Abstract

Freedom is a perennial topic of philosophy. It is also one of themost puzzling. Regarding it, we are tempted to say with Augustine, “I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me.” 1 We can all sense its presence.We use the word constantly, yet an account of it seems to elude us.My purpose in this paper is to see if phenomenology can provide such an account, one that includes in its description the features philosophers ascribe to freedom. I will have recourse to a number of Husserl’s positions. Although never brought together by Husserl to describe freedom, their presence makes the account a phenomenological and, in a broad sense, a Husserlian one.