TRUTH AS A RELIGIOUS DETERMINANT OF FREEDOM IN THE LIBERAL THEORY OF LORD ACTON

Abstract

"Nobody has ever doubted that truth and politics are in quite a poor relationship, and nobody, as far as I know, has ever counted truthfulness among political virtues" [11, p. 227]. These are the words that begin Hannah Arendt's essay "Truth and Politics." In doing so, Hannah Arendt undeservedly overlooked a prominent thinker who not only doubted the assertion that truth and politics are in a poor relationship but also insisted that truth should be the cornerstone of politics and that this is the key to freedom, the loss of which in the 20th century so troubled the eminent researcher of authoritarianism. This refers to Lord Acton–a British historian and one of the foundational thinkers of the Anglo-Saxon liberal tradition. He is the one whom Toynbee called "the greatest mind among Western historians of the modern era" [1, p. 29]. For F. Hayek, Lord Acton is one of the leading representatives of true liberalism [5, p. 19]. Moreover, he is "the greatest historian and political philosopher of the age," on par with A. de Tocqueville [4, p. 311]. In their study of the philosophy of Scottish authors, English Whigs, and the legacy of E. Burke–precisely that on which Anglo-Saxon liberalism is based–"these two achieved the greatest success" [4, p. 311].