Episode
This book provides a thorough exploration of Martin Heidegger’s distinctive understanding of freedom, examining how it departs fundamentally from traditional metaphysical conceptions rooted in causality. Heidegger’s conception positions freedom not merely as the absence of constraints or the capacity to choose among alternatives, but rather as an existential phenomenon intimately bound up with the structures of human existence itself. Drawing deeply on Heidegger’s key texts, the analysis reveals freedom as fundamentally tied to authenticity, possibility, and the temporal unfolding of Being.
By disentangling Heidegger’s notion of freedom from the conventional binaries of determinism and free will, the book illustrates how Heidegger locates freedom in the existentiality of Dasein, its destiny as the ultimate ground of all of its meaning and being as the abyssal locus of guilt. Crucially, freedom emerges as the condition that enables meaningful existence and genuine engagement with the world, thereby redefining human agency beyond mere cause and effect. Further, the volume argues against the consensus that Heidegger’s writings on freedom from 1927-1930 offer multiple changing conceptions of freedom, demonstrating instead that these writings work together to clarify and elaborate one unified conception of freedom.
Biography:
Matthew J. Barnard is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University and serves on the Executive Committee of the British Society for Phenomenology, as well as founder and editor of their podcast. His primary research has focused on Kant, Bergson, and Heidegger, culminating in his recent book, Heidegger’s Conception of Freedom: Beyond Cause and Effect (Palgrave, 2024). He is currently developing work on two new projects: the role and implications of generative AI in higher education, and the philosophical contributions of traditionally excluded early modern women philosophers.
Respondent Biography
Felix Ó Murchadha – I am Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Galway. My research and teaching is informed by Phenomenological Philosophy, but ranges over such areas as Philosophy of Religion, Philosophical Anthropology, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of art and Metaphysics, as well as the History of Modern Philosophy. In addition to my work on Heidegger, I have published on Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, Levinas and Marion. 17 PhD students have completed theses under my supervision in Ireland and I have also taught undergraduates in Canada, Germany and the US. Currently, I am the President of the Irish Philosophical Society and am Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion at NUI, Galway.
Further Information
This recording is taken from our Annual Conference 2025 – Lifeworlds in Crisis: Applying Phenomenology. This was a Joint international conference convened with University College Dublin’s School of Philosophy, Centre for Ethics in Public Life, School of Law, and ERC Coercive In/Justice (GENCOERCTRL) project, and held in-person at Dublin 27 – 29 August 2025.