A Genealogy of Liberty: A Lecture by Quentin Skinner

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  • čas přidán 30. 11. 2016
  • "What is liberty? This cherished ideal, which lies at the heart of our democracy, has proved very difficult to define. In this provocative lecture, eminent political theorist Quentin Skinner explores some influential meanings of liberty-especially those that define liberty in negative terms, as the absence of interference or arbitrary domination. He shows how negative liberty has important implications for the conduct of democratic government.
    Quentin Skinner is the Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. His interests lie in modern intellectual history and philosophical themes including the nature of interpretation and historical explanation, and the concept of political liberty and the character of the State. Skinner’s historical research centers on early-modern Europe, particularly the Italian Renaissance. He has published books on Machiavelli, on early Renaissance political painting, on ideals of civic virtue, and has edited Machiavelli’s The Prince. He also works on seventeenth century England, and has written extensively on the relations between rhetoric and philosophy. He recently completed a book on Shakespeare and forensic eloquence, and has published three books on the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. His best-known work, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, attempts to span the whole early-modern period. "

Komentáře • 81

  • @captainzork6109
    @captainzork6109 Před 4 měsíci +3

    Im so happy he cites the philosophers he was inspired by or align with his ideas. Also, I'm really happy he explains the definitions he's using so clearly. This man is didactically gifted

  • @cuck696
    @cuck696 Před 6 lety +39

    4:00 is when the lecture actually begins

  • @penssuck6453
    @penssuck6453 Před 2 lety +10

    Scholarly (I presume), lucid, and entertaining. I need to buy this man's books.

  • @PedroDavidMoran
    @PedroDavidMoran Před 7 lety +28

    Thanks Stanford for sharing.

  • @stevehenton3213
    @stevehenton3213 Před 7 lety +11

    a thorough and clear analysis of this genealogy, thanks for posting

  • @worteparoles6907
    @worteparoles6907 Před 7 lety +4

    Thanks for posting! An enlightening lecture.

  • @Drakoadventure
    @Drakoadventure Před 6 lety +4

    thank you so much for this video, very informative, interesting and deepened my understanding of liberty and freedom through a various account propounded by a number of political philosophers.

  • @meghkalyanasundaram8720
    @meghkalyanasundaram8720 Před 5 lety +2

    Thought provoking! Thank you.

  • @mikewtp
    @mikewtp Před 7 lety +5

    Brilliant and cogent, thanks!

  • @davyroger3773
    @davyroger3773 Před 2 lety +1

    The light of his erudition is too much for my eyes!

  • @JurijFedorov
    @JurijFedorov Před 6 lety +8

    Why does this video not have subtitles? Are they not created automatically today? Very weird, could have used them.

  • @jomo
    @jomo Před 5 lety +3

    Thanks Stanford! Would be nice to have this also as an audio file so folks can listen podcast-style in the car or whatever.

    • @DocSeville
      @DocSeville Před 2 lety

      I listen to these lectures on CZcams in my car. Just hook phone to radio. U don't really need to watch it, just listen.

  • @klintshim6378
    @klintshim6378 Před 3 lety

    What a great lecture.

  • @sofiahathaway8024
    @sofiahathaway8024 Před 3 lety +4

    Such a great lecture! Have anyone of you heard of this new book that just came out called, 'Quest for Freedom. An Interview with Quentin Skinner'? I'd really recommend it if you haven't read it yet!

  • @MZF462
    @MZF462 Před 3 lety

    Wonderful lecture.

  • @neotelevisioncritic
    @neotelevisioncritic Před rokem

    Thank you!! (from Brazil)

  • @rosarosa6715
    @rosarosa6715 Před 5 lety +4

    Excellent lecture. Read Quentin on Hobbes.

  • @lindabrantley9123
    @lindabrantley9123 Před 6 lety

    That was very good.

  • @robbyriverside
    @robbyriverside Před 6 lety +4

    Going back to the inspiration for the talk which was to model it after the Genealogy of Morality. In that work, slaves regained some power over themselves by redefining what was good.
    Thus by taking the moral high ground, they eventually forced the ruling class to be subjugated by their slave morality. This end-run strategy gives those without freedom a way of retaliating. So what would happen if you studied freedom, not by what enslaves people, but instead studying how freedom is gained or reacquired. In a sense, it is a more positive way of defining freedom.

    • @DocSeville
      @DocSeville Před 2 lety

      Because being a "victim" is currently very popular.

