Freedom - perceived need.

This saying goes back to ancient Greek antiquity, and more precisely to the philosophy of the Stoics, which arose in Athens around 300 BC. O. B. Skorodumova notes that the Stoics were characterized by the idea of ​​the inner freedom of man. Thus, she writes, convinced that the world is determined (“the law of fate does its right... no one’s prayer touches him, neither suffering nor mercy will break him”), they proclaim the inner freedom of man as the highest value: “That Anyone who thinks that slavery extends to the individual is mistaken: his best part free from slavery." A kind of their philosophy proclaims the inner freedom of man, from any external limiters, but is this so?

Here we should understand human free will, that is, the possibility of choice, as well as in Spinoza: freedom is a conscious necessity or need. In the most general sense, free will is the absence of pressure, restrictions, and coercion. Based on this, freedom can be defined as follows: freedom is the ability of an individual to think and act in accordance with his desires and ideas, and not as a result of internal or external coercion. This general definition, built on opposition and the essence of the concept, it does not yet reveal.

The course of B. Spinoza’s reasoning is as follows. Usually people are convinced that they are endowed with free will and their actions are carried out completely freely. Meanwhile, free will is an illusion, the result of the fact that the vast majority of people are aware of their actions without delving deeply into the reasons that determine them. Only a wise minority, capable of rising on the paths of rational-intuitive knowledge to the awareness of the world connection of all causes with a single substance, comprehends the necessity of all their actions, and this allows such sages to transform their affects-passions into affects-actions and thereby gain true freedom. If the freedom of our will is only an illusion generated by inadequate sensory-abstract ideas, then true freedom - “free necessity” - is possible only for those who achieve adequate, rational-intuitive ideas and comprehend the unity of acquired freedom with necessity.

The meaning of this idea is that you feel free when you do something regardless of someone else's will. Very often you have to strain yourself and do something completely undesirable. But this is only if you do not consider it right and necessary yourself. That is, the more you understand the meaning of your actions, the easier they come to you. Awareness leads to liberation of the spirit.

Life in society imposes restrictions on each person (renunciation of some personal freedoms) for the sake of the sustainable functioning or progress of society itself. In this case, the restrictions are more than redeemed by new opportunities, that is, an increase in freedom. A kind of freedom of each individual ends where the freedom of another person begins.

Thus, a free person is a person who consciously accepts the limitations of his capabilities (limitations of his personal freedom) necessary for the existence of a society that, by its existence, further increases human freedom. A kind of opposition arises: restriction of freedom leads to its increase, since its conscious restriction is necessary for the normal existence of society.

It should be understood that the concept of freedom, one way or another, has been transformed in human culture over time. For example, in a number of historical periods for a person, the concept of freedom was belonging to a corporation, and the opposite of this type of freedom was exile 1 . Also, freedom differs in consideration and in the ranks of regions, so in the east of the Christian world the individual is presented with free will, but in the west his life is predetermined. In a way, we see a clash of two extremes: voluntarism on the one hand and fatalism on the other.

Now freedom is perceived completely differently; it represents the opportunity to manage one’s existence and the products of one’s labor. On the other hand, it is perceived as the opportunity to make choices and the ability to manage intangible things: one’s abilities and capabilities. In philosophy, freedom is seen as a necessity. But this need must be considered in conjunction with the relationships between the individual and other people. Thus, we will see that a person cannot be absolutely free and not have any restrictions, on the other hand inner life a person is absolutely free, but a person’s inner and outer life are very different. Life in society, as we noted above, imposes a number of restrictions, and since life in society is also a necessity, it should be noted that in order to fulfill one need it is necessary to limit another. One fairly simple mechanism acts as a limiter: freedom appears to us as freedom of choice and it is necessary to bear responsibility for its implementation.

Exercise.

Is unlimited freedom possible in society?

What articles of the Russian Constitution guarantee freedom?

What is the connection between the concepts of “freedom” and “responsibility”?

1 A striking example of such freedom is the medieval estates, where people had clear regulation of rights and freedoms. While people outside the classes were alien and alien.

