The political ir/relevance of freedom in the philosophies of Sartre and Arendt

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2011

Öğrenci: ONUR KARA

Danışman: CEM DEVECİ

Özet:

This study examines the concept of freedom in the philosophies of Jean Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt in the context of their relevance or irrelevance to politics in the context of political freedom, political activity, rights and responsibilities, individuality, plurality and humanism. The major concern is to question the possibilities of political reflection of their conceptions of freedom. In this respect, the study explicates densely enough Sartre's and Arendt's conceptions of freedom respectively and includes propositions and arguments that Sartre's and Arendt's conceptions of freedom have more conjunctions than disjunctions in certain points. This closeness and commonality in the meaning of freedom between two thinkers continue in politics. In that sense, the thesis put forwards that the conceptions of freedom in the philosophies of Sartre and Arendt are relevant to politics and also competent to derive a different spirit of political freedom. Their relevance to politics and their potency or adequacy to enable a new form of political freedom are based on their conjunction in the points of action, humanism, initiation and responsibility. To make explicit such political freedom, the study also compares it with liberal negative conception of freedom.