Gaining Personal Freedom as Metanoia in the Сoncepts of D. Cooper and R. Laing

Abstract

In the report, the author raises the problem of personal freedom, referring to the concept of metanoia by R. Laing and D. Cooper. On the basis of Laing's ideas, the understanding of freedom is conceptualized as the acquisition of a true "I" through the experience of mental illness, which was introduced into the field of philosophical comprehension. Using the example of Cooper's metanoia scheme, the transition from the state of alienation and adaptation to free self-realization as from unreasonableness to sanity is considered. The author raises the question about the criteria of norm and pathology in the course of realization of personal freedom. The urgency of the further development of Laing's and Cooper's ideas in the aspect of the possibility of implementing existential metanoia in the modern socio-cultural context is substantiated.