Inner Revolution

Inner Revolution

Author: Robert A. F. Thurman

Publisher:

Published: 1999-02-04

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9780712670562

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"Inner Revolution addresses both the history and the practical contemporary uses of Buddhism. With originality and enormous scholarship, Robert Thurman reveals the principles of the movement to celebrate individual happiness, which the Buddha initiated some 2,500 years ago, and shows how to continue it. He spreads the Buddha's message that everyone has the opportunity to become fully, completely happy and he finds hope and fascinating lessons in Tibetan Buddhism, as well as a viable way to change the world."


The Subject of Liberty

The Subject of Liberty

Author: Nancy J. Hirschmann

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-10

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1400825369

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This book reconsiders the dominant Western understandings of freedom through the lens of women's real-life experiences of domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling. Nancy Hirschmann argues that the typical approach to freedom found in political philosophy severely reduces the concept's complexity, which is more fully revealed by taking such practical issues into account. Hirschmann begins by arguing that the dominant Western understanding of freedom does not provide a conceptual vocabulary for accurately characterizing women's experiences. Often, free choice is assumed when women are in fact coerced--as when a battered woman who stays with her abuser out of fear or economic necessity is said to make this choice because it must not be so bad--and coercion is assumed when free choices are made--such as when Westerners assume that all veiled women are oppressed, even though many Islamic women view veiling as an important symbol of cultural identity. Understanding the contexts in which choices arise and are made is central to understanding that freedom is socially constructed through systems of power such as patriarchy, capitalism, and race privilege. Social norms, practices, and language set the conditions within which choices are made, determine what options are available, and shape our individual subjectivity, desires, and self-understandings. Attending to the ways in which contexts construct us as "subjects" of liberty, Hirschmann argues, provides a firmer empirical and theoretical footing for understanding what freedom means and entails politically, intellectually, and socially.


Being Shaped by Freedom

Being Shaped by Freedom

Author: Brett James Muhlhan

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2012-10-24

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1610974778

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Did Luther get Christian freedom right? The answer to this question contains two elements: - What is Luther's understanding of Christian freedom? - How did his understanding stand up under the pressure of reformation? Muhlhan examines both of these elements and contends that the sublime beauty of Luther's early understanding of Christian freedom--an understanding that empowered the German reformation--is consistently the same understanding he used to undermine papal heteronomy and refute radical legalism. The relational character, cruciform substance, and complex structure of Luther's concept of freedom enabled him to speak both polemically and catechetically with a clear and authoritative communicative clarity that reinvoked the magnificence of Christ and him crucified for sinners. The impact, both positive and negative, of Luther's appraisal of Christian freedom finds its focus of impact in the small world of Wittenberg in the sixteenth century yet resonated throughout the church of his day as a powerful, theologically laden response to legalism and antinomianism. Therefore, in light of this impact and its correlation to biblical freedom, Muhlhan contents that we can confidently affirm that Luther did indeed get Christian freedom right and that he did not fail to live by the implications of this radical theology.


Another Freedom

Another Freedom

Author: Svetlana Boym

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-07-02

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0226069753

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The word “freedom” is so overly used—and frequently abused—that it is always in danger of becoming nothing but a cliché. In Another Freedom, Svetlana Boym offers us a refreshing new portrait of the age-old concept. Exploring the rich cross-cultural history of the idea of freedom, from its origins in ancient Greece to the present day, she argues that our attempts to imagine freedom should occupy the space of not only “what is” but also “what if.” Beginning with notions of sacrifice and the emergence of a public sphere for politics and art, Boym expands her account to include the relationships between freedom and liberation, modernity and terror, and political dissent and creative estrangement. While depicting a world of differences, she affirms lasting solidarities based on the commitment to the passionate thinking that reflections on freedom require. To do so, Boym assembles a remarkable cast of characters: Aeschylus and Euripides, Kafka and Mandelstam, Arendt and Heidegger, and a virtual encounter between Dostoevsky and Marx on the streets of Paris. By offering a fresh look at the strange history of this idea, Another Freedom delivers a nuanced portrait of freedom, one whose repercussions will be felt well into the future.


