| Matthew Arnold conceptualized freedom in terms of five key ideas: (1) true freedom involves an encounter with something outside the self (2) true freedom entails a new level of consciousness, a new perspective (3) true freedom is characterized by serenity, balance, integration/unity, clarity of purpose and speech (4) true freedom is discipline, liberation from Nature's realm of necessity (5) true freedom is the eternal (Eternal's) order of things. Arnold's formulation of freedom entails, as all theories of freedom do, particular views about the self, knowledge, and the world. By placing Arnold's ideas of freedom in the revealing context of psychological theory, hermeneutic theory, and political philosophy, the present study relates Arnold's view of freedom to his ideas of the self, knowledge, and the world and demonstrates how these views fit together consistently and issue in Arnold's social and political policies.Chapter one traces the idea of freedom in Arnold's poetry, investigating how encounters with forces outside the self generate new perspective, clarity, and self-discipline, and why these qualities are associated with the autonomous self. I discuss the tension in Arnold's poetry between the desire for withdrawal and the duty to participate, explore the connection Arnold implicitly makes between freedom and creativity, and examine freedom and romantic relationships.Chapter two looks at the nature of moral and intellectual deliverance, tracing the development in both these concepts of Arnold's five central ideas about freedom. I explore Arnold's emphasis in his religious writings on personal experience as viable a way of knowing the truth and becoming free.Chapter three contrasts ideas of freedom promulgated by Mill, Kant, the Romantics, Hegel, and two contemporary political philosophers (liberal John Rawls and communitarian Michael Sandel), explains the views of self, knowledge, and world which inform these theories, and locates Arnold in this theoretical territory, revealing how Arnold's notions of self, knowledge, and world fit together to conceive freedom as the self's consciousness of his own participation in a larger whole.Chapter four investigates Arnold's social and political policies in light of the understanding of freedom offered by earlier chapters. |
