rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Freedom and responsibility in Neoplatonist thought
  name:
    name part: Coope, Ursula
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: enk
    date issued: 2020
    edition: First edition.
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: viii, 288 pages ; 24 cm.
  abstract: The Neoplatonists have a perfectionist view of freedom. An entity is free to the extent that it succeeds in making itself good. Free entities are wholly in control of themselves. They are self-determining, self-constituting and self-knowing. Neoplatonist philosophers argue that such freedom is only possible for non-bodily things. The human soul is free insofar as it rises above bodily things and engages in intellection, but when it turns its desires to bodily things, it is drawn under the sway of fate and becomes enslaved. Ursula Coope discusses this notion of freedom and its relation to questions about responsibility. She explains the important role of notions of self-reflexivity in Neoplatonist accounts of both freedom and responsibility. In part I, Coope sets out the puzzles Neoplatonist philosophers face about freedom and responsibility and explains how these puzzles arise from earlier discussions. Part II explores the metaphysical underpinnings of the Neoplatonist notion of freedom (concentrating especially on the views of Plotinus and Proclus). In what sense, if any, is the ultimate first principle of everything (the One) free? If everything else is under this ultimate first principle, how can anything other than the One be free? What is the connection between freedom and nonbodiliness? Finally, Coope considers in Part III questions about responsibility, arising from this perfectionist view of freedom. Why are human beings responsible for their behaviour, in a way that other animals are not? If we are enslaved when we act viciously, how can we be to blame for our vicious actions and choices?
  note: Ursula Coope.
  note: Includes bibliographical references (pages [251-267) and indexes.
  subject:
    topic: Neoplatonism
  subject:
    topic: Liberty
    topic: Philosophy
  subject:
    topic: Responsibility
    topic: Philosophy
  classification: B517 .C66 2020
  classification: 186.4
  identifier: 0198824831
  identifier: 9780198824831
  record info:
    record content source: YDX
    record creation date: 191214
    record change date: 20200818091413.0
    record identifier: in00004150677