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The objective of this paper is to reconstruct of some of the key moments in the Hegelian argument on the notion of "free will". At the same time, it is a critique --based on Hegel's arguments-- of what he called "arbitrary will". The authors extend their critique to both the Kantian understanding and the idea of liberal freedom, arguing that the concept of free will is a fundamental principle in the practical philosophy of Hegel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author examines the subject of freedom in the thinking of Joseph Ratzinger, based on a historical analysis. He begins with a look at how freedom is understood in the Bible and in the Christian faith, then considers the particular concept of freedom that was formed during the Enlightenment and continues to mold the way most people think. The article ends with the German theologian's proposal on the need to rescue to value of the metaphysical relationship between freedom and truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antonio Millán-Puelles initiates a new approach to moral. Although he is not the first person using the concept of realistic ethics, he is indeed the first one providing a structured justification about the precise meaning of the expression. His ethics is built axing around two basic elements. The first one is freedom; it allows man to fail his own behavior, e.g. his own nature, but it also enables him to fully develop all his potentialities. The second element is the affirmation of humane nature as something real and previous that we do not give to ourselves, a nature that is deep-rooted in our behavior and the one that gives rise to a judgment by which we assess an action as "humane" or "inhumane." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of freedom is truth. University at present is in danger of falling into relativism and skepticism, among others. Those are diverse effects when daring to pull apart freedom and truth. But as truth is opposed to error, ignorance, lie, etc., those and some other "isms" don't seem to get along with truth. Moreover as truth concedes various levels, those current trends are also in a hierarchical disagreement with the possible reachable truth level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The symptoms of the voracious and busy world we live in stand out when we focus the experience of the time that characterizes it. Awareness of the unique reality of the present instant's time, restores for freedom the control of one's own life. Although open to lost and to forthcoming instants, exasperation of the past and the future determines individual and collective disorders that encourage a freedom-deprived, mechanized and even fatalistic existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History thinking is torn between the charms or rationalism and the fatigues of skepticism. Determinism is one of its legacies. Against it, Niall Ferguson's contra-factualism based in the scientific theory of chaos is raised. The question «what would have happened if...?» offers itself as a method that vindicates freedom and contingency as it affirms the plurality of paths that each action faces. Nevertheless, it opposes the restraint of supporting itself not on the subjective radicality of the choice, but on the complexity of successions at each crossroad of life, similar to those of physical phenomena. For Ferguson, historical determinism is nonviable which is due to the limitations of calculation not to the nature of what is human. Chaos-history implies, therefore, the multiplication of determinism and a powerful temptation for a more imaginative than real history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]