Human Freedom and Its Limits. An Anthology of the Concept in Political and Legal Doctrines. From Nietzsche to the Present Day
Wolność człowieka i jej granice. Antologia pojęcia w doktrynach polityczno-prawnych. Od Nietzschego do współczesności
Keywords: political philosophy;individual freedom;democracy;John Paul II;Nietzsche;national socialism;Trotsky
The three-volume monograph offers a comprehensive study of the category of freedom as it has been used in the legal and political doctrines by representatives of the western civilization since antiquity up to the present. The third volume contains analyses of political thought from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The publication reviews concepts put forward by Friedrich Nietzsche, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as well as interpretations of various aspects of freedom expressed in the propositions of Spanish traditionalist (Carlist) thought, German revolutionary conservatives and the doctrine of national socialism. The present volume also includes studies concerned with the idea of liberalism (Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich August von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Isaiah Berlin, James M. Buchanan, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin), socialism (the history and ideas of the Prague Spring, the New Left movement), Catholic social teaching (John Paul II), libertarianism (Robert Nozick), republicanism (Quentin Skinner), feminism and communitarianism. Moreover, the reader will find here a cross-sectional analysis of the importance of the concept of freedom in contemporary democracy and two articles on the methodology and typology of the category of freedom. The comparison of the presented views reveals the scale of discrepancies in the perception of the issue of freedom not only in different periods, but also between representatives of the main political doctrines. The plethora of cited approaches unequivocally points to the interdisciplinary character of research on freedom as a philosophical category. Therefore, a presentation of the spectrum of differences through the application of scientific analysis seems a fundamental prerequisite for any attempt at arriving at a comprehensive and multilevel understanding of the idea of freedom.
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