Kantotelianism -- on 'free'

From online source:

http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/4375/freedom-in-ancient-world.html

"Philosophers had their own concerns with 'free' -- as Grice in his studies of "Athenian dialectic" was well aware.

"Fifth‐cent. sophists emphasized the strong individual's right to cast off enslavement by nomos (‘law’) and rule over the weaker in accordance with nature."

---- Grice has a study on Trasymachus on 'right' as positive Kelsenian value, in WoW.

"Others contested the validity of traditional social distinctions."

"Alcidamas declared slavery contrary to nature."

"Despite Aristotle's elaborate defence (Politics bk. 1), this view was echoed by the Stoics and discussed thoroughly by Roman jurists (see lawyers, roman)."

"One aspect of democratic eleutheria was ‘to live as you please’."

"Plato caricatured such ‘excessive’ freedom in Republic bks. 8–9."

---- and Grice found America as perhaps too free.

"Isocrates denounced it when advocating patrios politeia."

"Originating in popular morality, the notion of freedom from ‘enslavement’ (esp. to material goods and to passions) induced generations of thinkers (Antisthenes, Diogenes (2)) to stress self-control [continentia, cfr. akrasia] as the means to achieve inner freedom."

"Loss of political freedom and the need for new orientations gave philosophy broad appeal as a means to achieve happiness (eudaimonia: see daimon)."

---- vide Warner, "Grice on happiness."

--

"Despite fundamental differences, both Epicureans and Stoics believed in freedom as the goal and principle of life. (See epicurus; stoicism.)"

"We cannot be certain about the process by which libertas was politicized in Rome."

"The late republican élite developed an aristocratic concept of libertas, supporting equality and opposing regnum (‘kingship’) and extraordinary power of individuals and factions."

"By contrast, the freedom of the people was not egalitarian and did not aim at political participation."

"It was primarily defensive, focusing on equality before the law and the protection of individual citizens from abuse of power by magistrates."

"Libertas rested on institutions."

"It was embodied by the tribuni plebis and their rights of provocatio and auxilium (personal protection) (‘twin poles of the defence of liberty’)."

"In late republican conflicts libertas was claimed by populares against oppression by optimates (thus connected with the secret ballot; see elections and voting, Roman) or a ‘party of the few’."

"During the empire, power was concentrated in one man's hands. Although libertas remained a favoured slogan of imperial ideology, nevertheless, acc. to Tacitus, principātus ac libertas were not reconciled before Nerva. Even so, liberty was increasingly reduced to the elementary meaning of security and protection under the law."

"While freedom lost political significance, eleutheria/libertas became an important element in Christian teaching, emphasized esp. by Paul. Through God's gift and Christ's sacrifice his followers are liberated from sin, the finality of death, and the old law. Such freedom, however, involves subjection to the will of God: Christ's followers are God's ‘slaves’. The freedom promised to Christians is available to all humans, including the lowly and slaves, but it is not of this world and does not militate against existing social dependencies and political or ethical obligations. So, Christians did not oppose slavery as an institution, but in accepting slaves into their community they anticipated the universal brotherhood of the free expected in another world."


Read more: freedom in the ancient world - political, poleis, eleutheria, eleutheros, eunomia, isonomia, dēmokratia, Eleutheria, parrhēsia, isēgoria, eleutherios, autonomia, nomos, Politics, Republic, eudaimonia http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/4375/freedom-in-ancient-world.html#ixzz1IPVYpEty