The position of freedom as a cognized necessity is found in a certain place - in Marxist philosophy. This dialectical (Hegelian) relationship between freedom and necessity, reworked in a materialist key, has become one of the basic concepts of Marxism, which is often presented as an aphorism.

Indeed, in terms of the completeness and depth of thought, the refinement and laconicism of the form, the definition “freedom is a recognized necessity” fully corresponds to the aphorism. However, another undoubted feature of the aphorism, namely the immutability of its verbal form, i.e. the text itself turned out to be uncharacteristic of this situation. Cognition of necessity is easily replaced by awareness of necessity, as if these are absolute synonyms.

This observation is interesting: Yandex statistics show that the combination “recognized need” is requested approximately 166 times a month, while “realized need” is requested 628 times, and the second request produces mixed results - “conscious” together with “recognized.” For the first request, there is no mixed picture. Those. obviously, it turned out to be more popular original text, but modified, and the confusion in the second case shows that different combinations are more often presented as identical.

What are the reasons for the substitution is an interesting question, and the substitution itself is a significant question, since opponents and critics of Marxism use exclusively the combination “conscious necessity,” interpreting the Marxist definition of freedom as either absurd or immoral.

Of course, the words “cognize” and “realize,” being cognate, are related, but obviously not absolute synonyms. To cognize means to comprehend, study, gain knowledge, experience. Realize - understand, accept, consciously assimilate. The difference is clearly visible in the examples. Any believer will confirm that he realizes the greatness of God (without this there is no Faith), but it is impossible to know the greatness of God through religion. Self-awareness is an indispensable component of a person, a person. Knowing oneself is a process that can last a person’s entire life, and not everyone necessarily engages in self-knowledge. We may be aware of some danger without, fortunately, ever knowing it.

What about necessity? Even without a detailed analysis, it is clear that necessity is a very broad concept. So, the need for water for life is one thing, the need for a foreign passport for travel is another. The need to have the correct condition for solving a formal problem is one necessity, the need to help one’s neighbor is completely different. It is impossible to reduce physical, normative, logical, ethical, linguistic necessity to one another. Not every need is realized or recognized. At the same time, what all necessities have in common is contained in the name itself: something that cannot be done without - in different areas, on different levels, in the objective world or in the subjective world of each individual person.

The same with freedom - free entry, free fall, free choice... What do all freedoms have in common? Probably the general opposite of any freedom, and most agree that this is the very necessity.

Then the simplest definition would be: freedom is the absence of necessity. But... “I am free, like a bird in the sky...” Does this mean that a free bird in the sky has no need? Even if the beautiful, but narrow poetic image of freedom is forced to make room, if we put next to it the narrow, but quite specific meaning of this flight - it itself is dictated by a certain necessity. Animals generally do nothing unless necessary; their whole life is subject to a series of needs. And then the animals have no freedom at all, although they do not realize it.

So we come to the conclusion that freedom as a category, concept, as a state, as a possibility relates only to a person - to a subject with consciousness. Necessity embraces the entire objective world, the entire reality, constituting in its various manifestations the conditions for the existence of all nature and society, as well as the individual.

It is unlikely that anyone will dispute the connection between object and subject, matter and consciousness, objective reality and subjective reality, necessity and freedom. Disagreement begins over the direction of this connection. A purely idealistic approach implies a direction from the subject, from consciousness, from subjective reality, from freedom. Vulgar-materialistic - direction from the object, from matter, from objective reality, from necessity. And then freedom as will exists completely independently of necessity and is only limited by it, or freedom as will is inevitably and completely suppressed by necessity.

This seems surprising, but the definition “freedom is a conscious necessity” is used not only to criticize Marxism on both sides (“how can freedom be unfreedom, and even consciously so?!”, “Marxism gives freedom to some to suppress the freedom of others and requires them to realize this”) , but can easily be accepted by both sides. I have read discussions that anyone can become free by recognizing necessity, accepting it as inevitable, and this frees the choice created by necessity. Or vice versa - awareness of necessity is a manifestation of the original freedom that a person is endowed with. Truly the definition of a chameleon...

