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AN EXAMINATION ON FREE, FREEDOM AND LIBERTY AS ROOT
USAGES OF NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND POSITIVE FREEDOM
-What can be said about the conceptual analysis and etymology of free,
freedom and liberty?-
MUHAMMET ENES KALA*
Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University
ABSTRACT
Freedom is one of the central values for human life. The paper has tried to examine the
etymological roots of the words indicating freedom and liberty in a number of Indo-European
languages and investigate the inuences of etymological roots of these words on the conceptual
usages. Furthermore, two appearing concepts, namely, negative freedom and positive freedom
shall be traced on the extension of words, namely freedom and liberty. The essay will assert that
while the word of liberty, which is used in English, has implied the concept of negative freedom
within the framework of etymological root and the scope of usage, the word of freedom has
pointed at the concept of positive freedom from the point of view of the etymological root and the
scope of usage.
Keywords: Freedom as a term, liberty, negative freedom, positive freedom
NEGATİF VE POZİTİF ÖZGÜRLÜĞÜN KÖK KULLANIMLARI OLARAK
HÜR, HÜRRIYET VE ÖZGÜRLÜK ÜZERINE BIR SORUŞTURMA
-Hür, Hürriyet ve Özgürlük kelimelerinin etimolojileri ve kavramsal
analizleri hakkında ne söylenebilir?-
ÖZ
Özgürlük insan hayatının merkezinde olan değerlerdendir. Çalışmamız Hint-Avrupa dil ailesi
içerisinde yer alan bazı dillerde özgürlük kavramını karşılayan kelimelerin etimolojik kökenlerini
incelemeye, ardından etimolojik kökenlerinin onların kavramsal kullanımlarına olan etkisini
araştırmaya çalışmaktadır. Ayrıca etüdümüzde özgürlük kavramını karşılayan kelimelerin
etimolojik uzanımlarından hareketle negatif özgürlük ve pozitif özgürlük şeklinde karşımıza çıkan
kavramlarının izleri sürülecektir. Makalemiz, İngilizcede kullanılan ve özgürlüğü karşılayan “liberty”
sözcüğünün etimolojik kökeni ve kullanım kapsamı çerçevesinde daha sonradan belirecek olan
“negatif özgürlük kavramını ima ettiğini, hürriyeti karşılayan “freedom” kelimesinin ise etimolojik
kökeni ve kullanım kapsamı itibarıyla “pozitif özgürlük” kavramına işaret ettiğini iddia edecektir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Hürriyet kavramı, özgürlük kavramı, negatif özgürlük, pozitif özgürlük
* Asst. Prof., Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Department of Philosophy, mekala@ybu.edu.tr
Başvuru/Submission: 11.11.2017
Kabul/Acceptance: 04.04.2018
(Araştırma Makalesi)
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ADAM AKADEMİ, 8/1 2018:81-93
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AN EXAMINATION ON FREE, FREEDOM AND LIBERTY AS ROOT USAGES OF NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND
POSITIVE FREEDOM
INTRODUCTION
Language is one of the most prosperous sources of humanity. By aid of
it, human being conveys what adds to nature, one constructs and improves
civilization and people can understand the level of culture with reference
to the level and fertility of language. English is a language which has a long
history and conveys productive conceptions and fruitful notions which bear
abundant thoughts. These concepts and notions could be said to form bricks
of the cultures and the intellectual improvements as well. As a further point,
it should be mentioned that thinkers and litterateurs are decent and humble
workers of it. Just as improving concepts are vital for cultures and intellec-
tual development, so history of words which implies the concepts is crucial
for them.
In this article, what would be liked to do is to comment on three concepts
and their backgrounds which belong to Indo-European languages. The words
will be adjective form, free and its noun form, freedom and also the word
which can be used instead of freedom, liberty. What our thesis is that when we
think the concepts freedom and liberty, they may be etymologically used in-
stead of positive freedom and negative freedom, while the concept of freedom
implies positive freedom, the concept of liberty implies negative freedom.
First of all, it should be mentioned that the piece will not include all us-
ages of these words in all Indo-European language family and also it will not
cover all explanations about positive freedom and negative freedom, and all
thoughts of the philosophers such as Isaiah Berlin, Benjamin Constant who
have ideas on negative freedom and positive freedom. So it has been cho-
sen a number of languages within Indo-European language family, namely,
Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Gothic, English, French, Italian, and German. The
paper shall concentrate on the usages of negative and positive freedoms, and
after having given the etymological details, the essay will allege that the roots
of freedom and liberty imply etymologically main meanings of negative and
positive freedoms. In my piece, firstly on free and freedom will be focused,
in the second section on liberty, the third and last section tries to investigate
whether the usage of freedom and liberty may be met with the meaning of
negative and positive freedoms.
