Human Freedom According to the Views of Aristotle of Stagira: Analysis of Its Doctrinal Category Using Gerald MacCallum’s Extended Formula of Freedom
Human Freedom According to the Views of Aristotle of Stagira: Analysis of Its Doctrinal Category Using Gerald MacCallum’s Extended Formula of Freedom

Summary/Abstract: Among contemporary researchers of the concept of freedom, there is complete agreement about the importance that Isaiah Berlin’s October 31, 1958, inaugural lecture “Two Concepts of Freedom”, given at the University of Oxford, has contributed to science. Published later and reprinted many times, it reorganized reflection on the concept of freedom by introducing the terms positive and negative freedom. Despite the appearance of numerous critical voices in the literature on the subject, it is certainly impossible to practice science today without recalling the aforementioned dichotomy. Nine years later, Gerald MacCallum – inspired by, i.a., Berlin’s theory – presented his own triadic model of freedom. In my research, I use this model, but extend its scope with an additional dimension of internal and external freedom. Therefore, the aim of this article is to reconstruct the category of human freedom present in the views of Aristotle of Stagira, carried out precisely by applying the extended formula of MacCallum and building its model with the use of the introduced research instruments. The adopted multidimensional perspective of observing human freedom allows for a comprehensive approach to various planes of human life, on which we can see the manifestations of this enigmatic and ambiguous concept that we call freedom.

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