A fine question. Let us assume thatyour basic characterisation of of the conception of freedom withneoliberal thought is correct. It seems to me that there are two basicissues behind Kant's account of freedom. The first (which he wouldcall 'theoretical') is that a free act liesoutside of the series of causes that act upon me. This corresponds roughly to what todaywe would call 'freedom from' constraint. This at least resembles thenotion of freedom that you are criticising. Any limitation upon therange of my free act could be construed as a limitation upon freedom.Thus, the more things around me to buy, sell, or trade, and the fewerrules telling me what I must or cannot do, the more I am free.Accordingly, 'Freedom is choice'. While Kant seems to think of this theoretical freedom as instrinsic, belonging to me as a potential even if not exercised in fact, some interpretations of 'freedom is choice' go further: freedom exists only in choosing. One implication of this is that the latter...

A great question. It has never been the case that the role of'artist' and 'viewer' have been as clear cut as we would like. Firstof all, historically, many 'artists' were anonymous craftspeople whoprobably worked collaboratively -- and collaborative art works havereturned more recently as an important category within the art world.Second, in the 20th century, many artists experimented withstrategies designed to introduce either randomness into their works,or allow their 'unconscious' selves to be expressed. On the side of the viewer, we tend to think of the viewer asindividual, and as neutral. By 'neutral' I mean not adding anythingto the work or contributing anything to its meaning. But bothconcepts are clearly ideal situations, at best. Theatrical works, forexample, rely upon the viewers being a crowd and moreover behaving as a crowd. Related, a great deal of philosophical work has pursued theidea that the 'reception' of the work is not to be located in anindividual or group of individuals,...

My initial mode of consciousness ispure and unreflective. I am nothing but an outward directednesstowards the world. Others, however, do not just gaze at the worldalongside me, they gaze at me . By way of the other, then, Ibecome aware of myself as also being the type of thing that can begazed upon, and that I am responsible for how I look to the other.Accordingly, I can then feel shame or pride. You are right to ask,though, why this possibility of shame then is said to be essential. Well, first ofall, to feel pride would be accept the judgement of the other that Iam nothing but the thing upon which they gaze. Specifically, I wouldbe accepting that I am not free – a classic case of inauthenticity.Shame, on the other hand, includes the consciousness of freedom; thatis, the conscousness that I could and should have been somethingelse. Shame, in short, is authentic because it recognisesresponsibility while at the same time recognising freedom.

This is Abbott's translation of the preface and introduction to Kant's 'Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrive of Virtue'. This was published in 1797, shortly after the 'Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right'. These two short books of first principles are now normally published together as the 'Metaphysics of Morals'. So, the book you are asking about represents approximately one sixth of the whole publication of 1797. (BTW, where the date 1780, normally printed along with Abbott's translation comes from, I have no idea.)

The philosophical investigation of wineexperience has become a popular topic recently, with several bookshaving come out. You questions go right to some of the most commonlyaddressed problems. First of all, notice that the questionsuse terms such as connoisseur or pleb, and contrast France withRomania. This is politically and socially charged language, andsometimes it is difficult to avoid the conclusion (hinted at in yourlast question) that what is really going on here is that a region (onthe side of producers) or a group of people (on the side of thetasters) are conspiring to maintain class distinctions or prop up thesales price. I don't think this is true. The first thing to say is that thescientific study of wine and wine tasting is quite advanced – notsurprising since it is a huge world-wide industry. There isconsiderable empirical evidence from the scientific community thatstudies wine to suggest that quality differences are real. 'Fine'wines tend to be more complex and concentrated (in ways...

A question was asked last year, which had a different aim (but a very similar example). The responses, though, included ideas that should help you with your question: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/3587

I'm not sure exactly what your Unclemay have had in mind (although it's possible that I'm being a bitthick, and one of the other panelists will see it straight away). Ican think of several possible 'paradoxes', though (not all of whichare, technically, paradoxes). One is that philosophy is its ownundoing; in other words, if philosophy ever achieved the knowledgethat it pursues, then it would cease to exist. Oddly, this has neverhappened... However, such an undoing need not be a big problem, andindeed philosophers such as Schelling or Hegel explicitly embracedsomething like this end of philosophy. Another is that everydescription of something (e.g. a metaphysical account of the real) isonly a description, and thus requires an investigation of itsadequacy as description; and the result of that investigation is,itself, only a description; and so forth. A third (which can be foundin Hume's scepticism and Kant's critical philosophy) is thatphilosophy investigates the conditions of its own possibility...

It certainly seems to be essential to most accounts of art that some human agency is involved, generally in the form of a deliberate decision to do or make something. The artist then has to take responsibility for whatever is produced. However, should we think of this as quantitative, such that increases in the artist's explicit, conscious involvement in every 'brush stroke' is correlated to an increase in artistic worth? I don't think so; that would lead us to conclusions that are difficult to accept. For example, we would have to discount much of the work of Rubens because, as was common at the time, he had a whole workshop of assistant artists to whom he delegated parts or even all of a commission. We would also have difficulty with a great number of 20th Century artists who have incorporated chance elements, or audience interaction, into their work. Finally, we would have to accept a architectural or engineering draughtsman as the greatest of artists.

This is technical term within Marxist thought. 'Falseconsciousness' is when an individual or especially a class is unableto properly recognise the economic and political situation. Indeed,the individual or class may even put forward a view concerning theirsituation and justify that view, BUT that view and its justificationare (unbeknownst to them) in fact determined by the underlyingconditions of production. In such a case, the individual appears tobe fully conscious both of their views and of their reasons forholding those views, when in fact they are quite 'unconsious' of thereal reasons. Specifically, the working classes are unable torecognise their exploited condition, or their own contribution to thecreation and maintenance of that condition, because of a falseconsciousness concerning it. 'False consciousness' is thus related tothe term 'ideology'. The term might be used more generally (i.e. without any referenceto Marxism) for analogous situations where our awareness orrationality are...

I just answered a similar question, and much of what I say thereis relevant here too: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/3749 However, what is new in your question is the idea of art (theother question concerned fiction and, given the context, Iinterpreted that as meaning popular fiction, e.g. thrillers). Theproblem is, can a work's aesthetic value be judged separately fromits moral value (or lack of it)? The usual answer, which follows Kantand others, is 'yes'. In the Critique of Judgement, Kant argues thata judgement of beauty must be disinterested, which is to say wecannot bring other types of judgement in as determining factors.'Other types', he says, includes moral judgements. His example is apalace (such as Versailles; don't forget he was writing in the periodof the French Revolution), which could be judged a beautiful piece ofarchitecture and design, but a political abomination. We can, andmust, separate out the project of coming to judge aesthetically fromthe project of coming to...