Different Paths Of Modern Freedom Theory

Freedom is the highest problem of modern philosophy and the highest principle of modern politics.No matter when it is as a philosophical issue or as a political concept,freedom has experienced a complex development and evolution process in the historical evolution of modern society.The core of the so-called modernity problem highlighted in this process is how to view the realization path and goal choice of freedom in modern society and modern human nature.There are two most famous theoretical positions on this issue,which are liberalism in the twentieth century and Marxism as criticizing and surpassing the liberation ideal of capitalism.Isaiah Berlin,a representative figure of twentieth-century liberalism,had extensive influence and was in sharp contrast to Marx's in terms of philosophical foundations and socio-political objectives.Starting from the philosophy and political standpoint of Marxism,this paper studies Marx's liberal theory and looks forward to deepening our understanding of Marx's philosophy and our understanding and interpretation of the problem of freedom under the horizon of modernity."Federation of free people" and "free personality of the all-round development of people" are the final intention of Marx's whole revolutionary critical theory,so the view of freedom constitutes a major theme of Marx's critical theory.Marx's view of freedom is based on historical materialism.Its core proposition is the human freedom considered as the goal and motivation of historical development.What's more,it specifically defines human freedom as the unity of individual and society,individual liberation and social liberation.It always respects the creative role of people in the process of historical development,emphasizes that only beyond the capitalist alienation of human social development after the best stage(communist social stage)can human freedom fundamentally realize,whose expression is "free man union" and "Free personality of people's all-round development".Isaiah Berlin is the core figure of liberalism in the 20 th century.On the basis of pluralistic values and historical views,he put forward the concept of freedom with the distinction between negative freedom and positive freedom as the core,which has become one of the most representative theories of the mainstream ideology of local liberalism.It is worth noting that Berlin systematically criticized Marx's view of freedom,which needs us to take seriously.Starting from the philosophical basis and political position of Marx,this paper makes a comparative study on the theoretical source,theoretical connotation and theoretical differences of Marx's and Berlin's views on freedom aiming to make a response to the challenge of the mainstream liberal ideology represented by Berlin to Marx's theory,and discusses the real connotation and significance of Marx's views on freedom so as to deepen our overall understanding of Marx's revolutionary critical theory.The main body of this paper consists of three parts.The first part traces the three theoretical sources of Marx's and Berlin's freedom theory in the history of modern western thought.As for the theoretical source of Marx's view of freedom,this part studies Rousseau's pioneering concept of freedom and public will theory,deeply discusses Kant's transcendental concept of freedom constructed from the perspectives of knowledge,practice and aesthetics,and traces Hegel's theory of freedom.As for the theoretical source of Berlin's view of freedom,this part analyzes the profound influence of Constant,Mill and Held 's ideas on Berlin's view of freedom.The different sources of philosophical theory have a direct impact on Marx and Berlin's different understanding of the concept of freedom itself and the specific realization path of freedom.The second part mainly studies the differences between Marx and Berlin in the concept of freedom,its historical views and values.From the connotation of the concept of freedom itself,this part focuses on the comparison between Marx's theory on the relationship between human alienation and human freedom,Berlin's theory on the relationship between positive freedom and negative freedom,and points out that the foothold of Marx's alienation theory lies in the criticism of capitalist private ownership.Behind this theory is the practical thinking on human freedom and human liberation.Berlin's positive freedom is prone to authoritarianism and centralized society,just as his promotion of negative freedom is easy to lead to laissez-faire;Compared with the positive freedom that leads to dictatorship and totalitarian society,Berlin prefers the negative freedom that leads to laissez-faire.In his view,positive freedom cancels human class essence,while negative freedom affirms human class essence.On the historical dimension of freedom,this part makes a comparative study of Marx's historical materialism and Berlin's pluralistic historical view;Marx used the theory of historical materialism to study the issue of freedom,which formed the concept of historical freedom.From the perspective of Marx's historical freedom,freedom and history develop synchronously.At the same time,human freedom and human history advance synchronously;Berlin's pluralistic view of history emphasizes the diversity and uncertainty of historical interpretation so as to ensure the feasibility of diversity,difference and specificity,as well as the resulting free choice.On the value dimension of freedom,this part makes a comparative analysis around Marx's free personality theory on people's all-round development and Berlin's value pluralism and freedom of choice;The essence of Marx's realization of all human freedom through Communist society is a kind of historical freedom thought,which is manifested in the realization of the principle of people-oriented;Berlin's value pluralism emphasizes diversity,and holds that among the different objectively existing values.Not only these values are incommensurable to each other,but also they are completely incompatible,which determines that people can not have all values,whether in practice or in principle,but can only choose from multiple values according to their own education and experience,and even choose the beliefs you accept.Thus comes the freedom of choice.The third part studies the differences between Marx's and Berlin's views on human nature and public sphere theory,pointing out that Marx emphasizes free personality and Berlin emphasizes pluralistic human nature;Marx believes that the source of human nature is the highest problem of philosophy,and labor is the re solution to this problem.In the process of labor,the development of human's own abilities and creativity forms human's free personality;Berlin's theory of human nature based on the pluralism of values highlights the pluralism of human nature.On the issue of the realization path of freedom in the public sphere,Marx emphasized social freedom and Berlin emphasized individual freedom;Marx believes that as long as people follow the laws discovered by historical materialism and advance along the road of communism on the basis of realizing social freedom,they will be able to realize the full realization of individual freedom in the process of historical development;Berlin believes that what an individual can do is to follow the call of his personal rationality and choose the value that best meets his needs among the multiple values according to his personal rationality so as to realize his personal freedom.This part also discusses the relationship between Marx's view of freedom and historical determinism,as well as the relationship between Berlin's view of freedom and romanticism,makes a simple comparative analysis between them.It points out that the material dialectics factor of Marx's materialist view of history makes historical determinism scientific and realistic.But Berlin introduced the romantic theory into the liberal theory,which realized the new development of liberalism.