  • @mikebalis9963
    @mikebalis9963 Před 10 měsíci

    Brilliant

  • @seandilallo8718
    @seandilallo8718 Před 2 lety

    I find this fascinating as a tracking of the decay of ideas parallel to societal decadence.

    • @gonx9906
      @gonx9906 Před 6 měsíci

      What do you mean exactly?

    • @seandilallo8718
      @seandilallo8718 Před 6 měsíci

      @@gonx9906 liberty starts as freedom from tyranny and ends as freedom from hardship and consequences.

    • @gonx9906
      @gonx9906 Před 6 měsíci

      @@seandilallo8718 still not following you, could you be more specific?.

  • @frizider2
    @frizider2 Před 5 lety

    Can someone explain what he means when he says "Foucauldian mood" and the thing about "Exhaustive taxonomy"?

    • @shubh_2733
      @shubh_2733 Před 3 lety

      Same question

    • @abba7672
      @abba7672 Před 3 lety +1

      @@shubh_2733 Read Foulcault's The Order of Things.

  • @ec1385
    @ec1385 Před 5 lety +1

    42:22 Another prominent contemporary theorist who takes this view is Michael Sandel at Harvard.

  • @fedorshinkarenko5229
    @fedorshinkarenko5229 Před 4 lety

    48:42 roman law definition of freedom

  • @nthperson
    @nthperson Před 5 lety +1

    A rather different perspective is offered by the philosopher Mortimer J. Adler in his book, "The Common Sense of Politics." Adler takes pains to distinguish "liberty" from "freedom." He defines liberty as freedom constrained by justice. The difficulty, of course, if reaching a societal consensus over the socio-political arrangements and institutions that hold the promise of a just society.

    • @Robsay01
      @Robsay01 Před 2 lety

      Freedom is pure: do what u please. Liberty is political freedoms: collectively agreed upon freedoms that defines the civic or civil - leading to justice. Political societies come first.

    • @nthperson
      @nthperson Před 2 lety

      @@Robsay01 I'll continue to use Adler's distinction. We might collectively agree to treat quite unjust behavior as acceptable under law. Political societies have done this from ancient times to this very day.

    • @Robsay01
      @Robsay01 Před 2 lety

      @@nthperson 👍

    • @gonx9906
      @gonx9906 Před 6 měsíci

      This doesnt work because in other languages that separation doesnt exist, in spanish for example, you only have one word to say Freedom and it is "Libertad".

    • @nthperson
      @nthperson Před 6 měsíci

      The wonders of the internet. A response to a comment I posted four years ago. Well, at least I am still here to offer something in return. Languages evolve over time. I do not speak Spanish but I have a feeling there is a way to express this distinction. Every society has social norms and formal laws governing behavior. They must have words or phrases that convey when the actions of an individual exceed what is generally accepted as just.@@gonx9906

  • @neogauntlet1008
    @neogauntlet1008 Před 6 lety +2

    48:00 bookmark

  • @tycobrahe7663
    @tycobrahe7663 Před rokem

    13:36 So looks like Hobbes introduced the mind-body dichotomy in political thinking about liberty. Locke got it right - physical force that negates the free-will also negates liberty.

  • @psilow7789
    @psilow7789 Před 21 dnem +1

    There's clever, then there's this guy.

  • @aquilesretamal753
    @aquilesretamal753 Před 3 lety

    alguien sabe porque mis profesores me dejan un video sin subtitulo y en ingles??

  • @neogauntlet1008
    @neogauntlet1008 Před 6 lety +2

    When you got a presentation the night before

  • @pingukutepro
    @pingukutepro Před rokem +1

    If a man living in solidarity in the wild. Does he have liberty? He is subjected to his own survival and depends on the environment or the lion.
    Let alone say: The salvage man is living on the mercy of the mother nature. Therefore he is not free.

  • @marceloluyo658
    @marceloluyo658 Před 9 měsíci

    30:00

  • @pingukutepro
    @pingukutepro Před 2 lety

    1. Hobbes on Liberty.
    2. John Locke on Liberty.
    3. Jeremy Bentham on Liberty.
    4. Isaiah Berlin on Liberty.

  • @pingukutepro
    @pingukutepro Před rokem

    1:17:36 No you are very disappointed at that question Professor.

