COMPARE THE TWO FOLLOWING APPROACHES TOWARDS LIBERTY: FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND IMMANUEL KANT
By: Ahmet Ufuk Turan
Course: Power of Limit
Date of Submission: January 15, 2018
Introduction
The problem of liberty is one of the most fundamental and comprehensive problems of philosophy. Freedom is one of the most comprehensive and fundamental problems that philosophers have always questioned and emphasized, which is directly related to the spiritual existence of man throughout the whole history of thought.
Basically, directly with the natural and social presence of man, liberty is one of the most comprehensive and inclusive problems of philosophy that determines not only an entity but also the theory of knowledge based on the science of being, as well as the ethical or human's practical life.
The problem of liberty has been a problem that has been addressed in the history of philosophy, generally based on the fact that human beings are rational beings. Accordingly, being a mental being and being aware of freedom at the same time are seen as a prerequisite for being free. In determining the free action of man, the mind determines the free action of man and limits it to the extent that it determines and shapes.
However, because of the limitation, it is clear that the contrast between us and liberty is the result of the autonomous desire of reason, not as a limitation on the elimination of freedom; on the contrary, it is understood as the essence of freedom and the cause of existence. Thus, the mind liberates the will and its action, as far as it limits it to an autonomous way. Although this is based on the reasoning in terms of philosophy and religious thought, the concept of liberty, on the other hand, opposes the notion of boundary or limitation, whether from an internal autonomous will or from an external force on the other. Therefore, philosophy tries to comprehend and explain the concept of liberty as a problematic with the contradictions it contains.
BODY
Liberty, starting with Plato and coming to Bauman, is a philosophical question of human philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, or almost every philosopher interested in the philosophy of society, answered and replied to. When it is mentioned, there are philosophers whose names must be mentioned and will not be mentioned. (Silverman, 2016)
However, let's answer the question with two philosophers who made important determinations: Kant and Nietzsche. The reason for this is that Kant was a has for the question of freedom and Nietzsche pointed to some determinations that would lead to the continuation of this determination.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and composer. He has written critical articles on religion, morality, modern culture, philosophy, and science in a style full of metaphor, irony, and aphorism. Nietzsche's key ideas are the duality of Apollo-Dionysos, perspectivism, the Will of Power, the death of God, the supernatural, and the eternal return. What constitutes the center of his philosophy is the questioning of life by questioning all kinds of teachings exploiting the energy of the person, no matter how socially applicable. The fundamental questioning of the value and objectivity of truth constitutes the focus of broad interpretations, and its influence continues, especially in the tradition of continental philosophy, including existentialism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism.
Immanuel Kant is considered the father of critical philosophy. In accordance with the course of development of modern philosophy, he brought the theory of knowledge to the fore. In Kant's eyes, science is a universal discipline whose leaders are certain and whose methods can only be questioned when a philosophical skepticism like Hume's is embraced. Science is neutral and objective. Kant believed that his first and fundamental mission in philosophy was to ground science, then to defend the rationality of morality and religion. To achieve this goal, he developed elements of knowledge which he deemed important from the rationalism of Descartes and from Hume's empiricism, developed his own theory of knowledge known as transcendental epistemological idealism, and, after his philosophical underpinnings of emerging science, he sought to defend Christian morality based on the idea of freedom and homework. He made a distinction between the phenomenal reality, the world we experience through our senses, and the numerical reality, that is, the non-sensory world and the one who cannot know about it.
Kant deals with the issue of freedom within the framework of the concept of causality, which has become a tradition since the 17th century. For Kant, causality is an a priori category of comprehension, which is unexceptional and therefore is not given to sensuality. Therefore, causality is an epistemological concept that exceeds the experiment but can be applied to all experimental objects. This determination informs us of the existence of a test area but does not make any representations about the presence or absence of a field that exceeds the experiment. What is found in the experimental field, but has not yet been an object of information, is a phenomenon that has been arranged under the categories of comprehension ability of views, so that it is an object of knowledge. Causality can only be applied to phenomena.
This is the case, but this is not an indication that there is only one phenomenal space, no other area, or other kinds of things. However, it does not appear that it implies an indication of the existence of another area or of other things. The only thing that can be said here is that only phenomena are the object of knowledge, and that the phenomena can be regulated through categories of comprehension. However, this is also a condition; If there is any other field outside the phenomenal field, it may be that Numenor thought. People do not have the opportunity to be aware of the existence of an object of a kind, which is the object of a non-sensory phenomenon.
For Kant, the whole point is to determine the relationship between freedom and the causality category in the phenomenological field. Now, freedom cannot be a phenomenon because it is not the object of sensory sight. It is the attitudes, actions, and emotions that are given to the sensory vision of the practical world of man. However, freedom can be mentioned as an opportunity that lags behind all of this. It is a command of the mind, like the immortality of God and the soul. It is not possible to take anything under the categories of comprehension ability, which are not sighted, are not sentenced to sensibility, and cannot be reached through the experiment. And it is not possible to speak of a theoretical knowledge of what is not thought through the categories of meaningfulness.
