(Un)certainty in the discourse on freedom: Can I and do I want to decide for myself?

The chapter examines the relationship between freedom and uncertainty, presenting freedom as a fundamental human desire connected with the search for meaning and the pursuit of self-determination. The analysis begins with Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between negative liberty, understood as freedom from external interference, and positive liberty, which concerns the ability to direct one’s own life and realise one’s authentic self. These concepts are considered alongside Erich Fromm’s account of the mechanisms of escape from freedom: authoritarian dependence, destructiveness, and conformity. Freedom thus emerges as a source of solitude, responsibility, the risk of error, and uncertainty about the consequences of one’s decisions. A further perspective is provided by Søren Kierkegaard’s thought, particularly his conception of the aesthetic, ethical, and religious stages of existence. From this viewpoint, uncertainty and anxiety are not incidental limitations of freedom but conditions of authentic choice, self-knowledge, and faith. The tension between freedom and uncertainty is most fully revealed in the religious “leap of faith,” in which an individual makes a fundamental decision without any guarantee of its correctness. The concluding discussion refers to the thought of John Paul II, according to whom freedom is both a gift and a task that requires continual struggle. Renouncing freedom may temporarily alleviate anxiety and the burden of responsibility, but it ultimately leads to the loss of personal agency, whereas accepting ineradicable uncertainty makes it possible to shape one’s life consciously.