What is Freedom?

Freedom has become

perhaps the most central value in current political debate. America,

for example, promises ‘freedom to the Iraqi

people’. But what exactly is the content of this promise?

The lecture tries to clarify what is involved in invoking freedom as a

justification.

Quentin Skinner is Regius Professor

of Modern History and a Fellow of Christ’s College. His

interests lie in the intellectual history of early-modern Europe, and

he specialises in the Renaissance and in seventeenth-century political

philosophy - in particular the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, on

which he has published two books and numerous articles.