In philosophy, for a long time, there has been a dispute about the existence of free will, its limits and nature, and from there, the concept of determinism has arisen. According to Costello et al. (2019), “the most commonly used conceptualization of free will and determinism beliefs is a quadripartite model of free will, fatalistic determinism, scientific determinism, and unpredictability” (p. 7). Determinism, in its essence, contains a doctrine of general conditionality of phenomena and events. Within the idea of free will, determinism proclaims its illusory nature, and the absence of personality as an author of conscious events. It is a concept worth exploring in detail: if there is no free will, and every aspect of life is predetermined, then how can humanity consider the potential of the future. The topic was chosen to answer this question from deterministic perspective. This paper will offer a critical approach to determinism and its key issues.
In order to provide evidence-based critique on the problem of determinism, a literature research will be conducted. Scientific databases such as Google Academy, Scopus, and JSTOR will be used to provide necessary sources. Different perspectives and arguments will be reviewed to develop and support the paper’s arguments. Major topics and issues of determinism will be addressed in the paper, such as the concept of free will, universality of nature laws, and social implications of determinism. A specific claim also requires attention: if humanity lives according to universal laws, then it can be concluded that every moment of the present, in which the world resides, completely follows the previous one. Thus, one can discover the symmetry of the past and the future: the former is just as natural as the latter, as rigid determinists proclaim. With all the information about the world, it would be possible to accurately calculate what events will occur at a particular moment in time. To respond to this statement and elaborate on the overall topic, academic papers of Costello et al. (2018), Hoffman and Michon (2017), and other authors will be used as sources.
Works Cited
Costello, Thomas H, et al. “‘Escape from Freedom’: Authoritarianism-Related Traits, Political Ideology, Personality, and Belief in Free Will/Determinism.” Journal of Research in Personality, 2019, pp. 1–57.
Hoffman, Tobias, and Cyrille Michon. “Aquinas on Free Will and Intellectual Determinism.” Philosophers Imprint, vol. 17, no. 10, 2017, pp. 1–36.