The Essence of Human Freedom

CONTENTS


xii

Translator's Foreword

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

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§ 1. The Apparent Contradiction between the 'Particular' Question Concerning the Essence of Human Freedom and the 'General' Task of an Introduction to Philosophy

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a) The 'Particularity' of the Topic and the 'Generality' of an Introduction to Philosophy
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b) Broadening the Question Concerning the Essence of Human Freedom towards the Totality of Beings (World and God) in the Preliminary Discussion of 'Negative' Freedom. Specific Character of Philosophical as Distinct from Scientific Questioning
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c) Deeper Interpretation of 'Negative Freedom' as Freedom-from ... in Terms of the Essence of Its Relational Character. Beings in the Whole Necessarily Included in the Question Concerning Human Freedom
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d) Philosophy as Revealing the Whole by Means of Properly Conceived Particular Problems

PART ONE

POSITIVE DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY FROM THE CONTENT OF THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM
THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN FREEDOM AND THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION OF PHILOSOPHY


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Chapter One

First Breakthrough to the Proper Dimension of the Problem of Freedom in Kant. The Connection of the Problem of Freedom with the Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics

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§ 2. Philosophy as Inquiring into the Whole. Going-after-the-Whole as Going-to-the-Roots

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§ 3. Formal-Indicative Discussion of 'Positive Freedom' by Reconsideration of Transcendental' and 'Practical' Freedom in Kant

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§ 4. Broadening of the Problem of Freedom within the Perspective of the Cosmological Problem as Indicated in the Grounding Character of Transcendental Freedom': Freedom - Causality - Movement - Beings as Such

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§ 5. The Questionable Challenging Character of the Broadened Problem of Freedom and the Traditional Form of the Leading Question of Philosophy. Necessity of a Renewed Interrogation of the Leading Question


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Chapter Two

The Leading Question of Philosophy and Its Questionability. Discussion of the Leading Question from Its Own Possibilities and Presuppositions

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§ 6. Leading Question of Philosophy (τί τὸ ὄν) as the Question Concerning the Being of Beings

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§ 7. Preconceptual Understanding of Being and Greek Philosophy's Basic Word for Being: οὐσία

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a) The Character of Preconceptual Understanding of Being and the Forgottenness of Being
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b) The Ambiguity of οὐσία as Sign of the Richness and Urgency of the Unmastered Problems in the Awakening of the Understanding of Being
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c) Everyday Speech and the Fundamental Meaning of οὐσία Presence
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d) The Self-concealed Understanding of Being (οὐσία) as Constant Presence. Οὐσία as What Is Sought and Preunderstood in the Leading Question of Philosophy
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§ 8. Demonstration of the Hidden Fundamental Meaning of οὐσία (Constant Presence) in the Greek Interpretation of Movement. What-Being, and Being-Actual (Being-Present)

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a) Being and Movement: οὐσία as παρουσία of the ὑπομένον
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b) Being and What-Being. οὐσία as the παρουσία of the εἶδος
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c) Being and Substance. The Further Development of the Problem of Being as the Problem of Substance. Substantiality and Constant Presence
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d) Being and Actuality (Being-Present). The Inner Structural Connection of οὐσία as παρουσία with ἐνέργεια and Actualitas
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§ 9. Being, Truth, Presence. The Greek Interpretation of Being as Being-True in the Horizon of Being as Constant Presence. The ὃν ὡς ἀληθές as κυριώτατον ὄv (Aristotle, Metaphysics Θ 10)

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a) Where the Inquiry Stands. The Previously Discussed Meanings of Being and the Exemplary Status of Being-True
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b) Four Meanings of Being in Aristotle. The Exclusion of the ὃν ὡς ἀληθές in Metaphysics Ε 4
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c) Thematic Discussion of the ὃν ὡς ἀληθές as the κυριώτατον ὄν in Metaphysics Θ 10 and the Question of Whether This Chapter Belongs to Book Θ. Connection Between the Textual Question and the Substantive Question of the Relation Between Being Qua BeingTrue and Being Qua Being-Actual (ἐνέργεια ὄν)
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α) The rejection of Θ 10's placement in Θ and the traditional interpretation of being-true as a problem of logic and epistemology (Schwegler, Jaeger, Ross). The erroneous interpretation of κυριώτατα resulting from this interpretation
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β) Demonstration of Chapter 10's proper placement in Book Θ. The ambiguity in the Greek concept of truth: truth of things and truth of sentences (propositional truth). The thematic discussion of the being-true of (proper) beings (ἐπί τῶν πραγμάτων), not of knowledge, in Chapter Θ 10
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d) The Greek Understanding of Truth (ἀλήθεια) as Deconcealment. The Being Which Is True (ἀληθές ὄν) as the Most Proper Being (κυριώτατον ὄν). The Most Proper Being as the Simple and Constantly Present
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α) The correspondence between being and being-true (deconcealment). Two fundamental types of being and their corresponding modes of being-true
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β) Truth, simplicity (unity) and constant presence. The simple (ἀδιαίρετα, ἀσύνθετα, ἀπλᾶ) as the proper being and its deconcealment as the highest mode of being-true
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γ) Deconcealment of the simple as pure and absolute self-presence
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e) The Question of the Being-True of Proper Beings as the Highest and Deepest Question of Aristotle's Interpretation of Being. Θ 10 as Keystone to Book Θ and to Aristotelian Metaphysics in General
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§ 10. The Actuality of Spirit in Hegel as Absolute Presence


