Freedom within Reason

Freedom within Reason
Author: Susan Wolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 1993-10-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019535897X

Philosophers typically see the issue of free will and determinism in terms of a debate between two standard positions. Incompatibilism holds that freedom and responsibility require causal and metaphysical independence from the impersonal forces of nature. According to compatibilism, people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. In Freedom Within Reason, Susan Wolf charts a path between these traditional positions: We are not free and responsible, she argues, for actions that are governed by desires that we cannot help having. But the wish to form our own desires from nothing is both futile and arbitrary. Some of the forces beyond our control are friends to freedom rather than enemies of it: they endow us with faculties of reason, perception, and imagination, and provide us with the data by which we come to see and appreciate the world for what it is. The independence we want, Wolf argues, is not independence from the world, but independence from forces that prevent or preclude us from choosing how to live in light of a sufficient appreciation of the world. The freedom we want is a freedom within reason and the world.

Freedom Within Reason

Freedom Within Reason
Author: Susan Wolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 175
Release: 1990
Genre: Ethics
ISBN: 0195085655

Philosophers typically see the issue of free will and determinism in terms of a debate between two standard positions. Incompatibilism holds that freedom and responsibility require causal and metaphysical independence from the impersonal forces of nature. According to compatibilism, people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. In Freedom Within Reason, Susan Wolf charts a path between these traditional positions: We are not free and responsible, she argues, for actions that are governed by desires that we cannot help having. But the wish to form our own desires from nothing is both futile and arbitrary. Some of the forces beyond our control are friends to freedom rather than enemies of it: they endow us with faculties of reason, perception, and imagination, and provide us with the data by which we come to see and appreciate the world for what it is. The independence we want, Wolf argues, is not independence from the world, but independence from forces that prevent or preclude us from choosing how to live in light of a sufficient appreciation of the world. The freedom we want is a freedom within reason and the world.

Freedom Within Reason

Freedom Within Reason
Author: Susan R. Wolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 162
Release: 1990
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780195056167

Philosophers typically see the issue of free will and determinism in terms of a debate between two standard positions. Incompatibilism holds that freedom and responsibility require causal and metaphysical independence from the impersonal forces of nature. According to compatibilism, people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. In Freedom Within Reason, Susan Wolf charts a path between these traditional positions: We are not free and responsible, she argues, for actions that are governed by desires that we cannot help having. But the wish to form our own desires from nothing is both futile and arbitrary. Some of the forces beyond our control are friends to freedom rather than enemies of it: they endow us with faculties of reason, perception, and imagination, and provide us with the data by which we come to see and appreciate the world for what it is. The independence we want, Wolf argues, is not independence from the world, but independence from forces that prevent or preclude us from choosing how to live in light of a sufficient appreciation of the world. The freedom we want is a freedom within reason and the world.

Spinoza on Human Freedom

Spinoza on Human Freedom
Author: Matthew J. Kisner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2011-02-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139500090

Spinoza was one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment, but his often obscure metaphysics makes it difficult to understand the ultimate message of his philosophy. Although he regarded freedom as the fundamental goal of his ethics and politics, his theory of freedom has not received sustained, comprehensive treatment. Spinoza holds that we attain freedom by governing ourselves according to practical principles, which express many of our deepest moral commitments. Matthew J. Kisner focuses on this theory and presents an alternative picture of the ethical project driving Spinoza's philosophical system. His study of the neglected practical philosophy provides an accessible and concrete picture of what it means to live as Spinoza's ethics envisioned.

The Will to Reason

The Will to Reason
Author: C. P. Ragland
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190264454

In 'Giving Aid Effectively', Mark T. Buntaine argues that countries that are members of international organizations have prompted multilateral development banks to give development and environmental aid more effectively by generating better information about performance.

Freedom and the End of Reason

Freedom and the End of Reason
Author: Richard L. Velkley
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2014-02-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 022615758X

In Freedom and the End of Reason, Richard L. Velkley offers an influential interpretation of the central issue of Kant’s philosophy and an evaluation of its position within modern philosophy’s larger history. He persuasively argues that the whole of Kantianism—not merely the Second Critique—focuses on a “critique of practical reason” and is a response to a problem that Kant saw as intrinsic to reason itself: the teleological problem of its goodness. Reconstructing the influence of Rousseau on Kant’s thought, Velkley demonstrates that the relationship between speculative philosophy and practical philosophy in Kant is far more intimate than generally has been perceived. By stressing a Rousseau-inspired notion of reason as a provider of practical ends, he is able to offer an unusually complete account of Kant’s idea of moral culture.

Time and Freedom

Time and Freedom
Author: Christophe Bouton
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2014-10-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0810130157

Christophe Bouton's Time and Freedom addresses the problem of the relationship between time and freedom as a matter of practical philosophy, examining how the individual lives time and how her freedom is effective in time. Bouton first charts the history of modern philosophy's reengagement with the Aristotelian debate about future contingents, beginning with Leibniz. While Kant, Husserl, and their followers would engage time through theories of knowledge, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Kierkegaard, and (later), Heidegger, Sartre, and Levinas applied a phenomenological and existential methodology to time, but faced a problem of the temporality of human freedom. Bouton's is the first major work of its kind since Bergson's Time and Free Will (1889), and Bouton's "mystery of the future," in which the individual has freedom within the shifting bounds dictated by time, charts a new direction.

A Philosophy of Freedom

A Philosophy of Freedom
Author: Lars Svendsen
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2014-10-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1780234104

Freedom of speech, religion, choice, will—humans have fought, and continue to fight, for all of these. But what is human freedom really? Taking a broad approach across metaphysics, politics, and ethics, Lars Svendsen explores this question in his engaging book, while also looking at the threats freedom faces today. Though our behaviors, thoughts, and actions are restricted by social and legal rules, deadlines, and burdens, Svendsen argues that the fundamental requirement for living a human life is the ability to be free. A Philosophy of Freedom questions how we can successfully create meaningful lives when we are estranged from the very concept of freedom. Svendsen tackles such issues as the nature of free agency and the possibility of freedom in a universe governed by natural laws. He concludes that the true definition of personal freedom is first and foremost the liberty to devote yourself to what really matters to you—to realize the true value of the life you are living. Drawing on the fascinating debates around the possibility of freedom and its limits within society, this comprehensive investigation provides an accessible and insightful overview that will appeal to academics and general readers alike.

Freedom from Reality

Freedom from Reality
Author: D. C. Schindler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-08-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780268102623

Presents a critique of the deceptive and ultimately self-subverting character of the modern notion of freedom, retrieving an alternative view through a new interpretation of the ancient tradition.