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UCL FSA 11 Group 1155
Introduction to philosophy: Mr. Thomas De Praetere
Thomas Guebels: 48390200 Damien Thomassin:20690200 Julien Fourny: 33870100 Baudouin Nyssen:19790200 Patrick Ayoub: 17990200 Kévin Vaneberg: 21040200 Gaël Boschmans:39220200
Summary of the assignment of Mr. De Praetere's philosophy course by Group 115.5 of the Applied Sciences Faculty of the Catholic University of Louvain La Neuve.
Introduction
The first thing we thought about freedom is: "when you are free you can do what you want…".
But this vision of freedom was contested with the apparition of “Rationalism”. Kant, a German philosopher (1724-1804) was one of the most prominent Rationalists. He lived at an epoch where Newtonian physics blew up the last conviction of Cartesianism. An Epoch with no end to fights between different theories. He proposed that a free act is an act who is not imposed by an external authority and not by personal interest.
Another opinion was Spinoza’s (1632-1677), born in Amsterdam from Jewish parents from Spain. Essentially influenced by Descartes he found in Cartesianism the environment adapted to demonstrate, in his eyes, the monism, which has fascinated him. In his book "The Ethic" he denounces the false freedom, which consists in believing one is free, by ignoring the existence of determinisms.
The XVIII century is the Lumiere's century, the century of political and religious critic, the century where one starts to talk about happiness on earth. In this century Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) looks at the inequality between men. His work presents a proposition to create a fair, equitable and free society.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) didn't know his father because he died when Sartre was a baby. But Sartre was very close with his great parents. It's in his grandfather’s library that he discovered his taste for reading and writing. He studied philosophy were he met a lot of persons who influenced him, like Paul Nizan and Simone de Beauvoir. In addition to philosophy Sartre was interested about politics and the revolution of the working class. Sartre explains his point of view in a complex language sometimes undecipherable; but in a very logical way: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Certain parts of his writing were not accepted by some people. For instance, the Pope indexed it in 1948.
Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the fathers of Existentialism; the existence comes before the essence. The Human Being is not good or bad it exists, and that’s all.
Argumentation
Freedom by Kant.
Kant assert that freedom is indispensable but also totally incomprehensible and uncertain as the existence of God. For him the freedom is the faculty of autonomy that every one possesses and which prevents us to be the toy of our feelings. This faculty allows everyone to impose to himself the respect of the duty. This means obey to the "moral" as such, and with no consideration for external goals and consequences. He also says that perceptible consequences of our choices are restrained by universal laws of nature (as the physics laws).
Freedom by Sartre
For Sartre the man has to choose. These choices are his freedom. The Human Being is condemned to choose all the time, even if his choice is to make none. But everyone has to be careful because choices may have an impact on all mankind. Thus choices have to be thought over.
Freedom by Spinoza
Spinoza talks about liberty by discussing the Ethic; a man is free if he respects the Ethic. In short, the Ethic is the fact that we should not think about ourselves only anymore. But we have to act for the good of the community.
Freedom by Rousseau
Rousseau thought that we are all equal at birth, but inequality comes later, essentially because of social life. He says that to live in society we have to write rules which are against freedom. This is what he called the "social contract".
Counter-argumentation
Some of the authors we read say that the human being is condemned to be free.
But passional crimes also exist and physics rule are unavoidable. So the man is not totally free from Kant’s point of view.
Sartre says that the act builds the man, but all people are not born equal. At least physically, and this attribute may influence one's future choices.
The thesis of Rousseau is that in order to guaranty every human being's freedom, it is necessary to be submitted to a set of laws.
Some constraints are imposed to all society to manage the life of man kind. People are still free to get over it but at their own risk. Because of those barriers, human being is not totally condemned to be free. Someone can be influenced by this barrier (and it's the case in most of our choices).
To conclude the choices of everyone are taken with "The social contract" in mind so they are not totally free.
Our point of view about liberty.
This section is devised in 4 sub sections:
1) Freedom at birth
We think that we can’t talk about liberty before birth. Indeed before the embryo stage the human being is nothing. And “nothing” can not be free We are also thinking that everyone has a limited freedom because of his own social environment. So an unavoidable step for the human being in his way to his liberty is the acceptation of what he is. After this step he will be able to make choices in his own way and not in the ways someone thought him.
2) Religious freedom
There are 3 ways to approach religion. First live ones believe deeply and live with its rules. Second use God as an aid; and finally to be an atheist. Faced with this choice a man is free, so religion is not a hobble to liberty.
3) Political liberty
The political liberty is the freedom of action that every one possesses; governed by a certain numbers of laws. These laws were created by humans because every human is endowed with a moral-conscience. Every civilisation has understood that to live together it is necessary to write rules who refrain our liberty. Political liberty refers to the relation of the subject to the others, and not only to himself.
4) From moral to ethic
Furthermore we can say that it is necessary not to think only at a moral level, but to take an ethical perspective. My liberty doesn’t end anymore where the freedom of the others begins (Sartre); but takes it’s meaning in the commitments that I take towards the others.
Ties between the profession of engineer and the theme of liberty.
The engineer has , by nature, a rational vision. When a Cartesian spirit looks at philosophy it can be a difficult exercise. But every intellectual must think about it because without philosophy, his knowledge can be a great danger for mankind. Because the competencies of the engineer are essentially Scientific, let’s begin by the link between liberty and science. We are tempted to think that sciences has no limits, because when a limit appears scientists find a way to overcome it. But science is in direct relation with nature which is limited, so the liberty of the engineer depends on nature (like the degrees of liberty in physics).
The point of view of Kant is that an engineer is free only if he obeys to the moral. This mean that if he does what is just and not what is good for him. A good example is if someone asks an engineer to work on weapons Kant says an engineer is free only if he says no. This is typical of Kant and we don’t agree with it; for us an engineer is free to choose even if he says yes. But we agree that it is unethical.
Spinoza says that knowledge drags to freedom. And we can say that an engineer is one of the symbols of modern knowledge. So in Spinoza’s way, engineers are free no matter what happens.
In conclusion in his work, an engineer can’t use science without thinking. In fact he’s often in a good place to perform acts which might have important consequences. He is thus not free to do what he wants.
Conclusion
Freedom has always been subject to debate and of divergent opinion. The major-problem is to determine the difference between the imposed freedom and the one which we try to conquer every day.
Our first liberty is to be born. We can classify this freedom as imposed because a man is projected into life by two others persons. We would probably understand better this liberty, if we had had that choice at the beginning. Without that choice are we free or are we not more condemned to live?
Freedom seems to be a conquest which has to progress every day to satisfy everyone, but are we pleased by our existent liberty or will we search forever to obtain more?
Laws constrain the man without enslaving him, they are neutral, without preferences. Because the Law is for everybody, it ensures liberty. “Obeying self prescribed laws is Freedom”" (Rousseau). We are not able to renounce to our Freedom, renouncement is an act of liberty in itself.
We come to the world with a liberty which do not satisfy all people, but sometimes, it is necessary to abide by them and follow our route, being bound and condemned to be free.
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