FREE AND FREEDOM
Freedom is something more than a word or an indicator, but is one of
the key philosophical concepts. As a philosophical concept, it is a terrain on
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which battles are fought and philosophers passionately discuss issues such as
determinism and the character of free will, positive and negative freedoms
and so forth. A quick reflection on philosophical writings about freedom
reveals the enormous variety of approaches to the meaning of liberty and the
wide range of competing conceptions of liberty that are set forth by philos-
ophers.
Freedom is the noun form of free, which literally means “not in bondage
or subject to control from outside” (Onions, 1966:375). But the background
of this word should be operated on to understand from where it stems. As
having been mentioned, we can use freedom and liberty in the same sense,
despite fact that they have the different background implying their primi-
tive meanings. After reminding this point, it can be moved on to free and
freedom to explain their historical and linguistic construction and develop-
ment. “The earliest known written symbol for them is a Sumerian cunei-
form word “ama-gi” (Hruby, 2007). Another earliest form of these words
can be coincided with in Greek, “eleutheros” meaning free, but not be a
slave. Xenophanes gives an example about the usage of word in his pieces by
thinking two communities are eleutheros ape (free from) one another (Lewis,
1990:111). Eleutheros could be used to imply -belonging to one`s own people
as opposed to slaves who were captured from other groups (Mallory-Adams,
1997:416-417). This Greek word was emphasized on socially rather than
individually. *Leutho- as root, was favoured the transition to the sense of
people, “eleuthero” could be expressed as its adjective form which designat-
ed those who belonged to the same ethnic group (Benveniste, 1973:264).
The same form may be found in voice in Hitt by `awara` meaning free
but this word is more related to freedom and liberty (Gamkrelidze-Ivanov,
1995:397). Another form of these words emerges in Sanskrit with `svadhi-
na` standing for peculiarity, custom (Buck, 1949:1337) but this Sanskrit
word meets free in Indo European language as well.
To remind, up to present, the earliest forms have been attempted to pres-
ent, but it should not be forgotten that all these points which have been giv-
en are valid for liberty too. In other words, ama-gi, eleutheros, awa-ra, svadhina
fulfil the meaning of liberty as well. Basically and generally both freedom
and liberty were used to as not be a slave in the past. Separation emerges
with Latin word, liber. But these points will be given in the second section.
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POSITIVE FREEDOM
Now let us have a closer look at the concepts of free and freedom and
their background. Free and freedom are Anglo Saxon words which are root-
ed in Old and New English as frē and free in Gothic as frijōn which means
dear or to love and in Old and New German as friend, freî (Buck, 1949:1336).
Also, the word which is in Sanskrit, prìya, means to beloved, (Picturesque
Word origins, 1933:64) as well as Gothic friyon (Lehmann, 1986:127-139).
As a further point, Winfred Lehmann mentions considerations on freihals
which means free neck in Gothic. According to him “one who is possessor
of his own neck as opposed to slave who is the property of his master.” (Le-
hmann, 1986:234-235). The meaning implies that slave is not free briefly
because his/her neck is not the under of him/herself. However, this con-
sideration also implies that one is free whenever he/she has control of his/
herself. But this control can be understood by staying within the limitation,
otherwise no one can feel his/herself unfree. So freedom can be lived within
a particular determined area. The key point is by whom the determined area
is established. If it is put by one’s own, then within the limitation people
shall live and feel freedom.
As stated before, German frei and English free can be described the genesis
of a word having become synonymous with Greek eleutheros but these terms
evolved along quite different lines, by and by, notions became to relate to the
society and not isolated individual (Benveniste, 1973:265).
