Tosaka Jun
Source: Lectures on Modern Materialism, Fourth Section: Culture
Translated: by Jonmarc Bennett - All Rights Reserved.
The concept of freedom, when considered essentially, has actually existed for a very long time. The system of human interest, rather than existing solely for the sake of the concerns of nature alone, takes human interest itself as its theme for reflection, which generates a higher-order interest and essentially establishes the concept of freedom. From the perspective of the traditional world of the history of ideas, it is correct to say that the Sophists were the first to take up this concept.
The Sophist's concept of freedom, however, is given three serious conditions. The first point that one must be cautioned of is that those who can be thought to be free - though this concept itself called freedom is thought afterwards to have been given the opportunity of being formed in the Renaissance - corresponds entirely to the freedom of the individual. Although, in speaking of freedom, in whatever case, so long as philosophical sophistry is not touched upon, among its various meanings, it is ultimately nothing but individual freedom; in the same way, in speaking of individual freedom, depending on the way this 'individual' is understood, a fundamental difference appears: there are at least certain cases in which the individual is grasped according to those places in which the individual is mediated by various groups; in contrast, in those cases when the individual is not grasped merely in opposition to the aforesaid groups, the concept of 'individual' itself is different. Consequently, a decisive difference appears in the meaning of the word 'individual freedom.' As a result, the individual as thought by the Sophist has as its main feature that, each individual among other individuals, whether theoretically or morally, cannot come in any way to an objective agreement, and to that extent the Sophist is given the name of Sophist (a sophistic debater or a skeptic); now those individuals completely cut off from society, in other words the self-righteous or solipsistic, and by this same meaning also individualism, is the only meaning of 'individual.' On this point, the freedom of the Sophists, is entirely - merely - and nothing but individual freedom.
Thus, the freedom of the Sophists can be said, secondly, to not have been able to make sense of political freedom. This is because, in the politics at the time, the individual conducted their social life only as a slave-owner; the individual life was extracted from this social life, which was what was earlier said to be the Sophist-style self-righteousness. Individual freedom is exactly the opposite of individual freedom in light of social life, that is to say, they did not conceive that it is the opposite of political freedom. Sophist freedom was not political, but simply ethical. -- Certainly, Athens at the time when Sophists were rampant was a place where Democracy was extremely flourishing, moreover, upon this democratic political existence, although the sophistry of the Sophists had extreme commercial value, the Sophists themselves did not advocate political policy.
Thirdly, the freedom of the Sophists can be said to be freedom from external circumstances. For the Greeks, because nature was thought to be the most influential of external circumstances, while the Sophists claimed it was the most disputable of things, nothing but knowledge based on sensitivity to the operations of nature, in that it must not be trusted nor must not be ignored, became the basis for their theory of ethical freedom. Then eventually, according to the Sophists, individual value exists from the freedom from the natural law, freedom deriving from the ethical law which derives from it [natural law], or freedom from the government. Needless to say, this freedom exceeds nothing but the individual that isolates and escapes from certain things and from which, for the first time, negative freedom is established. Subsequently, this freedom, thereafter from Socrates to the famous variety of schools of individual ethics - Cynics, Cyrenaic, Stoics, Epicureans - became the freedom of the mind from outside of the world, "imperturbability," which rules. -- The fact that freedom in this circumstance was negative was because this was the entirety of freedom which resulted in political freedom being made impossible.
Although we have brought up Sophist individualist, apolitical, and negative freedom as the model of ancient freedom, it makes a striking comparison with the features of Early Modern freedom. Let us then take a look at this.
It should be seen that the Early Modern concept of freedom began in the Renaissance. Following the development of the doctrine of commercial capital in Italy, the prosperity of commercial cities arrived, although here the material ground for the revival of what is called Classical literature was prepared, it was not merely that, but according to the initial stages of capitalism the individual = the individuality of self-consciousness also occurred. Thus, according to the Medici family and other wealthy merchants, the artists were made to be trained, and the position of the laborer which did not exceed the ascension of apprentices in the traditional guild was then changed and taken up by the artist. The artist while placing faith in the individuality of oneself, took on the activity of work/creation, which consequently meant that they were no longer merely laborers. From here we can see the birthplace of the Early Modern concept of freedom.
