ABSTRACT
Philosophical literature has given scant attention to the problem of privacy as such; the framework of reference within which privacy has so recently and widely become a matter of controversy is a distinctly contemporary one. Bentham's break with tradition in moral and political analysis was more profound than his vehement rejection of natural law and natural rights. What emerges in historical retrospect is that Bentham was in fact rejecting a model of analysis that had been inherited from Greek philosophy. The depreciation of British idealism has been generally described in terms of a revolt against the Absolute and rejection of metaphysical abstraction. The problem of the political and legal status of the individual in the increasingly corporate structure of all modern states can no longer be ignored. Conditions have thrust upon political and legal institutions the demand for definitions and policies of control.
