Freedom Redefined

Political philosophy, at least as practised by many of the most renowned and widely discussed English-speaking philosophers working in that field today, is a paradoxical practice. On the one hand, it deals with politics, that most concrete of human activities, through which human agents organize their communal lives. On the other, it is at times extremely abstract. Concepts such as freedom and equality are discussed in the writings of many contemporary philosophers without reference to the everyday concrete contexts in which they apply, or they are analyzed by means of thought experiments that would leave most ordinary citizens scratching their heads. It is often quite difficult to connect the abstract ruminations of philosophers with the concerns and strivings of ordinary citizens.

James Tully, who makes his academic home at the University of Victoria, and who over the course of his career has also taught at McGill University (where I had the good fortune of being...