Abstract for Lecture 1.
What is freedom? This question has been a topic of debate from ancient Greece to the present. In this first lecture, we will discuss the question of free will. To what extent are human beings free do to what they want to do? Or should we think about human beings as automatons, whose every move is determined by external factors such as divine providence, or their DNA?
Short bio of the speaker:
Annelien de Dijn is a prize-winning author and historian. Her book Freedom: An Unruly History traces the different meanings of freedom from Herodotus to the present and was awarded with the 2021 PROSE Prize in Philosophy by the American Association of Publishers. She is also the author of French Political Thought from Montesquieu to Tocqueville, published with Cambridge University Press in 2008 and translated into Chinese by Sun Yat-sen University Press in 2018. She holds the Chair in Political History at Utrecht University.
Maria Dimou