As we have mentioned, freedom is the noun form of free. When looked
at the forms in the different languages within Indo-European group, free-
dom can be seen as being represented with “freitheit” in German, with
“frank” in Breton and with “freols” in Old English (Buck, 1949:1336) fur-
thermore freedom seems a sister word with “friend” by implying -to love
and to beloved- as we have stated above. In Old English freond is the same
root as friend as a lover. So, in that way, it can be said that the original mean-
ing of freedom was a sense of affection which belonged to the members of
a free family excluding their slaves. (Lewis,1990:114 and Mallory-Adams,
1997:416-417). In a family, all members of family except of slave are friends
of each other, all of them are both loved and beloved by one another. Within
this context slaves are out of the picture. In these thoughts, as far as we have
seen, free and freedom have been used to mean higher social status against
slavery. It is also implied that people would be free only if they belonged to a
society as a member (Mallory Adams, 1997:416-417). In this case, freedom
was used to mean a higher social status than being a slave. The free man
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MUHAMMET ENES KALA
was understood not to be a slave in a society but rather to be a member of a
family or a society. By slavery, what we mean may be bodily slavery, spiritual
slavery etc. to quote Berlin: “I am my own master… may I not be a slave to
nature? Or to my own unbridled passions? Are these not so many species of
the identical genus “slave”-some political or legal, others moral or spiritual?”
(Berlin, 2002:179).
Since the slaves would not belong to free class, so free and freedom (in
order to indicate a social status) would be understood by reference to the
slavery. Because actually, the historical meaning of freedom-liberty was
evaluated on the ground of a point saying that people were either free or
slave (Benveniste, 1973:262). So, this sense may be related to these consid-
erations “The members of the family were the loved ones, as we still call
them, the free as distinct from the slaves. So, the word free, “beloved”, came
to mean not slave, but free in our modern sense.” (Picturesque word origins,
1933:64).
This point seems a little hollow notwithstanding clarifying social status.
Since slaves inevitably cannot gain freedom although their spirits could still
be free. So the meaning does not make sense sufficiently. But we also have
coincided with an expression which expands the limited considerations.
“Live in slavery with the spirit of freeman (eleutheros) and you will be no
slave.” (Lewis, 1990:112). By this consideration, the meaning of freedom
has been widened in true way. In this case however, slavery still remained
by changing its form, their bodily slavery does not mean that they cannot
become free as long as they are free with their spirits. This meaning seems
much sufficient and sound. The developing of words in the same tradition
can be seen through these considerations. We might meet some examples of
this thought while reading Hegelian Master-Slave Dialectic especially in the
light of Alexandre Kojeve`s book, called Introduction to Reading of Hegel.
Perhaps it can be explained what we have meant by above paragraph.
Freedom and free actually are not like the notions which are fixed and de-
finable exactly, such as physical realities and mathematical values. Because
freedom belongs to sentimental area like love, feeling, desire etc. So, it might
be said that human being is free as much as he/she feels. They can recognise
to be free whenever encountering an obstacle which prevents them from
what they want to do (Öner, 2015:75). In that time, they feel not to be free.
So as far as being signed, freedom could be understood by referring not to be
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AN EXAMINATION ON FREE, FREEDOM AND LIBERTY AS ROOT USAGES OF NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND
POSITIVE FREEDOM
a slave and not to be restrained. By slavery what we mean may be discussed,
bodily slavery, spiritual slavery etc. The points are not focused on owing to
limitations.
It is a need to remind that the social meaning of freedom was crucial
to ancient societies: becoming free meant to be a member of the society
and to participate in political life, from which slaves were excluded. That
is why Benjamin Constant puts forth the distinction between the liberty of
the ancients and the liberty of the moderns. While the former is a matter of
participation in the collective political life, so it is close to positive freedom
I would like to prefer using freedom implying positive freedom, the latter
emphasises the peaceful independence and individual freedom, so it is close
to negative freedom but I would suggest to use “liberty” implying negative
freedom. It will be returned in the next title.
Freedom is considered with its legal and social meaning as well. In this
case, freedom is merely meaningful on condition that is located in a society.
“Freedom is a sociological concept. It is meaningless to apply it to conditions
outside society…” (Mises, 1936:191). Secondly, after having focused on the
basic, legal and social meanings of freedom, we can move on cosmological
(if we can say ontological) meaning of free-freedom with reference to Aris-
totle. As he accepted the basic meanings of freedom/liberty which we have
mentioned, furthermore he attempted to expand the basic semantic sphere
of freedom by thinking that freedom might have implied to the leisure time
for intellectual things by playing piano or by using library (Lewis, 1990:126).
Because it is known that Aristotle paid attention to the distinct feature of
human being, namely reason, so human beings enjoyed exercising their in-
tellects, (Hooft, 2006:54) but by explaining this, he made contact with free-
dom. Most importantly, Aristotle implied cosmological meaning of freedom
by applying to universal order and his “Unmoved Mover” consideration.
