Topics Freedom

Question Hello, I was wondering if Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph, "I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free" holds philosophical weight? Do any philosophers support the idea that if you hope and fear nothing then you are truly free?

Accepted:
December 12, 2005

Comments

Spinoza seems to be committed to the view that true freedom liberates one from hope and fear.

The basis for this conclusion is difficult to follow and is not stated explicitly in the Ethics, but I'll try to reconstruct the position as much as possible.

According to Spinoza, "hope is nothing but an inconstant joy which has arisen from the image of a future or past thing whose outcome we doubt; fear, on the other hand, is an inconstant sadness, which has also arisen from a doubtful thing" (_Ethics_ IIIp18s2). Now according to Spinoza, the idea that anything in nature would be doubtful reflects a lack of understanding, because, he claims, nothing in nature is contingent (_Ethics_ Ip29). Hence in the Scholium to Ethics IVp47 ("Affects of hope and fear cannot be good of themselves"), Spinoza explains that "these affects show a defect of knowledge and a lack of power in the mind....Therefore, the more we strive to live according to the guidance of reason, the more we strive to depend less on hope, to free ourselves from fear." So the more one lives according to reason, the less one hopes or fears anything.

Now Spinoza says that an agent is free who is led by reason alone (_Ethics_ IVp68). Consequently, according to Spinoza, insofar as one is free, one is led by reason alone, and therefore a free agent would neither hope for anything nor fear anything.

Yet it should be noted that it is most difficult for finite agents to achieve freedom, that is, to be guided by reason alone. Here are Spinoza's last words from the Ethics: "But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare" (Vp42s).

Question Hello, I was wondering if Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph, "I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free" holds philosophical weight? Do any philosophers support the idea that if you hope and fear nothing then you are truly free? Accepted:December 12, 2005

Question Hello, I was wondering if Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph, "I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free" holds philosophical weight? Do any philosophers support the idea that if you hope and fear nothing then you are truly free?

Accepted:
December 12, 2005