Richard Polt gives a lucid explanation of Heidegger’s tortured somewhat explanation of freedom ( Heidegger: An Introduction 
“Freedom is not just an ability to do whatever we want. More profoundly, freedom is our release into an open area where we can meet with other beings. A rock is not free, not because it is forced to do what it does not want, but because it is totally shut off from everything around it – and consequently cannot want or think anything. Animals are not free either, according to Heidegger, even thought they often do what they want, because they are trapped in patterns of responses that do not allow them to encounter other beings, except insofar as these beings stimulate their own instincts. We are free, however, because we are able to encounter other beings within a wide-open world.”
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