Lewis cites his own thoughts from Aristotle’s Metaphysics “In Metaphysics, we
learn that the organisation of the universe resembles that of a household, in
which no one has so little chance to act at random as the free members. For
them everything or almost everything proceeds according to a fixed plan,
whereas the slaves and domestic animals contribute little to the common
end and act mostly at random.” (Lewis, 1990:127-128). As being seen, Ar-
istotle not only protected the actual background which concealed the basic
concepts of freedom but also expanded it by referring cosmological theme.
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Freedom is also a dynamic and an uncontrolled concept rather than static
and controlled one. “Inevitably there are dozens of versions of freedom as a
supreme political virtue.” (Robertson, 1985:134). What I mean is that a man,
an observer of historical progression, can roughly understand three types of
understanding of freedom as political implication. As seen, historically the
first one has not been a notion indicating any individual aspects, but a notion
revealing rather a collectivist sense going back to Ancient Athens. Secondly,
with the rise of the economic bourgeoisie, the demands of bourgeoisies for
equal political rights and economic laissez-faire against the feudal aristocra-
cies began to be felt. But this transformation is not sufficient for securing
individual freedom, briefly because the transformation of the meaning of
freedom is merely an outer transformation; in other words, the domination
by one kind of minority (feudal lords) was replaced with domination by
another kind of minority, the bourgeoisie. Thirdly, with the modernity, the
demands of the bourgeoisies, and especially intellectuals, started to change
accounts of freedom into accounts of individual freedom in the sense of civil
liberties. Demands for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of
press etc. began to crystallize (Robertson, 1985:134-135). So we can see the
change and transformation of the meaning of freedom, it means that the
transformations indicate to separation from freedom to liberty, from posi-
tive freedom to negative freedom, from freedom which can be understood
within a society and within limitation to freedom which is demanded for
individual for him/herself. We encounter three main camps by appearing in
a historical progression in the political arena, which started from a collec-
tivist sense of freedom and arrived at one generally stressing individual and
liberal dimensions. Yet, the importance of both senses of freedom is stressed
in contemporary discussions (Kala, 2009:8-10).
LIBERTY
To recast that liberty implies the same meaning with freedom, despite
the fact that it longs slightly different background. Liberty is rooted in eleuth-
eros, svadhina, arawa, amagi as well as free-freedom. Liberty is met lîber in Lat-
in, lîbera in Italian, libre in France and Spain. While freedom is Anglo-Saxon
word, liberty is basically French word inherited from the Romans (as Latin
word) and it also has Latin root meaning to do what you want to do and to
do your own thing (Hornback, 2004). We encounter with this word in Eng-
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AN EXAMINATION ON FREE, FREEDOM AND LIBERTY AS ROOT USAGES OF NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND
POSITIVE FREEDOM
lish as well “That vast theoretical terms like liberty, equality and fraternity
should be borrowed by England from France.” (Barfield, 1926:67).
In Latin lîber base is ultimately connected to the meaning growth (Gam-
krelidze-Ivanov, 1995:398), just as free is concerned with dear and to love-to
beloved in Greek and Gothic. Furthermore in Latin lîberi means “children”
(those who are growing) as biological meaning rather than social meaning
whereas when being talked about freedom, it has been said that children are
free as long as they are born in free society and since they are a member of a
society. But lîberi conveys the meanings both as growing of children and also
their membership to a household. “Lîberi-children, the free members of a
household.” (Onions, 1966:376). It can be seen that despite fact that free-
dom and liberty overlap each other in their basic meaning, they have actually
different background. This point should not be overlooked.
Liberty as the synonym of freedom has been used strongly to indicate so-
cial ground. It has been commented on the social context. Especially its back-
ground has been very appropriate to deduce this type of conclusion. So this
frame has been frequently discussed in the political philosophy. For instance
Benjamin Constant divided liberty into two categories, namely the liberty of
ancients and the liberty of the moderns. While the former has laid stress on
social sense of liberty, the latter has emphasised individual meaning (Hey-
wood, 1999:255). But it has been emphasized that the concept of liberty has
come into question with the modern times. When human being has started
to become individual being, by extracting or removing himself/herself from
society, he/she has seemed to use the concept of liberty rather than freedom
in order to explain his/her new status in the society. As considered, the con-
cept of freedom is understood within the context of society or the higher and
lower selves of person, but the liberty may seem to make sense without any
context of society, furthermore the concept of liberty underlines the new in-
dividual status of person and the lack of constraint in the modern ages. Also,
Isaiah Berlin’s distinction and conceptions on freedom, namely negative and
positive freedom, are so historic for political philosophy.
NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND POSITIVE FREEDOM
The distinction between negative and positive freedoms is one of the
most important elements in the history of the theory of liberty. This distinc-
tion has been emphasised by Berlin who says “I realized that they differed,
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MUHAMMET ENES KALA
that they were answers to two different questions; but although cognate,
they did not in my view clash- the answer to one did not necessarily deter-
mine the answer to the other. Both freedoms were ultimate human ends,
both were necessarily limited, both concepts could be perverted into course
of human history.” (Berlin, 2002:326-327). He distinguishes between pos-
itive and negative freedom by saying that “negative freedom is involved in
the answer to the question: what is the area within which the subject is, or
should be, left free to do or be whatever he is able to do or be, without in-
terference by other persons?... Positive freedom is involved in the answer to
the question; what or who is the source of control or interference that can
determine someone to do or be this rather than that?” (Berlin,2002:169).
“Positive freedom is often associated with overcoming internal as well as
external obstacles to freedom.” (Hailwood, 1996:65) whereas negative free-
dom is generally concerned with an absence of restraints upon freedom of
choices and acts.
Stressing what is to become the negative theory of freedom, Constant
proclaims the fundamental importance of that part of life which should re-
main personal and independent, and over which all sovereignty should be
limited (Rousseau, 1988:214). The main presupposition of negative liberty
is that everyone knows his own life project, that therefore neither the state
nor any other body should decide their ends and purposes for them (Barry,
1989:216-217). Berlin declares that “by being free in this (negative) sense I
mean not being interfered with by others.” (Berlin, 2002:170). Berlin implies
that individuals have no metaphysical basis for their decisions other than
what they themselves necessarily need, believe, do or refrain from doing, in
the light of their own life projects. Therefore, they should be left alone to get
on with their own life projects without being impeded by others on the basis
of any supposed reason or common good (Berlin, 2002:174-175).
Negative freedom is a space, even it is small, in which people can do
whatever they may wish whether useful or useless, in accordance with their
desires and choices (Berlin,2000:182) The idea of freedom must leave a
room for acting in ways that may not be rational and desirable as long as they
do not pose any threat to others. It may be claimed that an individual has
the right to choose the kind of life he prefers. But a question comes to mind
whether this may apply to everyone. If the individual is ignorant, immature,
uneducated, mentally crippled, it means that he cannot know how to do or
choose (Kala, 2009:31).
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POSITIVE FREEDOM
We can give an example, if parents compel unwilling children to go to
school or to work hard or give medicine to a child who is really ill, in the
name of what those children must really want, even though they may not
know it. These problematic issues indicate us that liberty needs to be limited
and should be favour of human being. It is acceptable to suggest that every-
one has a right to whatever he/she wants to do as long as they do not pose
any threat to others, but liberty should be limited and considered whether
the actions which are put forth by human being is really beneficent and good
for him/her. So, such a person should be prevented from doing what he
may want, because he might harm people around them, or himself, or it is
clear that he could greatly benefit from being prevented from doing what he
may want. One may criticise the theory of negative freedom by arguing that
the merely negative account of liberty as absence of constraint gives no clue
as to how man can use his liberty more effectively. Insofar as negative liberty
is merely addresses the immediate hand human-made constraints against
human freedom, it seems insufficient. It seems to ignore internal constraints
such as fear and ignorance, and more general external restraints such as nat-
ural disasters and poverty (Kala, 2009:31-32).
Positive freedom suggests that man is positively free to the extent he pu-
rifies himself in terms of reason, by eliminating passion and all kinds of
irrationality in the light of self-mastery (Berlin, 2002:179-180). It would be
claimed that one may observe four different meanings in different frequen-
cy in order to point out positive freedom. A. Positive capacity as opposed
to lack of external constraints B. Rational self-control or higher self as op-
posed to impulsion by appetite, desires or lower self C. Collective self-rule
as opposed to being ruled by others(Miller,1991:13) and Andrian Blau adds
a fourth: D. “Doing what one should want as opposed to doing what one
does want.” (Blau, 2004:548). Especially the distinction between higher and
lower selves plays a significant role in comprehending the second and third
meanings of positive freedom. Rousseau puts forward a theory of what is
commonly called moral freedom in book V of Emile. According to him,
man only is truly free when he is master of himself, not the slave of his own
passions, and only then can he freely participate in the political process. In
this sense only the virtuous man is free to achieve what his rational-self
wants (Hall, 1973:69).