Freedom based on individuality takes on the meaning of original productive activity. This already is not by any means negative nor unproductive freedom. -- as a result this freedom can be seen in Da Vinci or Michelangelo, or perhaps Boccaccio as nothing else but the freedom of artistic creation or Romantic freedom (Roman is a colloquialism - Romance languages - from secular humanist fables, its historical origin deriving from Romanticism. It should be familiar that the Decameron is the archetype of this Romanticism). The characteristic of this freedom thereafter became distant, then makes up the central thought of the early stages of German Romantic philosopher Schelling. The freedom which plots (imagines/fantasizes) history, the world is brought out from within the self, once more the freedom that sees the self that is found everywhere in the world is also this.
It cannot be forgotten that Early Modern freedom is, however, above all else a democratic thing. The political freedom which adds positivity to the contents of Early Modern freedom is, needless to say by taking the opportunity of the French Revolution, bound up with the concept of sovereignty in what is called Rousseau's "Social-Contract Theory." Rousseau himself is said to be the beginning of Romanticism (the story of "the New Heloise"); in so doing, Romantic, artistic, and individualistic freedom here may be said to become tied to civil liberties.
The democratic freedom of the bourgeoisie (at that time called the "Third Estate") arising from the French Revolution, because France at the time was imprinted with the interests of a series of other oppressed bourgeois classes, possessed one fixed direction (this direction is needless to say our country's "democratic rights" thought of the Meiji period). It should be well known how Edmund Burke came to represent how English conservatives zealously attacked this concept of freedom, but this took on a peculiar transformation when taken up by Prussia which was, compared to the Anglo-French, considerably behind in Capitalist development.
Freedom of individuality or civil liberties are then thoroughly moralized to become the freedom of the personality. The one to represent this is Kant. At the time, while being the utmost representative of the cultural critic, he transforms the Empiricism of the English bourgeois philosophy to the point of transcendental logic, but standing on the same basis, transformed the political philosophy of the French bourgeoisie to the point of the ethics of practical reason. As a consequence of the critique of the theory of reason, after the limitation of the world of cognition, and then as a consequence of the critique of practical reason, the world of freedom, placed in a completely different place, has no connection with the world of cognition, establishes a second empire - the kingdom of purposes - which is a central subject matter of his critical philosophy. Freedom, by becoming the autonomy of character, changes into a positive thing. The freedom of volition is mainly this.
In regard to Kant's freedom of the personality, individualistic freedom is not brought to the forefront (except with the problem of character). Civil liberties are also not central (except with the problem of perpetual peace). This must be called a new third Modern concept of freedom. According to this, both freedom of artistic creation and freedom of political conduct must be seen as based within the subject of practical activity which is contained in the freedom of the individual personality. In this way, freedom evolves into the freedom of culture. -- Thus the temporary conclusion of the concept of freedom according to German Idealism begins here (What is called "freedom of the university" is also a part of this freedom as being pulled out from the "freedom of study." A few German universities were established along with this idée of freedom of culture. Our country's imperial universities or the other variety of universities also were dependent on this idée to come about).
Freedom as autonomy of the personality - freedom of volition - is taken up to the point of Fichte. According to him, the world exists as if for the sake of the actualization of the freedom of the self - this is the foundation of autonomous personality - again, his philosophical system itself is described as directed toward the self-consciousness of the freedom of the self. -- However, according to the elucidation of freedom in his "philosophy," the practical concept of freedom he presents is by no means something as free and pure. The characteristic of the German people at the time was a persistent sticking to the anti-French, anti-foreign, national-isolationist, nationalist opinion. The German people are the purest Germanic people. This is because they have preserved the purest Germanic language, and he said this to them while under the threat of Napoleon (Hitler learned this wisdom in the expulsion of the Jews - which was in fact an avoidance of paying reparations. However, people like Professor Hiraizumi of the Department of Japanese History at the University of Tokyo seriously believe in this knowledge trying to apply it to modern times). -- Thus, his freedom of self-consciousness is, in fact, a representative concept of the national-political freedom of the German people; the obstacles that the existence of the self faces means something akin to the field artillery of Napoleon. Moreover, this being shown as the freedom of personality, there appears Fichte's peculiar "Fichteliness."
Schelling is said to be the one to succeed Fichte in the system of German Idealism. Schelling of the later stage (the period of the problem of freedom) rather appears as the critic of Hegel, such that one might think it is best to take up Hegel next, but in the sequence of the problem Schelling must be examined first. Freedom according to Schelling, in "The Essence of Human Freedom," is neither individual freedom nor political freedom. The ethical freedom of personality is here being pushed toward the religious freedom of humanity. The one with an interest in freedom, rather than existing in the self-causal autonomy that negates the coercion of others, may discover it in the complete non-causality of arbitrariness (????????), namely, even in the freedom of being able to do evil. Freedom becomes both original sin and atonement. This is theological freedom. The ideology of nostalgic petite-bourgeois reactionary elements culminated in the romantic, in literary form is the longing for Medieval Catholicism, while in philosophical form proceeds toward theology. Certainly this was not a coincidence.
