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Political Freedom
Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought'', (New York: Penguin, 1993). Political freedom has been described as freedom from oppression or coercion, the absence of disabling conditions for an individual and the fulfillment of enabling conditions, or the absence of life conditions of compulsion in society, such as economic compulsion. Although political freedom is often interpreted negatively as the freedom from unreasonable external constraints on action, it can also refer to the positive exercise of rights, capacities and possibilities for action and the exercise of social or group rights. The concept can also include freedom from internal constraints on political action or speech such as social conformity, consistency, or inauthen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concept
A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach, cognitive science. In contemporary philosophy, three understandings of a concept prevail: * mental representations, such that a concept is an entity that exists in the mind (a mental object) * abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states) * Fregean senses, abstract objects rather than a mental object or a mental state Concepts are classified into a hierarchy, higher levels of which are termed "superordinate" and lower levels termed "subordinate". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Anarchists
Social anarchism, also known as left-wing anarchism or socialist anarchism, is an anarchist tradition that sees individual liberty and social solidarity as mutually compatible and desirable. It advocates for a social revolution to eliminate hierarchical power structures, such as capitalism and the state. In their place, social anarchists encourage social collaboration through mutual aid and envision non-hierarchical forms of social organization, such as voluntary associations. Identified with the socialist tradition of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, social anarchism is often contrasted with individualist anarchism. Political principles Social anarchism is opposed to all forms of hierarchical power structures, and oppression, including (but not limited to) the State and capitalism. Social anarchism sees liberty as interconnected with social solidarity, and considers the maximization of one to be necessary for the maximization of the other. As such, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and then at the University of Freiburg, where he received his PhD.Lemert, Charles. ''Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings''. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. 2010. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research, which later became known as the Frankfurt School. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control. Between 1943 and 1950, Marcuse worked in U.S. government service for the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency) where he criticized the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, and remained in prison until shortly before his death in 1937. During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His ''Prison Notebooks'' are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources—not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis (; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greeks in France, Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, sociologist, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of ''The Imaginary Institution of Society'', and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group. His writings on autonomy and social institutions have been influential in both academic and activist circles. Biography Early life in Athens Cornelius Castoriadis was born on 11 March 1922 in ConstantinopleDosse 2014, p. 13. (then part of the Ottoman Empire), the son of fabric merchant KaisarMeletopoulos 2008, p. 52. and Sophia Kastoriadis, Papachela (Παπαχελά). His family had to move in July 1922 to Athens, the home of Castoriadis' mother, due to the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22). He developed an interest in politics after he came into contact with Marxism, Marxist thought at the age of 13. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Foucault's theories primarily addressed the relationships between Power (social and political), power versus knowledge and liberty, and he analyzed how they are used as a form of social control through multiple institutions. Though often cited as a Structuralism, structuralist and Postmodernism, postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels and sought to critique authority without limits on himself. His thought has influenced academics within a large number of contrasting areas of study, with this especially including those working in anthropology, communication studies, criminology, cultural studies, feminism, literary theory, psychology, and sociology. His efforts against homophobia and racial prejudice as well as against other Ideology, id ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of a dependent territory or colony. The commemoration of the independence day of a country or nation celebrates when a country is free from all forms of colonialism; free to build a country or nation without any interference from other nations. Definition Whether the attainment of independence is different from revolution has long been contested, and has often been debated over the question of violence as legitimate means to achieving sovereignty. In general, revolutions aim only to redistribute power with or without an element of emancipation, such as in democratization ''within'' a state, which as such may remain unaltered. For example, the Mexican Revolution (1910) chiefly refers to a multi-factional conflict that eventually led to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autonomy
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be defined from a human resources perspective, where it denotes a (relatively high) level of discretion granted to an employee in his or her work. In such cases, autonomy is known to generally increase job satisfaction. Self-actualized individuals are thought to operate autonomously of external expectations. In a medical context, respect for a patient's personal autonomy is considered one of many fundamental ethical principles in medicine. Sociology In the sociology of knowledge, a controversy over the boundaries of autonomy inhibited analysis of any concept beyond relative autonomy, until a typology of autonomy was created and developed within science and technology studies. According to it, the institution of science's existing autonom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolas Kompridis
Nikolas Kompridis (; born 1953) is a Canadian philosopher and political theorist. His major published work addresses the direction and orientation of Frankfurt School critical theory; the legacy of philosophical romanticism; and the aesthetic dimension(s) of politics. His writing touches on a variety of issues in social and political thought, aesthetics, and the philosophy of culture, often in terms of re-worked concepts of receptivity and world disclosure—a paradigm he calls " reflective disclosure". Critical theory After gaining his Ph.D. at Toronto's York University, Kompridis worked with the influential philosopher and Frankfurt School social theorist Jürgen Habermas while a post-doctoral fellow at Goethe University. Following his time with Habermas he wrote a book responding to what he saw as serious shortcomings and inconsistencies in his mentor's work. In ''Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future'' (2006), Kompridis argues that Habermasi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Hahnel
Robin Eric Hahnel (born March 25, 1946) is an American economist and professor emeritus of economics at American University. He is best known for his work on participatory economics with '' Z Magazine'' editor Michael Albert. Politically, Hahnel considers himself a product of the New Left and is sympathetic to libertarian socialism. He has been active in many social movements and organizations for forty years, notably as a participant in student movements opposed to the American invasion of South Vietnam, more recently with the Southern Maryland Greens, a local chapter of the Maryland Green Party, and the Green Party of the United States. Hahnel's work in economic theory and analysis is informed by the work of Marx, Keynes, Piero Sraffa, Michał Kalecki, and Joan Robinson, among others. He has served as a visiting professor or economist in Cuba, Peru, and England. Early critiques: Orthodox Marxism and welfare economics Hahnel was an undergraduate at Harvard when he met Alber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capitalism And Freedom
''Capitalism and Freedom'' is a book by Milton Friedman originally published in 1962 by the University of Chicago Press which discusses the role of economic capitalism in liberal society. It has sold more than half a million copies since 1962 and has been translated into eighteen languages. Friedman argues for economic freedom as a precondition for political freedom. He defines " liberal" in European Enlightenment terms, contrasting with an American usage that he believes has been corrupted since the Great Depression. The book identifies several places in which a free market can be promoted for both philosophical and practical reasons. Among other concepts, Friedman advocates ending the mandatory licensing of physicians and introducing a system of vouchers for school education. Context ''Capitalism and Freedom'' was published nearly two decades after World War II, a time when the Great Depression was still in collective memory. Under the Kennedy and preceding Eisenhower a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