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Chapter Three

Working the Leading Question of Metaphysics through to the Fundamental Question of Philosophy

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§ 11. The Fundamental Question of Philosophy as the Question Concerning the Primordial Connection between Being and Time

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§ 12. Man as the Site of the Fundamental Question. Understanding of Being as the Ground of the Possibility of the Essence of Man

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§ 13. The Challenging Character of the Question of Being (Fundamental Question) and the Problem of Freedom. The Comprehensive Scope of Being (Going-after-the-Whole) and the Challenging Individualization (Going-to-the-Roots) of Time as the Horizon of the Understanding of Being

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§ 14. Switching the Perspective of the Question: the Leading Question of Metaphysics as Grounded in the Question of the Essence of Freedom


PART TWO

CAUSALITY AND FREEDOM
TRANSCENDENTAL AND PRACTICAL FREEDOM IN KANT


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Chapter One

Causality and Freedom as Cosmological Problem.
The First Way to Freedom in the Kantian System: the Question of the Possibility of Experience as the Question of the Possibility of Genuine Metaphysics

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§ 15. Preliminary Remark on the Problem of Causality in the Sciences

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a) Causality as Expression of the Question worthiness of Animate and Inanimate Nature in the Sciences
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b) Causality in Modern Physics. Probability (Statistics) and Causality
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§ 16. First Attempt at Characterizing the Kantian Conception of Causality and Its Fundamental Contexture: Causality and Temporal Succession

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§ 17. General Characterization of the Analogies of Experience

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a) The Analogies of Experience as Rules of Universal Temporal Determination of the Being-Present of That Which Is Present in the Context of the Inner Enablement of Experience
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b) The Three Modes of Time (Permanence, Succession and Simultaneity) as Modes of the Intra-Temporality of That Which Is Present
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c) The Distinction between Dynamical and Mathematical Principles
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d) The Analogies of Experience as Rules of the Basic Relations of the Possible Being-in-Time of That Which Is Present
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§ 18. Discussion of the Mode of Proof of the Analogies of Experience and Their Foundation from the Example of the First Analogy. The Fundamental Meaning of the First Analogy

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a) The First Analogy: Permanence and Time
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b) The Questionworthy Foundation of the Analogies: the Unclarified Association of Time and 'I Think' (Understanding) in an Uncritical Approach to the Essence of Man as Finite Subject
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c) The Analogies of Experience and the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. The Logical Structure of the Analogies of Experience and the Question of Their Character as Analogies
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d) The Fundamental Meaning of the First Analogy. Permanence (Substantiality) and Causality
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§ 19. The Second Analogy. Occurrence, Temporal Succession and Causality

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a) Event (Occurrence) and Temporal Succession. Analysis of the Essence of Event and of the Possibility of Its Perception
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b) Excursus: on Essential Analysis and Analytic
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c) Causality as Temporal Relation. Causality in the Sense of Causation Is Running Ahead in Time as Determining Letting-Follow
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§ 20. Two Kinds of Causality: Natural Causality and the Causality of Freedom. The General Ontological Horizon of the Problem of Freedom in the Definition of Freedom as a Kind of Causality. The Connection between Causality in General and Being-Present as a Mode of Being

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a) The Orientation of Causality in General to the Causality of Nature. Toward the Problematic of Freedom as a Kind of Causality
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b) First Examination of Causality's Orientation to the Mode of Being of Being-Present-in-Succession as the Distinctive Temporal Mode of Causality and Illustrated by the Simultaneity of Cause and Effect
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c) Second Examination of Causality's Orientation to the Mode of Being of Being-Present in Terms of the Concept of Action. Action as the Succession-Concept in the Connection between Cause and Effect
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§ 21. The Systematic Site of Freedom according to Kant

