Explores how the concept of freedom in Paulo Freire's constructivist epistemology-constituted as agentive, spontaneity-based action-is in tension with his ethical project of a pedagogy for justice, one based on responsibility and non-indifference. Resolution of this tension means reconceptualizing the grounding notion of the subject beyond a modernist one of spontaneity to the more Levinasian (Emmanuel Levinas) one of responsibility. (Contains 50 references.) (NB)