Freedom and Liberation in a Zoroastrian context

Dear Dino

As long as we speak of the freedom towards something, then I certainly agree that we speak of a genuinely Zoroastrian freedom. Because why would we desire to be free from drives and desires, when it is the long-term fullfilment of drives and desires which is at the root of Zarathushtra's ethics. A very monist ethics indeed (regardless of whether we see ourselves as monists or dualists in terms of ontology) with the focus on the freedom and liberation of the human body ans its full potential (and thereby also the freedom and liberation of human society as a community).

Ushta
Alexander

2009/11/17 Special Kain

Dear friends and anyone who's interested in following the discussion about the concept of freedom,

Let me please remind you that there are two different kinds of freedom, as I had already examined a long time ago: To be free from something (such as drives and desires, proto-Kantian freedom) and to be free towards something (a rather positive freedom, an increase in freedom of choice). «Free will» can mean to be free from carnal desires or it can mean to be free to see things for what they are and to manipulate the relationships between them, thus increasing our freedom of choice. The freedom from X points at the past, the freedom towards X points at the future.

If we talk about freedom, we should bear these two concepts in mind.

--- Special Kain schrieb am Mo, 16.11.2009:


Von: Special Kain
Betreff: AW: [Ushta] Re: The Concept of Freedom
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Montag, 16. November 2009, 16:46



Well, I guess it's better not to make things complicated and stay true to Truth! We can say that existence is true, simply because there is something rather than nothing. We could treat existence as a given fact. There is something, even though some thinkers argue what that something really is: nature, god, the real world, our imaginary worlds, social constructs, time and space etc.

So we're talking about categories! You can join Kant and pretend as if some categories were eternally valid and will forever shape our perceptions of and interactions with existence. Or you could also join thinkers like Peirce and say that firstness, secondness and thirdness were the only real categories (as in «really real»).

And wisdom is something different altogether. Everything that exists is definitely exposed to existence, but not necessarily to wisdom. Some people choose to worship stupidity due to their anti-intellectualis t ressentiment.

--- Rory schrieb am Mo, 16.11.2009:


Von: Rory
Betreff: [Ushta] Re: The Concept of Freedom
An: Ushta@yahoogroups. com
Datum: Montag, 16. November 2009, 15:02



Dear Dino,

You're quite right, bad choice of words. I wasn't quite sure what to use. They are not only self-imposed as the concepts of existence and supreme wisdom do exist for all even if others don't worship them. Can't think of a word. How about "self-imposed non-variables" ? :-)

Ushta,
Rory