The result of every view that information about freedom is possible is to fall into the antinomy. Antinomies are a situation in which the theoretical mind falls against contradictory judgments. What is essential in antinomy is the inevitability of the acceptance of the other if one of the two opposing judgments is adopted. In the case of freedom, the antinomy is defined as the inextricable tension between the argument against the existence and absence of freedom and the contrary. The thesis is: The causality based on the laws of nature is not the only causality in which all aspects of the world can be deduced. To explain these appearances, it is necessary to accept another causality, a causality from freedom. According to the thesis, if everything were done according to natural causality since every event would be the result of the previous event, there could be no beginning.
This implies the incompleteness of the causality relationship, the impossibility of an undetermined cause that is the cause of everything, which means the inexplicability of the existence of the experimental world. In contrast, the opposite is: There is no freedom; everything in the world goes by the laws of nature. According to the opposite, the possibility of a free cause means that something is not related to its own, which contradicts the idea of causality. The existence of a practical world forces people to seek freedom. Because it is defined as lı everything possible through practice, freedom. This means that, if a person wants, will, and acts, it is imperative to account for freedom somehow. Everything here is determined by natural causality, and everything that happens ends with necessity. For this reason, there is no desire behind the movements and movements that are totally under the rule of nature. Acting out of natural causality does not mean to act without reason, but to be motivated by another cause. This is another kind of law, a law that is different from the law of nature. There is universal and compulsory knowledge, as illustrated by the Critique of Moral Metaphysics with the Critique of Practical Reason. And this information, according to the law of morality, according to the possibility of people to act, according to a causal nature of causality, is specified by the causality that should be the bearer of a request.
This requirement is an expression of autonomy and forces it to ensure freedom. Freedom is the cause of the moral law, and moral law is the reason for the recognition of freedom. Since the theoretical knowledge of a moral law is possible, it is necessary to ensure freedom. (Foucault.1978.p.5)
Freedom is the possibility of not being determined by natural causality. However, this is only a negative determination; that is, what the request cannot determine. Therefore, this type of freedom is called negative freedom. Thus, negative freedom implies the possibility of another determinant, even if it is implicit. But there is a law without the law of nature, which is the moral law. Freedom is then determined by the moral law. This is freedom in a positive sense. If expressed in the terms of Kant, it can be defined as the property of asking for freedom in a positive sense. Thus, the principle of morality is eventually bound to the principle of freedom, or bakıl reduced to the rule of freedom. But in the general philosophy of Kant, freedom is only a matter of reason, not a phenomenon.
The moral law is then reduced to freedom. This name imposes meaning on him by saving him from being an object. Freedom shows that man is not only a phenomenological space but also a member of the noumenal field. In other words, the intelligent being counts as the existence of self-thought, the counting of the world of comprehension, and the justification of its causality as a justified reason. But he is also aware of himself as part of a world of senses in which his actions take place as the sheer appearances of this causation. For this reason, all actions of man as a member of the world of comprehension ability, the principle of autonomy of pure will; As part of the world of pure sensations, their actions can be completely in line with the natural law of desires and tendencies, and thus the nature of nature.
However, as the world of comprehension is the law of the senses of the world of the senses, so it is the lawmaker in terms of demanding, the human being as the existence of thought depends on the law of the world of comprehension, that is, the law of reason, that is, the autonomy of the request. So freedom is the condition of the possibility of the law. Kant connects the possibility of moral law to freedom as follows.
Since Kant sees freedom as the cause of the existence of the moral code, the only ideology known as a priori is freedom. Freedom does not exclude man's actions from natural necessity law. If the actions of a man determined by the law of liberty had to be transcendent to the natural necessity of man, there would be no possibility of human existence in the phenomenological field. At first glance, the situation seems to be confronted with a dilemma such as natural necessity or freedom, but there is a way to come to the top of this dilemma in Kantian philosophy. A way of making a conceptual distinction. When it comes to a man in separating the appearance from its own point of view, its appearance is its detectable existence in time, and this depends on natural causality (Bird, 2008, p.72)
This distinction, which brings together the concept of freedom and natural necessity in the same being, can be difficult when combined with practices and actions, but it also reveals the fact that there are two interactions with each other. The laws of nature can determine not only the modes of movement of the beings of nature, but also the people's desire, and thus all their es actions ı, but the law of reason can impose itself on the law of nature; Because the world, which is considered, contains the laws of the world that are heard. That is why practical reason is superior to theoretical reason. From the point of view of human actions, the reason for freedom is the superiority over natural causality.
It is clear that freedom positively plays an important role in Kant's philosophy, but there are many arguments and philosophers have to say and say against this idea of freedom. On the other hand, the idea of freedom in a negative sense is a determination that almost every philosopher who has spoken about freedom has to assume or must assume. There can be no freedom of opinion that, in one way or another, does not assume that man has the opportunity to act and ask outside the law of nature, because the concept, by essence, requires the choice of man, the necessity to make choices.
