Paradoxes of Freedom

Download or read book Paradoxes of Freedom written by Thomas McFarland and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paradoxes of Freedom is a study of the historical and philosophical conception of liberty. Centering his argumemt upon the Romantic exaltation of freedom that followed the psychic explosion of the French Revolution, Thomas McFarland identifies freedom as one of the three chief transcendencies, along with love and religion, by which humanity orientates itself. Departing from contemplation of the significance of the revolutionary motto `live free or die', he examines the apotheosis of freedom along with its vicissitudes, and indicates, by an examination ranging from Shakespeare and Luther to the writings of Nietzsche and Wagner, both the reasons for the supreme valuation of freedom and the nature of the hindrances, in theory and in fact, that enmesh the actual realization of freedom. the book concludes with a sombre assessment of the future of freedom as an orientating transcendence.