Thoughts on freedom : two essays /
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| Author / Creator: | McMackin, Lorin. |
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| Imprint: | Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, ©1982. |
| Description: | 1 online resource (vii, 103 pages) |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | E-Resource Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11105531 |
| Summary: | A concise examination and description of freedom per se, among humans, in human interaction with the nonhuman environ-ment, and as innate human capacity. The subject is freedom, not politics, though McMackin describes political systems in his first essay, "Alternatives and Restrictions," and references those descriptions in illustra-tion of human presumptive exercise of choice. Democracy is accorded more atten-tion than most systems for the help it offers in his careful study of freedom. The second essay, "Choice and Determin-ism," is devoted to determinism, the hope that all, in the full sense of that word, either flows from the personal, conscious decisions of a perfect creator who transcends his uni-verse, or the desire that all has been, is, and will be caused by the inherency of the self-existing universe, the relentless working of mindless matter. The topic suggests meta-physics; the discussion does not. McMackin is an accomplished essayist with a style uniquely his own, and the deftness he demonstrates as he clarifies concepts through his illuminating and suggestive analyses enter-tains while the insights challenge. As McMackin writes early in his first essay, "We need abstract and ideal terms not because we are amused by" "toying mystically with impos-sibilities but because only through them are we able to deal intelligently with the commonplace." |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (vii, 103 pages) |
| Format: | Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. |
| ISBN: | 0585107912 9780585107912 0809310767 9780809310760 |