The System of Liberty

The System of Liberty

Author: George H. Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-04-22

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1107005078

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Liberal individualism, or "classical liberalism" as it is often called, refers to a political philosophy in which liberty plays the central role. This book demonstrates a conceptual unity within the manifestations of classical liberalism by tracing the history of several interrelated and reinforcing themes. Concepts such as order, justice, rights, and freedom have imparted unity to this diverse political ideology by integrating context and meaning. However, they have also sparked conflict, as classical liberals split on a number of issues, such as legitimate exceptions to the "presumption of liberty," the meaning of "the public good," natural rights versus utilitarianism, the role of the state in education, and the rights of resistance and revolution. This book explores these conflicts and their implications for contemporary liberal and libertarian thought.


The Constitution of Liberty

The Constitution of Liberty

Author: F.A. Hayek

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-29

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 0429637977

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Originally published in 1960, The Constitution of Liberty delineates and defends the principles of a free society and traces the origin, rise, and decline of the rule of law. Casting a skeptical eye on the growth of the welfare state, Hayek examines the challenges to freedom posed by an ever expanding government as well as its corrosive effect on the creation, preservation, and utilization of knowledge. In distinction to those who confidently call for the state to play a greater role in society, Hayek puts forward a nuanced argument for prudence. Guided by this quality, he elegantly demonstrates that a free market system in a democratic polity—under the rule of law and with strong constitutional protections of individual rights—represents the best chance for the continuing existence of liberty. Striking a balance between skepticism and hope, Hayek’s profound insights remain strikingly vital half a century on. This definitive edition of The Constitution of Liberty will give a new generation the opportunity to learn from Hayek’s enduring wisdom.


Associational anarchism

Associational anarchism

Author: Chris Wyatt

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2023-11-28

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1526171295

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Associational anarchism presents a ground-breaking alternative to both liberal democracy and state socialism, derived from the ideas of Karl Marx and G. D. H. Cole. Uniting the public sphere of citizenship with the private sphere of production in a system of communal ownership, the book proposes a scheme of horizontal networks held together through libertarian politics. With no role for a centralised state, the functions of coordination and administration are fulfilled through pluralist self-governance. Political intermediation proceeds via a web of functional associations, which operate within a system of revitalised communities, while management is carried out through modes of self-regulation that embody the key anarchist values of equality, solidarity and mutual-aid.


Liberty, Equality, and the Market

Liberty, Equality, and the Market

Author: Борис Николаевич Чичерин

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 9780300072327

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This volume brings the remarkable writings of Russian liberal thinker Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin (1828-1904) to English-language readers for the first time. The collection includes key essays in which Chicherin addresses the central political and social problems that confronted Russia from 1855 to the opening years of the twentieth century. Chicherin's ideological alternatives to the Bolshevik plan for revolutionary transformation of Russia not only provide valuable historical insights, but also are highly relevant to current political discussion of liberalism in Russia and in the West. In a comprehensive introduction to the book, G. M. Hamburg discusses the development of Chicherin's thought and places it in historical context. Chicherin, Hamburg says, was a powerful and sophisticated but often misunderstood defender of civil and political rights. Like his fellow liberals in Russia, Chicherin was heavily influenced by German idealism and particularly by Hegel. He departed from many, however, in favoring a market economy and advocating that reform efforts be tailored to local conditions and traditions. In this collection Chicherin explores such contemporary issues as the abolition of serfdom, Russian education, and the need for a constitution. He also tackles broad philosophical problems--the nature of liberty and equality, styles of political discourse--and comments on such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, More, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Hegel, and Marx.


As If God Existed

As If God Existed

Author: Maurizio Viroli

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-09-09

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0691142351

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Religion and liberty are often thought to be mutual enemies: if religion has a natural ally, it is authoritarianism--not republicanism or democracy. But in this book, Maurizio Viroli, a leading historian of republican political thought, challenges this conventional wisdom. He argues that political emancipation and the defense of political liberty have always required the self-sacrifice of people with religious sentiments and a religious devotion to liberty. This is particularly the case when liberty is threatened by authoritarianism: the staunchest defenders of liberty are those who feel a deeply religious commitment to it. Viroli makes his case by reconstructing, for the first time, the history of the Italian "religion of liberty," covering its entire span but focusing on three key examples of political emancipation: the free republics of the late Middle Ages, the Risorgimento of the nineteenth century, and the antifascist Resistenza of the twentieth century. In each example, Viroli shows, a religious spirit that regarded moral and political liberty as the highest goods of human life was fundamental to establishing and preserving liberty. He also shows that when this religious sentiment has been corrupted or suffocated, Italians have lost their liberty. This book makes a powerful and provocative contribution to today's debates about the compatibility of religion and republicanism.