Free Thinking : The nation

From the UK, philosopher Jonathan Rée

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1. Freedom truth and thinking

   • Jonathan Rée
   • 6 Sep 06, 09:43 PM

   The only thing that’s indisputable about the idea of freedom is that it’s always in dispute.

   And the same applies to freethinking too. It’s a word with a lot of history: in the eighteenth century, certain dissident protestants liked to refer to themselves as ‘free-thinkers’ – but they were roundly rebuked and ridiculed, and not without reason. They flattered themselves absurdly, according to their critics. (There was a very funny satire on them by Bishop Berkeley, for instance: he thought that their confidence that they represented freethinking only proved that they knew nothing either about freedom or about thinking.) But I had better rein in this historical hobbyhorse, or at least save it for a later outing. The essantial point remains: you do not prove that you are free by saying or thinking that you are.
   

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