In German Idealism, though freedom was becoming more important than anything else, that Hegel is seen as the one to accomplish the conclusion of this German Idealism is stated up to now. Therefore, according to Hegel, those variety of concepts stated up to now, there is no mystery as to how they were put together and received each position. -- The artistic freedom/individualistic freedom seen in the early stages of Schelling, in regard to Hegel's freedom, appears within a species of the romantic cause. Freedom according to Hegel consists in the world being made by the fact that Reason is one with oneself, and moreover, in the opposite where the world is the world within which Reason is established. But the point of divergence from Schelling is that his world is the reality of the devil, coming close to the world of fantasy. Freedom, however, must move towards historical actualization. So, freedom again must also be political freedom. But because this freedom is the freedom held in mental conditions, which is not necessarily freedom placed at the center of political practical conditions, if it is called political freedom it is nothing but spiritual political freedom. And then, the freedom of personality is not merely freedom of the individual personality, but freedom of the individual personality that lies within historical customs - familial, social, and national - that is to say, freedom can be saved in saying customs = the essence of humanity. Then lastly, the freedom of Reason which is actualized in the real world, according to Hegel, because it does not exceed God's world plan of development, his freedom must be said to be essentially theological freedom. But the fundamental point of opposition to Schelling is that Schelling's freedom is human freedom directed toward God, while on the contrary, Hegel's freedom boils down to God's freedom.This last point in fact must be seen as a weakness that Hegel holds toward Schelling. But leaving out this one point, Hegel's concept of freedom corresponds in fact to the conclusion of the various conceptions of freedom in German Idealism. That is to say, this is cultural freedom - cultural philosophy that is not distinct from German Idealism - summed up.
It must be recognized that cultural freedom by itself is not political freedom. Originally, the concept of freedom of German Idealism called cultural freedom is the structural development of French political freedom by Prussian transformation. Then, in Hegel, the opposition between these two was not able to be reconciled.
Originally, a "cultural" freedom independent of "political" freedom was impossible. This is because attempting to theorize culture while omitting politics is like attempting to skip the first floor to get to the second floor. And so the German Idealism which gave freedom the shape of mere cultural freedom here faces the impasse of cultural freedom itself. - Cultural freedom at its upper limit heads toward theological freedom (but the freedom directed at humanity's God), while at its lower limit it heads toward political freedom. So, Hegel on the one hand - the scale of this problem is smallest - was unable to assimilate Schelling's concept of human freedom, on the other hand, - this problem is proportionally more important - was unable to take up the problem of the acquisition of political freedom according to Marx. If one even combines political freedom and cultural freedom, cultural freedom and human freedom (the mere freedom to be able to do evil) and others are immediately able to be linked together.
The great Reform movement in the concept of political freedom of the French bourgeoisie, needless to say, appears as the individualistic freedom of competition which derives from the fixed relation of production in society (J. S. Mill's "On Liberty" expresses afterwards the concept of freedom of the English bourgeoisie). This is what represents the conceptual roots of today's liberalism (bourgeois liberalism) of bourgeois democracy. But that fact that this kind of liberalism itself will never able to be the policy by which the people or general masses seek to acquire political freedom has become illuminated from the thirty years following the French Revolution; moreover, today this has become more and more decidedly obvious. Real political freedom, which cannot be the bourgeois democratic/bourgeois liberal political freedom, instead must be precisely the political freedom which is practically grasped by proletarian consciousness. This may be said to be an objective truth. This kind of political freedom precisely, for the first time, can practically be tied up with cultural freedom. And so it may be thought that the actualization of the proletarian political freedom can, for the first time, actualize in reality the human cultural freedom. Of course, the freedom of humans to do evil against God should not be realized, but should be exterminated; I think that such freedom will naturally disappear politically and culturally with the realization of this political freedom. The engine of class repression - Hegel thought this to be the actualization of "freedom" - when it naturally goes extinct, then "the kingdom of freedom" will naturally begin.
The present age is one where cultural liberalism has been given great controlling power. But this being the case, consequently, how cultural freedom and political freedom may be combined for the issue of the acquisition of freedom is the main task of today's cultural matter. The main points of contemporary cultural movements are here directed.