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a) The Systematic Site as Substantive Contexture Defining the Direction and Scope of Questioning
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b) Kant's Two Ways to Freedom and the Traditional Problematic of Metaphysics. The Site of the Question of Freedom in the Problem of the Possibility of Experience as the Question Concerning the Possibility of Genuine Metaphysics
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§ 22. Causality through Freedom. Freedom as Cosmological Idea

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a) The Problem of Freedom as Originating from the Problem of World. Freedom as a Distinctive Mode of Natural Causality
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b) The Idea of Freedom as 'Transcendental Concept of Nature': Absolute Natural Causality
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§ 23. The Two Kinds of Causality and the Antithetic of Pure Reason in the Third Antinomy

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a) The Thesis of the Third Antinomy. The Possibility of Causality through Freedom (Transcendental Freedom) Alongside the Causality of Nature in the Explanation of the Appearances of the World as Universal Ontological Problem
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b) The Antithesis of the Third Antinomy. The Exclusion of Freedom from the Causality of the World-Process
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c) The Special Character of the Cosmological Ideas in the Question of the Possibility of Genuine Metaphysics. Reason's Interest in Resolving the Antinomy
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§ 24. Preparatory (Negative) Determinations Towards Resolution of the Third Antinomy

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a) The Delusion of Common Reason in the Handling of Its Principle
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b) The Distinction Between Appearance (Finite Knowledge) and Thing-in-Itself (Infinite Knowledge) as the Key to Resolving the Problem of the Antinomies
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§ 25. The Positive Resolution of the Third Antinomy. Freedom as the Causality of Reason: Transcendental Idea of an Unconditioned Causality. Character and Limits of the Problem of Freedom within the Problem of the Antinomies

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a) The Resolution of the Problem of the Antinomies as Going Beyond the Problem of Finite Knowledge to the Problem of Human Finitude as Such
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b) The Displacement of the Problem of the Resolution of the Antinomies. The Question Concerning a Causation for Appearances Outside the Appearances and Conditions of Time. The Resolution of the Third Antinomy in Looking Towards Man as Ethically Acting Person
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c) Empirical and Intelligible Character. The Intelligible Character as the Mode of Causation of Causality from Freedom. The Double Character of Appearance and the Possibility of Two Fundamentally Different Causalities in Relation to the Appearance as Effect
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d) The Causality of Reason. Freedom as Intelligible Causality: Transcendental Idea of an Unconditioned Causality. The Application of the Universal Ontological (Cosmological) Problematic to Man as World-Entity

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Chapter Two

The Second Way to Freedom in the Kantian System.
Practical Freedom as Specific to Man as a Rational Being

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§ 26. The Essence of Man as a Being of Sense and Reason. The Distinction Between Transcendental and Practical Freedom

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a) The Essence of Man (Humanity) as Person (Personality). Personality and Self-Responsibility
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b) The Two Ways to Freedom and the Distinction between Transcendental and Practical Freedom. Possibility and Actuality of Freedom
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§ 27. The Actuality of Human (Practical) Freedom

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a) Freedom as Fact. The Factuality (Actuality) of Practical Freedom in Ethical Praxis and the Problem of Its 'Experience'. The Practical Reality of Freedom
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b) The Essence of Pure Reason as Practical. Pure Practical Reason as Pure Will
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c) The Actuality of Pure Practical Reason in the Moral Law
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d) The Categorical Imperative. On the Question of Its Actuality and 'Universal Validity'
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§ 28. The Consciousness of Human Freedom and Its Actuality

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a) Pure Will and Actuality. The Specific Character of Will-governed Actuality as Fact
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b) The Fact of the Ethical Law and the Consciousness of the Freedom of the Will

CONCLUSION

The Proper Ontological Dimension of Freedom. The Rootedness of the Question of Being in the Question Concerning the Essence of Human Freedom. Freedom as the Ground of Causality

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§ 29. The Limits of the Kantian Discussion of Freedom. Kant's Binding of the Problem of Freedom to the Problem of Causality

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§ 30. Freedom as the Condition of the Possibility of the Manifestness of the Being of Beings, i.e. of the Understanding of Being

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Editor's Afterword to the German Edition of July 1981

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English-German Glossary

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Greek-English Glossary



The Essence of Human Freedom (GA 31) [GA App]

Ereignis