What is freedom?

6 perspectives

1. Søren Kierkegaard

   Copenhagen

   Subjectivity is truth: the deepest truths are lived, not proven

2. Friedrich Nietzsche

   Germany / Basel / Turin

   God is dead — and we must come to terms with what that empties

   “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows §12

3. Baruch Spinoza

   Amsterdam

   There is one substance: God, or nature

   “Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.” — attributed maxim, reported by later writers

4. Simone de Beauvoir

   Paris

   One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman

   “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” — The Second Sex, introduction

5. Hannah Arendt

   Germany → United States

   The banality of evil: harm done by thoughtlessness, not monsters

   “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” — The Life of the Mind (thinking section)

6. Immanuel Kant

   Königsberg

   The mind actively structures experience; we know things as they appear