For both John Zizioulas (1931), prominent Greek theologian, and Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948), renowned Russian religious philosopher, freedom is the question of ontology, i.e., freedom is about absolute otherness. Since to be is to act, and because to act means to create, we are only as long as we are capable of creating a radically unique reality. Being unique, our creation appears to every other person, including God, as a new reality. However, theistic theology claims that God added nothing to Himself by the creation of the world. Since according to this scenario human person cannot add anything to Being, we cannot speak about her ontological freedom. The doctrine of the divine image seems to be incompatible with the theistic concept of the divine omnipotence. Inquiry into the human freedom is therefore inevitably intertwined with the question of how God is God. Zizioulas's concept of the divine omnipotence does not envisage a space of freedom that God provides for human person from which she could create surplus in being. The French philosopher Etienne Gilson is therefore right when he writes that 'homo faber can never become homo creator because, having only a received being he cannot produce what he himself is not.' Berdyaev on the other hand locates the origin of our being in the Bottomless freedom or the Ungrund. The Bottomless freedom is Godhead from which both freedom of the divine Persons and that of the human person originate. Berdyaev explains that person can never create another person (something that is possible only for God). However, because person in spite of being created is not causally determined by the Creator, she can create her radically unique reality and thus realize her ontological freedom. Clearly, homo faber can never become homo creator (creator of other personalities), but this does not preclude person's power to create surplus in being and to be homo theurgos.

“Being with oneself in the other” is Hegel's famous definition of freedom, and, I argue, it is also the key topic of his entire Science of Logic. Hegel's Logic is an ontological analysis of the underlying relational structure of everything: the structure of thinking as much as the structure of the world. Hegel proposes at the beginning of the Logic that this structure must display the form of “being with oneself in the other”, i.e. consist in a relation of identity and difference between a totality and its elements. After presenting the different forms of “being with oneself in the other” developed in the Logic, I will offer a new interpretation of the Philosophy of Right and the Philosophy of History in the light of my interpretation of the Logic. This serves to show how exactly Philosophy of Right is the exposition of the existence of freedom and how it is grounded in the Logic. While the connection between Hegel's Logic and social philosophy has often been taken to have authoritarian and anti-individualist implications, I will show that this is not the case and that this connection instead highlights the republican aspects in Hegel's theory.

譚潔瑩. / 論文(哲學碩士) -- 香港中文大學硏究院哲學學部, 1996. / 參考文献 : leaves 101-104. / Tan Jieying. / Chapter 第一章 --- 導言 --- p.1 / Chapter 第二章 --- 本体論的自由 --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- 意識 --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- 存有 --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3 --- 否定與虛無 --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4 --- 虛無與自由 --- p.25 / Chapter 2.5 --- 自由與行動 --- p.39 / Chapter 第三章 --- 處境中的自由 --- p.48 / Chapter 3.1 --- 自由與事實性 --- p.49 / Chapter 3.2 --- 五種處境 --- p.53 / Chapter 第四章 --- 評論 --- p.7 6 / Chapter 4.1 --- 制約的自由 --- p.77 / Chapter 4.2 --- 自由的程度 --- p.85 / Chapter 4.3 --- 意識與自由 --- p.88 / Chapter 4.4 --- 結語 --- p.99 / 參考書目 --- p.101

Orientador: Pedro Geraldo Aparecido Novelli / Banca: Ricardo Pereira Tassinari / Banca: Alfredo de Oliveira Moraes / Resumo: Este trabalho busca investigar um aspecto da filosofia hegeliana, a saber, a do desenvolvimento lógico-ontológico do pensamento e da própria efetividade. Esse desenvolvimento é mais profundamente trabalhado na Ciência da Lógica, iniciando pelo que há de mais abstrato e puro ao pensamento, pois o próprio começo é o abstrato e puro do que irá se desenvolver, e isto é o de que as coisas existem, elas são. Mas não se pode dizer muito mais além disso, e razão se sente impelida a ir adiante, numa determinação ulterior do que é, através da sua existência como concreto e não apenas como começo abstrato, onde é marcado por ser o que é e estar mediante outros que também o limitam, limite porém que existe no próprio ser-determinado, através de suas qualidades. Assim, também deve-se ir adiante deste limite, realizando-se plenamente, sendo ser-para-si. Contudo, identificamos que nesse desenvolvimento há um problema, pois à alteridade é relegada à posição menor do que o si nesse movimento, fazendo com que por fim mantenha um certo ar de abstração no desdobramento. Para pensarmos este problema, debruçamo-nos na Doutrina da Essência, segunda parte da Ciência da Lógica, para analisar a gênese da liberdade que ali se encontra e pensar se aquele desenvolvimento acontece da maneira que acontece por um ato de liberdade seu, de se pôr a si como outro; contudo, o desenvolvimento lógico-ontológico aí culmina na substância como causa e efeito de si mesma, como atuação e reação para consigo onde é açã... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This work aims to investigate an aspect of hegelian philosophy, i.e., that of the logical-ontological development of thinking and actually itself. This development is worked in depths in the Science of Logic, beginning from the most abstract and pure to thinking, for the beginning itself is the abstract and pure of what will develop, and that is the fact that things exist, they are. But there isn't much to say anymore about it, and reason feels impelled to go farther, in na ulterior determination of what is, through its existence as concrete and no more as abstract beginning, when it's marked as being what it is through others which limits it, limite, although, existent in the determinate being itself, because of its qualities. Therefore, there's also a need to go further this limit, fully realizing itself, to be a being-for-self. However, we identify in this development a problem, for otherness is relegated to na inferior position than the in-itself in such movement, keeping a bit of abstraction in the unfolding. To think our problem, we lean towards the Doctrine of Essence, second part of the Science of Logic, to analyze freedom's genesis that happens there and think if that development goes as it goes through a free act of itself, of putting itself as other; yet, the logical-ontological development there culminates in the substance as cause and effect of itself, as actuation and reaction with itself where it's reciprocal-action and independente, free of its otherness. Such... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, N.Y., 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-85).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1971. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

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The value of liberty is one of our most fundamental commitments. Given this commitment, judgments concerning coercion are of profound moral significance. The concept of liberty is usually defined as the absence of coercion; so defined, the very important moral and political value of liberty is safeguarded only when coercion is excluded. Presently, the concept of coercion is inadequately defined, and in drastic need of clear analysis. An important area in which individuals express their liberty is through voluntary agreements made under the law of contracts. The moral defense of the law of contracts rests on the belief that contracts facilitate individuals' opportunities for self-determination; liberty being a necessary condition for self-determination necessitates the exclusion of all forms of coercion in contracts. Market interactions have a particular character and occur within a specific institutional framework. Using economic models, I argue that other accounts of coercion have failed to capture the unique character of coercion in market interactions. The "normalcy" criterion, which is the most prevalent approach to distinguishing coercive proposals from noncoercive ones, assumes that a person's status quo is an appropriate point from which to distinguish coercive proposals from noncoercive proposals. I argue that under certain ideal conditions in the market, a perfectly competitive market, this assumption might be legitimate. I utilize game-theoretic models to analyze the nature of coercive proposals in an imperfectly competitive market. The bargaining advantages that agents have, which are a function of certain background conditions, give them bargaining power over others with whom they negotiate. I argue that when the following conditions are present coercion can arise in the market: the status quo of an agent (or his "threat-advantage") is stronger in relation to the agent with whom he is dealing and he takes advantage of his stronger bargaining position, exploiting the deprivation that the weaker agent will face if he does not comply. I apply this analysis of coercion to the law of contracts, specifically, to the doctrines of duress and unconscionability.

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