I have kept putting off writing about this subject. One reason for the delay is that this subject is one of the most controversial issues of philosophy, and the question is still open. The other reason is that this is one of my favorite subjects, which I could chatter about too much, and I want to avoid this. With a heavy heart but for the sake of brevity, I am not going to quote the relevant works of my favorite writers a lot, I'm not going to outline the extensive literature on this subject, and I will not even list the most heterogeneous opinions belonging to this problem. I will solely summarize my own view on this object.
I do not deal with the legal, social aspects of freedom, i.e. how much freedom societies give their members or withhold from them. This is an interesting and very current topic, and I will write about this in another article. Based on my own opinion, I solely want to elucidate the philosophical concept of freedom. In this sense, the notion of freedom and free will is closely connected to the concept of the determinism.
1. External and internal freedom
I distinguish external freedom from internal freedom in the sense that we may make a choice between different actions or only between the different manners of actions. Using Epictetus’1 "dramatic" metaphor, external freedom is the possibility of choice when I can also define the "scenario" of the action, and internal freedom is when as an actor I can only choose the manner of the drama.
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1 Epictetus believed only in the internal freedom: “Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it. If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one. If it is his pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally. For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another's.” (Epictetus, The Enchiridion/17)
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