McTernan, Emily;
(2024)
Freedom, Spontaneity, and Our Encounters.
Political Philosophy
, 1
(2)
pp. 321-343.
10.16995/pp.16864.
Preview |
Text
pp-16864-mcternan-1.pdf - Published Version Download (550kB) | Preview |
Abstract
This article defends the significance of our encounters on the grounds of their distinctive contribution to our freedom. The variety and novelty of our encounters, and the spontaneity they allow us in the shaping of our selves, creates opportunities for us to revise our conceptions of the good, to try out new narratives of our lives, and different ways of presenting ourselves. Even when we don’t take up these opportunities, still our encounters provide us with a sense of the openness and possibility of a human life. This role of encounters in a free human life challenges the overemphasis when conceptualising liberal freedom on the unimpeded pursuit of our plans or conceptions of the good: freedom is also about having a life that lies open before us. This defence also makes central not the fleeting contact between strangers on city streets and parks which has hitherto been the focus of political philosophers but, rather, our casual connections and weak ties with others, and in places beyond the city and its public spaces.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Freedom, Spontaneity, and Our Encounters |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.16995/pp.16864 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.16995/pp.16864 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Encounters, spontaneity, freedom, city, liberalism |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Political Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197525 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
