Celebrating Freethinkers Day (extended 30/01/22)

Happy Freethinkers Day! As a Freethinker Philosopher, I thought I'd discuss this holiday today and what it means to be a Freethinker. 

The long-standing symbol for freethinkers is the pansy because, when the emblem was created, it reminded people of a person with their head bowed down, deep in thought. Later, pansies started to have offensive connotations for some people but this was not the original intention of this symbol so we must not erroneously mentally associate this with the positive meaning of the pansy flower for Freethinkers. 

Freethinkers celebrate this day in honour of the 18th century freethinker, philosopher and political activist Thomas Paine. It was later made into a public holiday in the US. There is a statue of him in his hometown, Thetford, UK. Early in the 21st century, a BBC nationwide poll nominated Paine 34th in the top 100 greatest Brits.

Freethinker is an umbrella term for, as the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries aptly puts it, a "person who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching". Freethinkers reject arbitrary authority, think for themselves, engage critical thinking, think outside the box, and reject conformity for its own sake. 

Freethinkers will also concurrently belong to other schools of thought that do not amount to freethinking in themselves but are compatible with it, for instance, Secularism, Humanism, Agnosticism, Atheism, Deism and so on. Freethinkers can hold a variety of combinations of beliefs, and their individual approach to freethinking will make them different types of Freethinkers. For instance, Thomas Paine was a Freethinker and a Deist whereas Bertrand Russell, although a Freethinker, was a philosophical Agnostic about the Christian God and Greek gods and sometimes referred to himself as an atheist in the popularistic sense of the word. 

Freethinkers Day was first especially celebrated by Secularists, whether they were Freethinkers or not, in New York in the middle of the 19th century. It was later made into a public holiday in the USA and is especially popular with various non-religious groups, despite the 29th of January being chosen to honour Paine, who was religious in the sense that he believed in a one God. However, Paine expounded many important ideas which inspire us, such as, the value of religion being personal rather than institutional which Spinoza thought as well and is, I think, evidence that he continued practising his Judaism despite not being able to attend his synagogue. 

For more on Spinoza as a Freethinker, see my post on my Spinoza blog (29.01.22).

For Paine, our mind is the place of worship, not a church. He criticises institutional religion as constituting a system devised by humans that overfocuses on power, control and making money. This especially resonates with Secularists and Humanists which is one of the reasons this holiday is popular with them. However, I think it is important to realise that Freethinkers are not all the same. It's a general term to refer to people who also hold a variety of other beliefs and how their beliefs combine will make them all distinct from each other as freethinkers. Nevertheless, all freethinkers, whether religious in some way or not, put reason before religious faith, irrespective of whether they believe in God or a god of some description or not. 

Another reason why it helps to be aware of the strands within the different types of Freethinkers is when, like me, a philosopher discusses various past philosophers within the History of Philosophy while also having their own personal system of philosophy or outlook. In other words, I'm attracted to freethinkers in the History of Philosophy and see all the past philosophers I research as being freethinkers. This is an important characteristic I seek in a philosopher past or present, and one that applies to 17th century Spinoza and Cavendish; 18th century Shepherd, J Bentham, Hume and de Grouchy; 19th century J S Mill and Harriet Mill, Karl and Eleanor Marx;  20th century Arendt and Foucault. However, they are all different types of Freethinkers so one should not expect them to be identical to one another, hence, when interpreting their writings it's helpful to bear this in mind. Nevertheless, parallels can be drawn between them. 

In addition, readers should not conflate the past freethinker philosophers with my own, personal approach to being a Freethinker and a Philosopher. I am a polymath who draws on a huge range of academic, non-academic and creative fields. I also belong to many schools of thought which, although seemingly disparate, cohere together. Thus, I combine my concepts and ideas in a different way from the past philosophers I research. I interpret past philosophers as objectively as I can, in accordance with their particular writings and views, without imposing my own stance onto them. I juggle my diverse yet cohesive beliefs, concepts, and arguments because, as a Freethinker, I critically form my own ideas based on reason, rather than merely unquestioningly following traditions, authority, precepts, doctrines, or dogmas set out by any religion or school of thought. 

None of this is news to either Susan James or A C Grayling both of whom received emails from me back in 2010 which outlined who I was, what my background, upbringing was, my Agnostic/Sceptic beliefs together with my Secularist, Humanist outlook. However, to put this into the context of my background and upbringing, see my mother's post on her blog.