I like her idea that evoking “freedom of consciousness”, or applying freedom to other metaphysical spaces, is irrelevant. Freedom is the prime concern of politics, of the polis, of political action, and not of inward universes. “The raison d'etre of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action”. — NOS4A2
For Arendt, politics and freedom are intimately linked. She gives a better account of freedom in her The Promise of Politics — NOS4A2
but he is not one whit freer.
He too moves in a sphere in which there is no freedom whatever.
At the very least her essay is a good reminder that until everyone is free to participate in the polis, there is no freedom. — NOS4A2
Given Arendt's criteria, we can look at places with rigid lockdowns and confirm that we are not free, that there is no freedom. — NOS4A2
That's not addressing the article so much as covering your ears and sceaming "She's wrong, she's wrong, she's wrong". Length is not depth. — Banno
Reading Arendt is not like being led through an argument so much as inundated by it.
— Banno
That's well put. I wish I had thought of it. — Ciceronianus
Mmmmm. Laphroaig. It's so smokey. — Ciceronianus
You can oppress your own will. Like that of others. — Dijkgraf
No, you can't — Garrett Travers
And where as thought and action are controlled by the brain — Garrett Travers
If I want to go left I can say no and go right. I can even build a wall to keep myself from entering left in my noctambule nights. — Dijkgraf
The brain controls nothing. Thoughts just appear. You can't control your thoughts. — Dijkgraf
For me the issue is undecidable as well and therefore interesting — Tobias
It does not, however, address how to develop the means to go forward as a way of life. — Paine
Politically, this identification of freedom with sovereignty is perhaps the most pernicious and dangerous consequence of the phi- losophical equation of freedom and free will. For it leads either to a denial of human freedom namely, if it is realized that whatever men may be, they are never sovereign or to the insight that the freedom of one man, or a group, or a body politic can be purchased only at the price of the freedom, Le., the sovereignty, of all others.
This, it seems to me, is by way of articulating the antisocial consequences of what has been revealed as the Christian notion of free will. — Banno
you've simply insulted me again... — Garrett Travers
The principle, and hence freedom, is found, then, not in thought or in will but in action. And action occurs in the public sphere, not the private.
It does seem odd that frank agrees with Arendt agrees, only to say that she is wrong. — Banno
This suggests a community is incapable of promoting individual freedom or inclined against it by its nature, absent law--which I suppose may be deemed communal. We can't give up the law, though. But retirement beckons, so perhaps soon. Regardless, the law's certainly an expression of sovereignty, so that won't work. — Ciceronianus
In the text following that quote Arendt shows the will to be incompatible with the political space, for what one wills is subject to change, yet the political space is one bound by agreement. The will is "non-political or even anti-political". — Banno
Yes, but your posts have improved markedly; perhaps my misbehaviour had an impact. — Banno
The idea of self-control as not being ruled by external or internal compulsion is more of a Stoic idea.
That difference is the point of Arendt saying:
Yet the Augustinian solitude of "hot contention" within the soul itself was utterly unknown, for the fight in which he had become engaged was not between reason and passion, between understanding and Thumos, that is, between two different human faculties, but it was a conflict within the will itself. And this duality within the self-same faculty had been known as the characteristic of thought, as the dialogue which I hold with myself. In other words, the two-in-one of solitude which sets the thought process into motion has the exactly opposite effect on the will: it paralyzes and locks it within itself; willing in solitude is always velle and nolle, to will and not to will at the same time. — Paine
And in which case you will not be oppressing your will, but fulfilling it. — Garrett Travers
This is a good indication as to why Arendt is dealing with a faulty description of "will". It leads to contradiction in the description of the self-same thing, in the form of the "duality within the self-same faculty". This is why "will" needs to be defined as distinct from those other basic capacities, like desire and reason, so Augustine proposed a tripartite mind, as memory, understanding (reason), and will. — Metaphysician Undercover
the will is that it is not necessarily free, we must will it to be free, by making freedom of will a principle which we choose to follow. — Metaphysician Undercover
Of course not. If I want to go left and force myself not to go left but go right, I fulfill my free will-not. I don't want to go right. I go though. — Dijkgraf
It's the same as someone forcing me. I don't want to jump in the fire, but if they make, there is little I can do. They can be them or myself. I jump against my will without any need to demonstrate, as you claim I do. — Dijkgraf
You will only jump into the fire if you see absolutely no alternative, then and only then, if you value your life. — Garrett Travers
modern cognitive neuroscience is out pacing this definition itself, by describing to us what the brain does. And what it does is complex maintenance of activity in the form of thought, emotion, and action (will) at all times, with the prefrontal cortex acting as the control center, and is connected to the entire neural, and emotional processing networks of the body. Meaning, the will (sum total of all individual human action) is never in a state of inactivity, outside of trauma induced inactivity. — Garrett Travers
This is why "will" needs to be defined as distinct from those other basic capacities, like desire and reason, so Augustine proposed a tripartite mind, as memory, understanding (reason), and will. — Metaphysician Undercover
The will, however, commits sin when it turns away from immutable and common goods, toward its private good, either something external to itself or lower than itself. It turns to its own private good when it desires to be its own master; it turns to external goods when it busies itself with the private affairs of others or with whatever is none of its concern; it turns to goods lower than itself when it loves the pleasures of the body. Thus a man becomes proud, meddlesome, and lustful; he is caught up in another life which, when compared to the higher one, is death. — St. Augustine, book 2, 19, translated by Benjamin and Hackstaff
I don't know what to say to this. — Garrett Travers
If they push me I don't have a free will. Likewise, I can be obsessed by internal voices who make me do things against my will. If I jump but don't want to it's by definition against my free will. — Dijkgraf
Those internal voices are your voices — Garrett Travers
This, it seems to me, is by way of articulating the antisocial consequences of what has been revealed as the Christian notion of free will. — Banno
It's you who uses the brain. You can move yourself because of it, think thoughts and feel feelings, or perceive the world in sound and vision. It controls bodily functions for you, but how can you control a thought? You cannot think what you want, because the moment you know what you wanna think you already think it. — Dijkgraf
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