Investigation of Freedom in Its Ontological Sense

Abstract

The article considers the category of freedom in its ontological sense. Due to the plural character of contemporary situation, within which person finds him- or herself lost without any reliable ground, it is necessary to investigate the question of freedom of the human “I”, although many philosophers of the past had already investigated this problem in diverse ways. We conceive the question of freedom as deep and, at the same time, multiple one. Methodologically, the current article poses this question in different ways, taking into consideration the individual level of being. This phenomenological approach (in its wide sense) allows to understand ontological ground of freedom due to varying the way to pose a question while considering the ultimate experiencing of being through such “existentials”, as human finitude, responsibility for the “Other”, happiness and destiny. We also rethink the ontological situation of searching for the sense of freedom, trying to trace a kind of a “dialog” between contemporary philosophers and such thinkers of the past, as Plato, B. Spinoza, G.W. Leibniz, I. Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, M.M. Bakhtin, M. Heidegger. This discussion is organized not in “retrospective” fashion, but in a “problematical” one.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s3p11