a mystery in each of its forms.

1. IntroductionSuch is the depth and breadth of Peter van Inwagen’s philosophical output, one must pick and choose which topics to cover when editing a book exploring the philosophical themes touched upon in his work. In Being, Freedom and Method,1 John Keller has brought together several excellent philosophers to explore four such themes – being, freedom, method, and God (the last of which doesn’t make it into the title of the book, perhaps because doing so would violate the rule (...) that the title of a work of analytic philosophy must list exactly three things). Keller does a fine job of covering many of the topics that have interested van Inwagen over the years, but he cannot cover them all (I am most sad to see no substantive treatment of van Inwagen’s work on composition and mereology). Van Inwagen, in his afterword, also finds it necessary to pick and choose which papers he responds to – he addresses only seven of the sixteen papers in the book. I too must pick and choose. In what follows, I shall briefly describe the contents of the book, then make more substantive comments on some of the papers (those about which I think I have something interesting to say). (shrink)

In this paper, comparative philosophy from the point of view, accusing both the freedom of human existence is related to: human freedom is the freedom in the relationship, human relationship is the relationship in freedom. Today, however, are in a rapidly changing technology and globalization are shaping the technology products and among the diverse network of his freedom and development of their relationship. For me, if not free then there is no leisure at all, even the Bliss half a day, (...) lazy nothing, if not the hearts of freedom, can not be relaxed. This paper attempts to analyze the relationship between work and leisure, beyond the ancient Greek society and the modern discipline of social work and leisure are assumed binary opposition, and inquire for a more balanced point of view, to redefine humanity. I will be free, easy to create with pleasure and delight as the four leisure in the state of existence. Accordingly, we will discuss today are due to inhibition of the free course of commercialization and mechanization brought leisure life crisis. This will re-interpretation of Taoism into the spirit of art and technology in the Road and Freedom, by Taoist philosophy, some ideas to inspire today's humans, how the dynamic relationship among the ontology freedom to think and inquire, and practice the art of life through to achieve free life. From my philosophy of contrast, I understand human being today as both free and related, in the networks of multiple others and technical objects developed by science / technology and the process of globalization. For me, without freedom there is no leisure. By the mediation of technical objects today, human desire tends to develop in various networks of multiple others in order to gain its own freedom. This paper will analyse the relation between work and leisure, attempting to go beyond the presupposed dichotomy of work / leisure in both modern " disciplined society "and ancient Greek society, and to look for a more balanced view of their relation in redefining the nature of human being. This understanding will allow us to proceed to characterize the state of being in leisure as freedom, being-at-ease , creativity and joyfulness. An attempt will be made ​​to characterize the crisis of today's leisure life in reference to its commercialization and mechanicalization. Also, we will try to obtain some inspirations from Daoist philosophy as to the idea of freedom in the dynamic ontology of relationship with the Daoist art of life-praxis. (shrink)

The paper presents some principal motives that made I. Kant take the position of transcendental idealism. They are the following: the question of a priori synthetic judgements, the question of the cognitive and ontic status of space and time, the problem of the constitution of the phenomenal world, and the problem of the objectivity of empirical judgments (the so-called transcendental deduction). In relation to Kant’s solutions some objections have been formulated and a thesis that neither separately nor in combination can (...) the main four motives be treated as conditions sufficient for idealism and agnosticism. The author also seeks to show the relationship between transcendental idealism and Kant’s belief of the impossibility to solve the “great” metaphysical problems, therefore the problem of the existence of God, soul, and freedom. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 515-529, May 2022. Much of the recent literature on freedom of speech has focused on the arguments for and against the regulation of certain kinds of speech. Discussions of hate speech and offensive speech, for example, abound in this literature, as do debates concerning the permissibility of pornography. Less attention has been paid, however, at least recently, to the normative foundations of freedom of speech where three classic justifications still prevail, based (...) on the values of truth, autonomy and democracy. In this paper we argue, first, that none of these justifications meet all four intuitive desiderata for an adequate theory of free speech. We go on to sketch an original relational view of free speech, one which grounds its value in the recognition that speakers grant each other when engaging in speech practices, and its limits in the republican ideal of non-dominated co-exercisable liberty. We briefly illustrate the relational approach’s implications for the debate on hate speech regulation and for the response to fake news. (shrink)

This publication is an abridged translation of two lectures given by James Scott, a Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University, within «The Tanner Lectures» project as the Director of the Agrarian Studies Program and a leading expert in the study of peasantry of the Southeast Asia and Africa. Seeking to answer the question why throughout the entire course of human history all states seemed to pursue in fact the only one goal – to ensure by all (...) possible means the sedentary life of their citizens – Scott suggests an «alternative» version of historical process. On the one hand, he rejects the dominant «civilizational narrative» about the backwardness, barbarity, savagery, and other derogatory features of non-state communities; on the other hand, he develops quite another model and interpretation of the first agrarian states emergence referring to exactly the same set of historical evidence. (shrink)

Freedom, and in particular, the freedom of human beings, is a hot topic within the field of metaphysics. In this paper, instead of arguing for the truth of a particular position on freedom, I explore whether a particular position, compatibilism, might be consistent with the existence of moral responsibility and retributive justice. To alleviate ambiguity, I construct a model by which the four primary positions on freedom might be clearly understood. I then distinguish between what I call ‘common-sense’ views (...) of moral responsibility, and ‘complex’ views of moral responsibility. I select a particular complex view, which I term the ‘virtue’ theory of moral responsibility, offer some justification for the sensibility of such a theory, and demonstrate how the virtue theory is consistent with compatibilism. Finally, I propose that retributive justice is consistent with the virtue theory of moral responsibility, and consequently, that retributive justice is consistent with compatibilism. (shrink)