The definition “freedom is a recognized necessity” is inconvenient for turning this way or that way. The dual connection between freedom and necessity is fixed by cognition, which is a process that constantly changes the ratio of freedom and necessity. Cognition of necessity is comprehension of the realities of the world, gaining knowledge about the connections of this world and studying their patterns. Knowledge is power; it provides tools for influencing necessity and subordinating it to human will. Free action is action, as Engels put it, “with knowledge of the matter.” The degree of freedom is determined by the depth of knowledge - the deeper the knowledge about the need, the greater the choice a person has for action.

Humanity in general and every person is born in the kingdom of necessity. The first knowledge not only means the acquisition of initial degrees of freedom, but also strengthens the desire to expand this freedom, which drives knowledge. Moreover, an action performed in certain conditions of freedom of choice becomes an objective reality, it is woven into common system connections of the objective world, changing necessity, i.e., in essence, creating it. This contradiction between freedom and necessity is resolved in the only way - by constantly deepening the knowledge of necessity - a process that constantly expands freedom.

The philosophical dialectical-materialist understanding of freedom denies the illusory nature of freedom, which is not associated with the knowledge of necessity, and also reflects the relative nature of freedom. Freedom is not abstract, but always concrete. The actions performed in the presence of a certain choice are specific, the consequences of these actions are specific, the necessity transformed as a result is specific, the knowledge of which is another free step towards a new level of freedom.

There is none of this in the awareness of necessity, and there is no real freedom in awareness. There is only a departure from real necessity into illusory freedom of awareness or conscious, and therefore free, submission to necessity.

Two simple examples. How freely could we move through the air today if we realized, and did not know to a certain level, the obvious need to move exclusively on land or water? How free will a person be if a child with early childhood not to motivate him to recognize the need, but to get him to realize it, which is easiest to do with the help of physical and/or psychological pressure?

The concept of freedom is especially important, complex and always relevant in relation to society, to the needs that arise in the course of its historical development. More details about this, as well as possible reasons replacing “cognition” with “awareness” in the Marxist definition of freedom is probably worth and will have to be discussed separately.

Other materials on the topic:

15 comments

your name 25.12.2016 20:29

Was Spartacus free in his struggle against historically necessary slavery? When, before his collapse, there was nothing necessary, much less known? I can’t imagine a more free person.
…
In order to prove that not all sheep are white, it is enough that there is only one black sheep. For Freedom to not be any kind of necessity, one free Spartacus is enough.

your name 25.12.2016 21:02

The concept of freedom as it was presented by Marx was certainly addressed in the works of other philosophers of the Marxist movement of our century, and is not limited to the point of view of Tatyana Vasilyeva. I would like to see more serious materials, more serious philosophers and a more serious analysis rather than excursions into the problem of raising children, which is close to the author.

Tatiana 26.12.2016 05:06

Spartacus studied at the gladiator school. His knowledge was enough for what he was able to achieve, but not enough for him to win. Slave uprisings were largely spontaneous, and most slaves probably joined Spartacus spontaneously. But without his warriors, Spartak would not be Spartak. Spartacus, of course, had a greater degree of freedom than each of his warriors, which is why he became a leader and proved himself to be a good commander, which is why we know him.
The slave uprisings did not immediately change the existing need, but that is another story.

your name 26.12.2016 06:16

I see that you have become acquainted with the biography of Spartacus. This is easier than the concept of external and internal freedom in modern philosophy and the place of Marx in it.

your name 26.12.2016 09:09

Marxism is undoubtedly a science, but accessible to a few, but we need simple, understandable and accessible definitions to everyone. So the concept of Spartacus is more understandable and close to people than your wisdom, O wise one. Sorry for the sarcasm.

cat Leopold 26.12.2016 21:41

Tatyana, why did you put such nonsense in the title???
Who gave you this RIDICULOUS alternative between a conscious and a known necessity?

