Interpretation of Freedom in Marxist Philosophy: On Historical Continuity

The authors turn to the Marxist interpretation of freedom, which is viewed as a turning point in the historical paradigm shift in the understanding of this phenomenon. The Marxist idea of freedom is compared here with its preceding version that was suggested by classical German idealism. While in classical German idealism, I. Kant’s works in particular, freedom is conditioned by the intrinsic structure of the human mind, i.e. it is the right of reason and is purely spiritual in nature, Marxism reveals its objective modus: object-transforming activity, being a manifestation of freedom, involves a person in a relationship with nature. Processed objects become mediators between society and nature; freedom is realized in the mutual creation of subject and object. The process of identifying the social subject and object leads to the interpretation of freedom as a social creation. German idealism considers man to be free and does not acknowledge any social prerequisites for freedom, while Marxists, on the contrary, see social communication as a condition for freedom, based on which the subject of freedom is identified. This subject is a socially and historically determined person as a concrete, real and perceptual being. A new stage is the consideration of the socio-biological and objective material foundations of freedom, which makes it possible to discern the ancient prerequisites of the Marxist idea of freedom. This confirms P. Critchley’s (2001) version, according to which Marxism inherits the Greco-German concept of rational freedom. Despite all the differences, the authors conclude that the Marxist approach to the problem of freedom largely continues the line of German transcendentalism. In both systems, freedom is analysed in the aspect of universality and is understood as a way of a person’s self-determination and a prerequisite for implementing one’s essential qualities, as an overcoming of human biological properties and as a form of independence from the physical world. In both traditions, we can trace the dialectic of freedom and necessity. In Marxism, labour is a genuine manifestation of freedom and an eternal natural necessity. For Kant, the essential human characteristics, including morality, necessarily presuppose man’s freedom.