CFP: Philosophy of Political Freedom, XXVIII WORLD CONGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY OF LAW AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY 16-21 July 2017, Lisbon (original) (raw)

The question of freedom is certainly a pervasive problem in political theory. Its importance was famously stated by Hannah Arendt who claimed that “the raison d'être of politics is freedom”. Even if one finds this claim too strong, it is undeniable that politics is closely related to the notion of freedom. The task of the proposed workshop will be to investigate into and discuss these relations and try to answer questions as: is freedom really a raison d’etre of politics? Is promoting freedom a proper aim of politics? If ‘yes’ than what kind of freedom is politics to promote? Or perhaps politics is an obtrusive limitation of freedom? These questions certainly open up a wide spectrum of more precise problems, as for instance the possible methods of promoting political freedom by institutional design, the question of legal and social implications of various notions of political freedom etc.