What is NOT CONSCIOUS CANNOT BE KNOWN!
The subject of awareness of something, and even more so of knowledge, is ONLY MAN, for both AWARENESS and COGNITION of something are accomplished in PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES of people. Outside of this there is NO and CANNOT BE either one or the other.

cat Leopold 26.12.2016 21:54

“Marxism is undoubtedly a science, but accessible to a few, but we need simple, understandable and accessible definitions to everyone.” - Your name.

Alas, your name, the time of “simple” definitions for people is over, WHICH, by the way, they still, alas, DO NOT RECOGNIZE, because the capital method of production has historically long ceased to be a NECESSITY, preserves in modern people Mental development adequate only to THIS method of production, but which is already a historical ANACHRONISM!!!

digiander 27.12.2016 19:10

to know and realize the same thing.

banner_ 27.12.2016 22:00

If freedom is a recognized necessity, then permissiveness is a trampled necessity

Vasily Vasiliev 28.12.2016 07:54

The Marxist interpretation of freedom is pure verbiage and substitution of concepts. The concept of freedom means liberation from something. Freedom - from rights, from responsibilities, from slavery, from shackles, from moral principles. At the same time, phrases like: freedom of speech, or freedom of choice, are not true in principle. How can you be free from speech? From a given promise it is possible, but from a word how? Or how can you have free choice? Free from what exactly? From restrictions, or from what? And the whole point is that the word freedom has replaced the concept of WILL. Your will of choice, your will of expressing your words and desires. The most FREE PERSON is a SLAVE, since HE IS FREE FROM ALL RIGHTS, including the main human right, THE RIGHT TO DISPOSE OF HIS LIFE. Since the arrangement and living conditions of a slave are dealt with by his master, the ruler. But a FREE PERSON cannot be a slave by definition, since HIS ENTIRE LIFE COMPLETELY DEPENDS ON HIS WILL. The substitution of the concepts of FREEDOM and WILL is beneficial to slave owners, so that slaves live IN A WORLD FREE OF RIGHTS and DO NOT STRIVE FOR WILL. Marx wrote about a communist society, where the lot of the common people is to be a slave to the leadership. It was precisely such a slave-owning society that Lenin built. The entire people of the USSR were slaves of the CPSU Central Committee and the emperor (Secretary General of the Central Committee). The fact that the name of the central authority does not sound like Boyar Duma, or the monarch, the emperor, does not change the essence of the situation. Simple people were slaves, since their lives completely depended on the will of the rulers. The only advantage of the slave society built by Lenin is its economic model.

Alexander, Asha, Chelyabsk region. 28.12.2016 10:53

The concepts and categories of philosophy are larger in scope than the legal tools of rights and obligations. This is the same as making cars out of cutlets and trying to drive them. He shouted. Vasily Vasiliev about his own mental abilities. Directly according to Peter I: “I instruct the boyars in the Duma to speak according to what is not written, so that everyone’s stupidity can be seen.”

your name 28.12.2016 11:32

First we must realize the need for freedom. Many people do not need freedom, because it implies responsibility towards themselves. It is easier to shift this responsibility to the owner. That’s why we see so many serfs describing the delights of serf service.

Rovshan 09.01.2017 16:20

What about freedom as a conscious accident...?

Teacher 01.04.2017 16:12

Tatyana Vasilyeva - 5+.

Hosting 14.09.2017 04:04

To legitimize such limited freedom, this formula “freedom as a conscious necessity” was invented. This is human freedom - to proudly proclaim freedom only because you understand your desire, but to completely ignore the reasons for this desire.

“But whoever looks into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues in it, he, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, will be blessed in his work” (James 1:25).

Definitions of freedom have been given more than once; we will present them before giving an explanation of freedom as a conscious choice of a necessary opportunity.

“Only he who controls himself is free” ( Friedrich Schiller).

“The ability to transcend the immediate situation is the basis of human freedom. The unique quality of a human being is a wide range of possibilities in any situation, which, in turn, depend on self-awareness, on his ability to sort through in imagination various ways response in this situation" ( R. May).

“Freedom is mastery over circumstances with knowledge of the matter” ( Popov M.V.).