Nietzsche advocates a view of freedom that brings about the continuation of this determination, and the Kantian determination of freedom in the negative sense. Nietzsche has two types of human models: the flock and the upper human. Here, freedom and its anti - Nietzsche is traditionalism or socialism, is dealt with based on this human view. Flock man, if expressed in the most general form, is too lazy to assume responsibility, too cowardly to say no work, and finally, a type of man who is too weak to stand on his feet and cannot endeavor. People depend on tradition. For this reason, in Nietzsche's philosophy, the non-free type or the slave type or, more technically, the herd type is the type that cannot be separated from others. Actions mean that, in terms of demand, that is, dependency on a group in shaping life. And being addicted to this issue means not evaluating anything other than the value judgments of the affiliated group.
As such, many people, i.e., people who are not free, evaluate life and people, their actions, attitudes, and actions in the context of the value judgments of the group to which they belong. To evaluate, the principle of man is Nietzsche. People live by evaluating. When the flock man sees some value judgments as an absolute value, in fact, he adopts a position that is evaluated rote. He does not think of new things; he who has suspended his invisible senses with his own eyes reduces himself to any unacceptable being. Therefore, the real thing that lots of people do is not to approve of oneself, to declare that what others do not like is bad. (Nussbaum.1997.)
The attitude of the man is not the only human attitude. There is the upper human and his perspective. The upper human being is, in fact, at risk of seeing reality as the first binding ring of his superiority. He does not try to see life in line with his own expectations, whatever he sees. That's why he says ”yes” to life. Behind the perspective of this person who says yes s to life, there is no adoption of groups' value judgments. In other words, the upper man, the free man, does not look at life by adopting any moral judgment. But this does not mean that free human beings reject all sorts of values. The upper man is not a nihilist; he is not only an adopter, passive, but he also does not confirm everything.
While the Nihilist rejects certain value judgments, the values in general, the upper man declares that the things that the herd, groups, and societies offer so far are not worth it. So far, the value of things presented is not worth it, yes, but there are values, and it is to explore the values that it suggests are what it is trying to do. One person is free. He is a traveler who is on his way to understand himself and his life. For Nietzsche, therefore, a free man is a person who creates values and values. What he does is to be a lord and master of his actions, his wishes, and his life. The free man is the person who is not passive but active and who doesn't adapt and tries to see what is shown, but rather he who gazes away at his eyes.
Kant's negative liberty declares that man is not a merely natural being and that positive freedom is a being that makes a moral life and creates an appropriate life for him. Nietzsche puts the act of creating value instead of moral law and naming values. While Kant's human being is not simply dependent on nature, he declares that human actions and demands are not bound by emotions and urges, while Nietzsche stresses the necessity of the human being to be cut from tradition first of all. Thus Nietzsche does not deny the dependence on nature, which he actually considers as the absence of Kant's freedom, and finds it insufficient. Because of the dependence on the tradition, at least as much as dependence on the nature of people's own possibilities, as an obstacle to the use of. People who do not use their opportunities cannot create value.
Nietzsche thinks that every human being has begun to live as a camel carrying the burden of tradition. Every individual, in all his evaluations, depends on all the expectations and targets of life, the tradition in which he lives. This is the way a person connects with life. For this reason, all responsibility is to look at life according to the style of evaluation of tradition. Every kind of action, attitude, or argument is wrong or bad; everything that fits it is true and good. But in the course of time, he realizes that being attached to tradition has reduced his own humanity from his own abilities, abilities, and capacities, and wants to put his load on his back (Nussbaum, M. 1997)
The soul, who wants to get rid of the devil, has to be strong enough to be able to throw the load on its back, at least to be strong enough to contribute to its removal from the load. So he becomes a lion. Lions-spirited man breaks from tradition, says "no" to tradition, but not everything is finished. Rejecting is not about doing something. If everything remains at the rejection stage, it becomes either hulking or leading to suicide. The childish spirit becomes emancipated by having the opportunity to evaluate life, life, and the world with a new perspective.
Conclusion
As a result, freedom in Kant is a result of self-relationship, the most fundamental ethical value of the person, an ethical value in a relationship with a free person. The ethics of a person is based on the basis of each ethical value that arises in the relationship with an ethical person, the self-relationship between the values that arise in Kant’s freedom and respect are directly connected to ethical values. However, according to Nietzsche, three types of people are explained in Nietzsche's works; Lots of people, free human and supernatural concepts. Then, the concept of freedom was dealt with from a free human understanding. After this concept study, it was revealed that Nietzsche considered freedom not as a concept but as a process for man. According to him, it is more meaningful to talk about freedom and not freedom. According to Nietzsche, after Nietzsche's concept of freedom has been explained, there are some auxiliary elements and obstacles on the way to freedom. Among these, the concept of truth, which Nietzsche saw as an obstacle to freedom, explained concepts such as Christianity, morality (especially immorality), the problem of the source of good and evil, and God. Later, they explained how they pose a barrier to freedom.
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