One may argue that human passions and appetitive desires derive from
the body, which is a part of the physical world. Hence, when man acts mere-
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MUHAMMET ENES KALA
ly according to appetitive desires or from any force which is a part of the
material and deterministic world, the behaviours of that man do not possess
any specifically moral quality. It may be accepted as normal for natural man
isolated from a society to behave in accordance with pity and passion, for
his ability to use reason is not developed effectively. But it is abnormal for
the civilised man within a society and who is actualized and functionalized
his all ability by interacting with other people, to conduct himself merely in
accordance with passion and blind desires, briefly because he possesses the
complete ability to use reason along with desire and passion, and thus he has
the ability to control his lower self under the auspices of his higher self. So,
he has to control the lower self and in order to realize true freedom, it means
positive freedom (Kala, 2009:33-34).
Positive freedom can also be considered within the context of a society.
As recognized above, person may limit himself/herself by realizing lower
and higher selves. Positive freedom would be understood and even lived in
the limitation, because the persons are free only if they are within the limi-
tations. From where these limitations can be come? People may limit them-
selves in favour of their higher selves and they live their freedoms within
these limitations. People also may be limited in favour of common good of
the society in which they recognize themselves with aid of the social roles.
They live their freedom within these constraints of society. This meaning of
freedom can be understood by the concept of positive freedom.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, what we have done is to comment on three concepts and
their backgrounds which belong to Indo-European languages. The words
have been adjective form, free and its noun form, freedom and also the word
which can be used instead of freedom, liberty. What our thesis has been that
when we think the concepts freedom and liberty, they may be etymological-
ly used instead of positive freedom and negative freedom, while the concept
of freedom implies positive freedom, the concept of liberty implies negative
freedom. The essay has alleged that the roots of freedom and liberty imply
etymologically main meanings of negative and positive freedoms. In the
piece, firstly on free and freedom have been focused, in the second section
on liberty, the third and last section has tried to investigate whether the us-
age of freedom and liberty would be met with the meaning of negative and
positive freedoms.
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AN EXAMINATION ON FREE, FREEDOM AND LIBERTY AS ROOT USAGES OF NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND
POSITIVE FREEDOM
In the paper, the etymological roots of the words of freedom and liberty
in the languages belonging to Indo-European language family. It has been
considered in the examination by the word of freedom that it may be under-
stood in the context of sociality, so the extension of the scope of freedom is
weak for individuality and human being can live his/her freedom only with-
in the place which is given to him/her. In the meantime, it has been claimed
that freedom presents the classical meaning on the separation of classics and
modern, freedom also conveys an implication that the meaning of freedom
may not be without the context of society with reference to social roles of
individual. Eventually, it has been alleged that the meaning of the word of
freedom has been emerged on the dominance of higher self rather than low-
er self after the separation of higher and lower selves, and that freedom is
appeared in the point of when human being does not choose whatever he/
she wants to do, rather does choose whatever he/she wants to do. Higher self
leads person to choose not to do whatever he/she wants. The word of liberty
in return of freedom gets to the centre individual rather than society. Liberty
generally has Latin root meaning to do what you want to do and to do your
own thing. In this sense, the preference of the usage of liberty can be under-
stood with a meaning which points at the request of person escaping from
all bonds of tradition, religious structures and all limitations which restrain
him/her with modernization. So it has been emphasized that the concept of
liberty has come into question with the modern times. When human being
has started to become individual being, by extracting or removing himself/
herself from society, he/she has seemed to use the concept of liberty rather
than freedom in order to explain his/her new status in the society. As con-
sidered, the concept of freedom is understood within the context of society
or the higher and lower selves of person, but the liberty may seem to make
sense without any context of society, furthermore the concept of liberty un-
derlines the new individual status of person and the lack of constraint in the
modern ages.
After all these sayings, it may be thought that positive freedom would
actually be an extension of the word of freedom with reference to classical
meaning and the view of considering freedom meaningful in this context. In
addition to this, it may be said that negative freedom would be an extension
of the word of liberty with reference to modern usage and the view of put-
ting forward individuality by explaining that liberty of person can be shaped
by aid of his/her own wishes.
93
MUHAMMET ENES KALA
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