La trama della libertà

The discussion on freedom and responsibility inaugurates and qualifies the very adventure of philosophy. From the beginnings of the philosophical logos to the pre- sent day, freedom has always remained at the centre of philosophical reflection, in the continuous dialectic of the opposing fronts, the affirmative and the negative, with all the variants and countless positions in between. In recent decades, interest in the subject of free will has particularly intensified, especially in Anglo-Saxon circles, also in comparison with the contributions made by the cognitive sciences. The essay traces the plot of the theme ‘freedom’ in the light of three questions: the first, on the relationship between human and non-human living beings; the second, on how effective freedom should be understood; the third, on the relationship between being and becoming free.