  • @elizabethstadler2775
    @elizabethstadler2775 Před 2 lety

    Humankind is a very wild Society Humanidade needs medical and to saúde and crente the cure of our brain

  • @davidwilkie9551
    @davidwilkie9551 Před 2 lety

    "Everything is connected", the content of "All is Vibration", and in combination, Actuality, are logarithmic condensation modulation cause-effect Singularity positioning, Quantum Chemistry and Logic.
    The word "Liberty" introduces the concept of relevant proportioning, a case by case analysis of abstractions.

  • @adamday5045
    @adamday5045 Před 6 lety

    So since we all depend on each other we're all slaves... imquentinskinnerandthisisdeep

  • @user-es9qo9hx2r
    @user-es9qo9hx2r Před 3 dny

    Aren't we slaves to our desires (natural human tendencies, DNA) and natural catastrophes? Can we ever be fundamentally free? Are Buddha's teachings the final frontier?

  • @elizabethstadler2775
    @elizabethstadler2775 Před 2 lety

    We are liminar Wilde animais!!!!!!!!

  • @elizabethstadler2775
    @elizabethstadler2775 Před 2 lety

    We need somente we need to cure our brain !!!!!!

  • @Robsay01
    @Robsay01 Před 2 lety

    If I was there. What would Skinner say that freedoms and liberties are not the same? Freedoms are individual and liberties are collective freedoms (I.e., agreed upon as a whole) I’m free to rob people but I violate the freedom and liberty acceptance of others doing so. Political liberties prevent me from succumbing to crimes because of the consequence of laws and punishment. I have the freedom to rob someone but not the liberty. Physical interference is in play here.

    • @gonx9906
      @gonx9906 Před měsícem

      Because other languages only have one word for freedom, not two.

    • @Robsay01
      @Robsay01 Před měsícem

      @@gonx9906 well, that’s their problem.

    • @gonx9906
      @gonx9906 Před měsícem

      @@Robsay01 thats not how it works, lol.

    • @gonx9906
      @gonx9906 Před měsícem

      @@Robsay01 thats not how it works, concepts need to be universal.

    • @Robsay01
      @Robsay01 Před měsícem

      @@gonx9906 Okay. But that’s philosophy. Not the case with political science.

  • @scenFor109
    @scenFor109 Před rokem

    "I like your tie" is a super way for a volunteer to ask, "is that material tie a clip-on or does the rope go all the way around your neck?" Tie and title are linked to the question of what a slave cannot do in the name of an owner:
    1) Can a slave choose how to be addressed? In practical terms, today, it is impossible to choose your legal title.
    2) Today, it is impossible to say that your authority, to life, comes from your real authors, your parents, without being charged with a mania such as drapetomania. There is only one valid, real, legal authority over everyone in the world today - the global *cult* of 'sovereign' bankers with their voluntarily contracted, registered, voters in bankers' militarily enforced Exclusive Economic Zones forced to use a monopoly currency. Or else it's off to a sovereign bank's concentration camp for re-education.
    The owners of people, as chattel, are the owners of the volunteers who answer to colonial titles put in front of their given name. Who here is at liberty to state that their title is not Mister or Miss etc. Who here is at Liberty to say they don't come from and thereby don't belong to a corporate sovereign state?
    Remember, a statement of sovereignty is not secular.
    End Global Apartheid

  • @Glumyy
    @Glumyy Před 6 lety +18

    Who else is here from Reddit?

  • @bradleywilliambusch5198

    I hate this debate because it's a way to ruin simple pleasures someone probably invented for little more than the purposes of ruining someone else's simple pleasures for the purposes of spite, that they then discovered they could profit from it ruined much of civilization and has cursed everyone to only be allowed the reduced essence of everything because it has to be endlessly debated: in this case a wedding ring when it would be much easier to wear a piece of jewelry that accurately signaled how much of a commitment one was looking for so one could find someone else who wanted that same level of it.

  • @nqc1604
    @nqc1604 Před rokem

    I jo ờ không kni koooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  • @nateaggie
    @nateaggie Před 4 lety

    See Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty" and the Non-Aggression Principle.

  • @lawrencebishton9071
    @lawrencebishton9071 Před 2 lety

    sounds like hes got a graphick imagination

  • @mizzomiz
    @mizzomiz Před 6 lety +1

    What's with children? Can't say children are free.
    Then again, we all are children.
    Then again, I don't believe free will exists.
    Still money is the big spoiler I think. Coercing everyone, to not be able enjoy doing something unless they get rewarded with it. Takes away all the curiosity and fun really.

  • @lindabrantley9123
    @lindabrantley9123 Před 6 lety

    I hope his speech has less weasel words than the introductory speaker.