And probably one of the most famous definitions, the authorship of which, according to various sources, belongs to Spinoza, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Engels: “Freedom is a conscious necessity.”

At every moment of time and at every point in space, there is a choice of permissible and available possibilities, each of which has its own prevailing reasons. Freedom consists of making a decision in choosing a certain opportunity and receiving the consequences of that choice as a response.

In some religions this is called freedom to choose between good and evil. If a person’s goal is spiritual development, if the goal communist party- the common good of the people, then the choice is made from the point of view of this goal. Understanding expediency is a necessary condition for free choice.

If a person identifies himself with feelings or certain thoughts, then he makes a decision, being under their influence, so to speak, being obsessed with them. Since such decisions often run counter to human expediency, i.e. with what is right, useful and good for him, then there is no need to talk about freedom. Therefore, awareness of oneself without identification with feelings, thoughts and sensations is the basis of freedom.

On the other hand, a person’s study and understanding of the laws of existence, various teachings and subjects that expand the level of his knowledge and the ability to see various possibilities, their probability, as well as the consequences of choice - all this is the same necessary condition for liberation.

As we said at the beginning of the article, opportunities come in two main varieties: available opportunities and allowed opportunities.

Available opportunities are those opportunities for which the circumstances have already been created or, in other words, the prevailing reasons for the manifestation of which there are circumstances in a given time and place; All that remains is to make an informed choice.

Allowable opportunities are opportunities for which the circumstances have not yet developed or have not fully developed. Such possibilities can be distributed on a probability scale. For example, imprisonment for a person sharply reduces the probability of a huge set of opportunities and transforms a number of available opportunities into acceptable ones that are unlikely during the period of imprisonment.

The inability to satisfy one's material and cultural needs makes a person or people dependent and not free; he remains free in essence, but a prisoner due to temporal and spatial circumstances.

The goal of the Communist Party is to create the opportunity for each person to satisfy his natural and creative needs, to free him from the captivity of circumstances created by bourgeois oppressors to satisfy the needs of his passions - vanity, greed, lust, etc.

But even understanding the possibilities and expediency of choice does not yet free a person, since the prevailing reasons for other possibilities may be stronger. Moreover, these prevailing reasons can be either external or only internal. As a rule, many fears and desires do not have any rooted basis and their disidentified awareness ends with them simply disappearing. If there are fundamental external compelling circumstances or ingrained internal habits, you simply cannot do without willpower.

Will is the instrument of freedom. Willpower is directly related to a person's awareness. How more people identifies himself with his personality, his habits, feelings, thoughts and sensations - the weaker and more fragmented his will. The more he realizes his essence, the more spiritually collected he is, the stronger it is.

A person who is not aware of himself, identifying with his personality or phenomena outside world, simply simply makes a choice in favor of that opportunity, whose dominant influence at a given moment is greater than the rest. A conscious person, on the contrary, can, through his will, guided by expediency, make the decision he needs to increase the tension of necessary causes or resistance to hostile causes, choosing the opportunity that he wishes.

Each decision, every choice of opportunity carries consequences and consequences, and since every action has its own reaction, a person is directly related to the consequences of his decisions. Moreover, the more consciously and stronger will decisions, the stronger the response consequences or responsibility of choice.

The fruits of our decisions can be both reward and punishment, this is freedom - to make a decision and get a result. Anyone who separates the concept of freedom from responsibility is an ignorant, cowardly or malicious person who simply devalues ​​freedom, the meaning of which is to reap what you sow.

On the one hand, attackers say that freedom does not exist, which means there is no responsibility, because then a person is a victim of being, which completely determines his consciousness. On the other hand, they preach permissiveness, as if you can follow any whim and not bear any responsibility for it. And when they need to talk about responsibility, they refer to the morals and constitutions they wrote, replacing the natural concept of freedom with a legal definition that meets their interests and protects their bourgeois order.

