Description
Book Synopsis"Freedom and its Conditions" draws on Foucault's theories of the self to describe the inner discipline it takes to resist authority - declaring that individuals must sometimes resist forces that wish to destroy freedom, to ensure freedom.
Trade Review"A major strength of Richard Flathman's work as a theorist has been his ability to draw fresh and surprising insights from an unusual selection of philosophical sources (notably Hobbes, Wittgenstein, and Oakeshott in earlier works, and more recently, Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault), and to make them relevant to his own very novel rearticulation of the liberal-individualist vision of life. Flathman does this again in his latest work, taking up Foucault's preoccupation with notions of discipline and resistance, and presenting a subtle and intriguing meditation on how these themes relate to freedom. As always, his readers have the good fortune to be driven back to fundamental questions of political philosophy." -- - Ronald Beiner, author of Philosophy ina Time of Lost Spirit: Essays on Contemporary Theory
"In this brilliant study, Richard Flathman takes aim at one of the most widely shared commonplaces of the modern world: namely, freedom begins only where discipline - the exercise of constructive power over oneself and others - ends. He argues persuasively that there is a much more complex field of relations between the exercise of discipline and the enabling of freedom, including the freedom to resist forms of discipline. This acute study is a major contribution to the growing literature on 'agonistic' freedom and on reconceiving freedom today." -- James Tully, author of Strange Multiplicity:Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity
"Once again, Richard Flathman has written a smart, compelling book about a central concept in political philosophy. Even when I don't agree with his argument, I always find myself admiring it." -- Nancy Hirschmann, author of The Subject of Liberty: Toward a FeministTheory of Freedom
Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Discipline, Freedom and Resistance: Preliminary Reflections by way of an Engagement with Foucault 3. The Self Against and for Itself: I: Montaigne on Freedom, Discipline and Resistance 4. The Self Against and for Itself: II: Nietzsche as Theorist of Disciplined Freedom of Action and Free-Spiritedness 5. Stuart Hampshire on Freedoms and Unfreedoms of Mind and of Action 6. Stuart Hampshire on Freedoms and Unfreedoms of Action: Discipline, Freedom, and Resistance Conclusion
