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Retrieving Freedom is a provocative, big-picture book, taking a long view of the "rise and fall" of the classical understanding of freedom.
In response to the evident shortcomings of the notion of freedom that dominates contemporary discourse, Retrieving Freedom seeks to return to the sources of the Western tradition to recover a more adequate understanding. This book begins by setting forth the ancient Greek conception-summarized from the conclusion of D. C. Schindler's previous tour de force of political and moral reasoning, Freedom from Reality-and the ancient Hebrew conception, arguing that at the heart of the Christian vision of humanity is a novel synthesis of the apparently opposed views of the Greeks and Jews. This synthesis is then taken as a measure that guides an in-depth exploration of landmark figures framing the history of the Christian appropriation of the classical tradition. Schindler conducts his investigation through five different historical periods, focusing in each case on a polarity, a pair of figures who represent the spectrum of views from that time: Plotinus and Augustine from late antiquity, Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor from the patristic period, Anselm and Bernard from the early middle ages, Bonaventure and Aquinas from the high middle ages, and, finally, Godfrey of Fontaines and John Duns Scotus from the late middle ages. In the end, we rediscover dimensions of freedom that have gone missing in contemporary discourse, and thereby identify tasks that remain to be accomplished. Schindler's masterful study will interest philosophers, political theorists, and students and scholars of intellectual history, especially those who seek an alternative to contemporary philosophical understandings of freedom.
List of contents
Abbreviations
Preface
Part I: Prolegomena
1. Christian Freedom and Its Traditions
Part II: Late Antiquity
2. Plotinus on Freedom as Generative Perfection
3. Augustine and the Gift of the Power to Choose
Part III: The Patristic Period
4. Perfectly Natural Freedom in Dionysius the Areopagite
5. Maximus the Confessor: Redeeming Choice
Part IV: The Early Middle Ages
6. St. Anselm: Just Freedom
7. Bernard of Clairvaux: Liberating Love
Part V: The High Middle Ages
8. Bonaventure on the Trinitarian Origin of Freedom
9. Thomas Aquinas: A Fruitful Reception of the Whole
Part VI: The Late Middle Ages
10. Godfrey of Fontaines: The Absolute Priority of Act
11. John Duns Scotus and the Radicalizing of Potency
Part VII: General Conclusion
12. The Givenness of Freedom
Bibliography
About the author
D. C. Schindler is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at Villanova University. He is the author of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth (2004) and Plato's Critique of Impure Reason (2008).