But freedom is a gift of essence, a spiritual quality of a person, this is what elevates him above materiality, above the plant, animal and human kingdoms of nature, that is, above society, above everything connected with time and space - thoughts, feelings, material phenomena . Freedom is what allows a person to overcome the resistance of the environment, and the more a person realizes his gift of freedom, his essence, the less existence determines his choice and the more he has the opportunity to create the world, as he considers right, useful and good, taking upon himself full responsibility for your decisions. Freedom is what symbolically makes a person godlike or creator.

At the end of the article, let's look at how Christians say why freedom is possible only in God: “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). “You were called to freedom, brothers, so that your freedom does not become an opportunity to please the flesh, but rather serve one another through love” (Gal. 5:13). “Beware, however, that this freedom of yours does not become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor 8:9). “Stand fast therefore in the freedom which Christ has given us, and do not be subjected again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1). This question is explained very simply: on the one hand, freedom is possible only in God, only in the Spirit, we have already considered that if a person identifies himself with the self: personality, thoughts, desires, material body, then he cannot be free, on the other On the other hand, understanding by God Love, Goodness, Life and Development, one can understand that free will, guided by hatred and villainy, inevitably leads to degeneration and death, according to the law of cause and effect. Only God, who is Love, makes a person free, it is love that helps a person overcome his selfishness, his self-satisfaction and self-pity, it is Love that helps a person to ascend and makes him immortal.

The fate of this philosopher is full of drama, and his name has become a kind of symbol of logic and rationality in European philosophy. Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) considered the highest goal of this science to be the vision of things from the point of view of eternity. And on his seal for letters there was a rose with the inscription at the top: “Caute” - “Prudently.”

Benedict Spinoza (Baruch d'Espinoza) was born in Amsterdam into a wealthy family of Spanish Jews who fled to Holland from persecution by the Inquisition. Although they were forced to convert to Christianity, they secretly remained faithful to Judaism. At first, Spinoza studied at the Jewish community school in Amsterdam, where he learned Hebrew and deeply studied the Bible and Talmud.

After that, he moved to a Christian school, where he mastered Latin and science - the ancient world, the culture of the Renaissance and new trends in philosophy created by R. Descartes and F. Bacon were revealed to him. Gradually, young Spinoza began to move more and more away from the interests of his community, so that he soon came into serious conflict with it.

The young man’s deep intelligence, talents and education were striking to everyone, and many members of the community wanted Spinoza to become their rabbi. But Spinoza refused in such a harsh manner that some fanatic even attempted the life of the future great rationalist - Spinoza was saved only by the fact that he managed to dodge in time, and the dagger cut only through his cloak. Thus, already in his youth, Spinoza was forced to defend his freedom, the right to his own choice. In 1656 he was expelled from the community, and his sister challenged his right to inheritance. Spinoza sued and won the case, but did not accept the inheritance itself - it was important for him to prove only his rights. He moved to the outskirts of Amsterdam and there, living alone, took up philosophy.

From 1670 Spinoza settled in The Hague. He learned to grind glass and earned his living from this craft, although by this time he was already known as an interesting, deep philosopher. In 1673, he was even offered to take the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, but Spinoza refused because he feared that in this position he would have to make ideological compromises, because, having abandoned Judaism, he never accepted Christianity. He lived alone and very modestly, although he had many friends and admirers of his philosophy. One of them even gave him money for lifelong maintenance - Spinoza accepted the gift, but at the same time asked to significantly reduce the amount. Benedict Spinoza died at the age of 44 from tuberculosis.

Spinoza's main philosophical work was his "Ethics". He always considered himself a follower of the rational philosophy of Descartes and his “geometric” method of cognition, which requires strict proof of any statement. In “Ethics,” Spinoza took his teacher’s method to its logical limit - this book, in its manner of presentation, is more reminiscent of a geometry textbook. First come the definitions of basic concepts and terms. Then follow obvious, intuitively clear ideas that do not require proof (axioms). And finally, statements (theorems) are formulated, which are proven on the basis of definitions and axioms. True, Spinoza was still aware that philosophy was unlikely to be able to completely fit within such a strict framework, and therefore provided the book with numerous comments, in which he outlined the actual philosophical argumentation.

