Gerald C. MacCallum Jr. (June 16, 1925 – January 14, 1987) was an American philosopher. He was Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. MacCallum is well known for his critique to the distinction, made famous by

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

, between negative and

positive liberty Positive liberty, or positive freedom, is the possession of the power and resources to act in the context of the structural limitations of the broader society which impacts a person's ability to act, as opposed to negative liberty, which is freed ...

, proposing instead that the concept of freedom can only be understood as a 'triadic relation', in which "x is (is not) free from y to do (not do, become, not become) z". His other publications include Political Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1987) and Legislative Intent and Other Essays on Law, Politics, and Morality (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993, edited by Marcus G. Singer and Rex Martin) which collects 14 essays on topics that include legislative intent, violence, integrity, civil disobedience, and conscience, as well as negative and positive freedom.

References

1925 births 1987 deaths American social philosophers 20th-century American philosophers University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty {{US-philosopher-stub