Pippin on conceptions of freedom

Pippin gives a nice pithy survey of nineteenth century conceptions of freedom in the ‘author meets critics’ session on his Henry James and Modern Moral Life (video here) which I thought I’d note down here (because I am procrastinating…):

In the nineteenth century alone, at various times, it looked like I could be said to be free if I had set a goal myself on the basis of reasons (freedom as autonomy of a sort); if I had psychologically identified wholeheartedly with the end (freedom as authenticity or non-alienation); if I precisely had not identified with any role, and could take on and discard roles the way an actor takes on and discards roles (freedom as irony, as in Rameau’s Nephew or Schlegel); if I had the means to achieve some end (freedom as power); if I had experienced no human impediments to my pursuits (freedom as negative liberty); or if I had experienced in my striving a development and growth (dynamic self-realization).

Links: Zizek, Schiller and new blogs

I am a little busy (marking and writing—at least I should be), so here are some links instead of a proper post.

1. Zizek videos

Ecology Without Nature
Materialism and Theology
Rules, Race and Mel Gibson
The Liberal Utopia
The Reality of the Virtual
Liebe dein Sympton wie Dich selbst! (German documentary but mostly in English)
Zizek! (movie documentary)

2. Zizek audio

Here, including his still ongoing ‘Embedded in Ideology’ masterclass.

3. Inquiry

The new issue of Inquiry is out, with a symposium on Fred Beiser’s recent book on Schiller. For anyone who does not already have a copy, an electronic version of Schiller’s intensely wonderful ‘Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man’ is available here.

There’s also an article on McDowell’s idealism by Adrian Haddock. I can’t seem to get access to it via Athens at the moment for some reason, so if someone could e-mail me a pdf of the Haddock article then I’d be grateful.

4. New Blogs

My friends Tom and Megan have recently started philosophy blogs here and here. There’s not a great deal on either of them yet, but I am sure there’ll be plently of interest up there soon enough for those of you into your philosophy of language and political theory respectively. Also deserving of mention are two newish blogs with more or less self-explanatory titles, meaning is use and A blog about social practices.