ABSTRACT
“Freedom” belongs to the most important and most controversial concepts of human thought. Culture-internally and cross-culturally divergent definitions have been given of this “essentially contested concept”. There seems to exist, however, a non-controversial core of the concept of “freedom”. Beyond this conceptual core, there are many culture-specific aspects of “freedom”. For example, the lexical items which designate “freedom” have language-specific meanings and culture-specific uses. Some semantic aspects of such lexical items will be contrastively described. Philosophical and scientific definitions of “freedom” also largely differ. A small selection of approaches to “freedom” in philosophy and other disciplines will be discussed. Empirical data from freedom speeches will illustrate how theoretical concepts of “freedom” were put to political practice in different epochs, cultures and languages. Some recurring argumentative patterns and techniques of verbal presentation will be analysed. Case studies include speeches delivered by Cicero, Louise Michel, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. The main theoretical result of this contribution is the thesis that a substantial concept of “freedom” can be defended against various forms of determinism. At the practical level, the analysis of the case studies shows that the persuasive success of freedom discourse can be considerable and change the respective societies towards a higher degree of political freedom.