The main idea of ​​Spinoza, on which his entire philosophy is “strung”, is the idea of ​​​​a single substance of the world - God. Spinoza proceeded from the Cartesian concept of substance: “Substance is it is a thing whose existence requires nothing else but itself.” But if a substance is the basis of itself, that is, it creates itself, then, Spinoza concluded, such a substance must be God. This is the “philosophical God”, who is the universal cause of the world and is inextricably (immanently) connected with it. The world, Spinoza believed, is divided into two natures: the creating nature and the created nature. The first includes substance, or God, and the second - modes, i.e. individual things, including people.

Since the world is permeated by a single substance, strict necessity reigns in it, emanating from the substance itself, or God. Such a world, Spinoza believed, is perfect. But where does fear, evil, lack of freedom come from then? Spinoza answered these questions in a very unique way. Yes, a person is drawn through life by absolute necessity, but often the person himself does not understand this and he becomes afraid, a desire arises to contradict necessity, and then passions take over his soul, he does evil. The only way out is to recognize this need. Hence his famous “formula of freedom”: Freedom is a conscious necessity.

Spinoza also defined human virtue in his own way. Since the world is perfect, it strives to preserve itself. Therefore, Spinoza believed: “For us to act according to virtue means nothing more than to live, taking care of self-preservation, guided by reason and our own benefit.” True, Spinoza himself, judging by his biography, was not very concerned about “self-preservation”; he was more attracted by the opportunity to think rationally, for this meant for him “bliss with higher intellectual knowledge,” which is “not only a virtue, but also the only and highest reward.” for virtue." Virtue, Spinoza believed, carries its own reward, making “paradise” possible already here on earth.

In the most general sense, free will is the absence of pressure, restrictions, and coercion. Based on this, freedom can be defined as follows: freedom is the ability of an individual to think and act in accordance with his desires and ideas, and not as a result of internal or external coercion. This is a general definition, built on opposition and the essence of the concept, it does not yet reveal.

To the question: “What is the essence of freedom”? The history of philosophy gives at least two fundamentally different answers, interpreting freedom differently.

One of the first classical definitions of freedom reads: freedom is a conscious necessity. It goes back to the Stoics, is known thanks to Spinoza, and was used in the works of G. Hegel, O. Comte, K. Marx, V. Plekhanov. Let's consider it using the example of the reasoning of B. Spinoza (1632-1677). The world, nature, man, one of the “things” of nature, are strictly determined (conditioned). People think they are free. Freedom is born in the consciousness of a person, but from this it in no way becomes valid, since a person is a part of nature, he follows the general order, obeys it and adapts to it. Realize the necessity that is external to you as the only possible one, accept it as your inner call, and you will find your place in the unified process. Submit to necessity, like a stone that, when falling, obeys the force of gravity. The stone, if it thought, could say to itself: “I agree with the force of gravity, I am in free flight, I fall not only because the earth attracts me, but also because of my conscious decision. Freedom is a conscious necessity!” “I call free,” wrote Spinoza, such a thing that exists from the mere necessity of its nature... I posit freedom in free necessity.” In the degree and depth of knowledge of necessity, he saw the degree of free will of people. A person is free to the extent that he himself determines his behavior from his conscious internal needs. Spinoza called powerlessness in taming affects (passions, impulses, irritation) slavery, because a person subject to it does not control himself, he is in the hands of fortune and, moreover, to such an extent that, although he sees the best in front of him, he is nevertheless forced to follow to the worst.

The definition of freedom through necessity has both positive value, and a significant drawback. It is unlawful to reduce freedom to necessity alone. In modern philosophical anthropology, as we have already found out, the prevailing idea is the incompleteness of human essence, and therefore also the irreducibility of man, which forces him to go beyond the limits of necessity.

The knowledge of necessity is one of the conditions for freedom, but it is far from sufficient. Even if a person recognizes the necessity of something, this knowledge does not change the state of affairs. A criminal who is in prison and has realized this necessity does not become free from this. A person who makes a choice “reluctantly” can hardly be called free.