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Explore the complex debate surrounding free will, determinism, and compatibilism in philosophy. Understand various views such as hard determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism through historical perspectives of renowned philosophers.
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Philosophy 1010 Class 2/11/13 Title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Paul Dickey E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu Tonight: Turn in your Essay Argument Summary Hand back your Pragmatism Essays. Next Week Assignment: Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings Chapter 6, Sections 6.1 & 6.2. Don’t procrastinate on your essays! If you have any questions, please ask either now or by e-mail.
COURSE EVALUATION • Electronic/Online Course/Instructor Feedback • 13/WI Availability until February 20, 2013. • Instruction Sheet will be on Quia site.
Chapter 3 • Reality and Being • (a Metaphysical Study)
Discussion • “Being Practical” vs. Pragmatism • A Thought Experiment: • How was Benjamin Franklin interested in lightning? For its usefulness or for its potential beauty? Thus, was he practical? So, was he a philosophical pragmatist? What if ol’ Ben suggests to us that lightning is beautiful because it can be harnessed as electricity?
Video: • What is Real?
The Problem of Free Will The Prima Facie (or Self-evident) Case for Free Will • From common sense: • I have a direct consciousness of being able to do otherwise. • I have a direct consciousness of causing my own behavior. • I accept responsibility for my decisions.
The Prima Facie (or Self-evident) Case for Determinism • From common sense: • Everything appears to have a scientific cause. • It is not understood by what mechanism a mental state such as a will or an intention can cause behavior in the physical world. • We seem to be think it quite appropriate to explain the behavior of others (and they us) simply in terms of behavior or reasons that they are unaware of, even when the person themselves would have said they chose to do so.
Determinism • Determinists argue that previous events and the laws of nature cause all human acts. • Human acts are predictable theoretically if we knew all prior conditions and the laws governing those conditions on the model of physics. • Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) argued that all bodies in the universe both the smallest atoms and the largest planets act in accordance with the universal laws of nature.
Determinism • The Marquis de LaPlace (1749-1827) applied the Newtonian conception and argued that humanity is part of a causal chain, as is all phenomena. • For LaPlace, free will is an illusion that we have since we are ignorant of the appropriate laws of human nature. • John Hospers (1918 - ) argues that the unconscious motivations for behaviors discovered by Sigmund Freud determine all human action. • Subsequently in the view of hard line determinists, humans are not responsible for their acts.
Libertarianism • Libertarianism is the view that our choices are not determined by the laws of nature. It is often referred to as indeterminism. • One prevalent view of libertarianism is John Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Sartre claims that humans can be motivated by a future state, not a past state. • Thus, we can conceive and choose “what is not,” i.e. negativity or non-being. (that is, what does not yet exist). To be determined would mean that what is past or present could determine the future (what does not exist.) • Although man is radically free, most forms of existentialism allow that man can also choose to sell out his freedom and act as if he is determined by desires and emotions. Yet, man is always responsible for his actions.
Compatibilism • Compatibilism argues that free will can be made compatible with determinism. • The general strategy of compatibilism is typically to re-define freedom. • Thomas Hobbes said that freedom was only the absence of physical restraints and causal determinants do not act as physical restraints. • Although classical compatibilist views such as Hobbes’ appeal to our need to explain the paradox of free will and determinism, most philosophers find it unconvincing and ignores the real issue that cannot be “defined away.”
Compatibilism • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) gives us a compatibilist proposal that does not merely redefine freedom. It suggests that whether we have free will or not is not absolute, but contextual. • Kant says that when we act, we have to assume we are free and when we try to explain our acts scientifically we have to assume that those same acts are causally determined. • Even as determinists, when we go to a restaurant we still must take upon ourselves to order from the menu. We cannot sit back and just let our desires and tastes take care of it for us.
Chapter 4 • Philosophy and God • (a Metaphysical Study)
Does God Exist? • Theism is the belief in a personal God who is creator of the world and present in its processes and who is actively engaged in the affairs of humans. • Pantheism is the belief that God is the universe and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a whole). God exists but is not personally involved in the lives of men. • Atheism is the denial of Theism. (Metaphysical View) It states that there is no God. • Agnosticism is the view that it cannot be known whether God exists or not. (Epistemological View) • According to Logical Positivism, the question Does God Exist? is meaningless.
First, Can We Even Make Sense of the Question? • Surely before trying to answer the question, one needs to ask the following questions: • What does one mean by the word or concept of “God?” • What is the sense of existence that is being asserted when one says God exists. • Without being clear about these issues, the argument often becomes mostly subjective.
What Do We Mean by “God?” • If we say that God is the “creator of the universe,” do we mean: • 1) that there is a Being that is God that could or could not be the one who created the universe, but as a matter of factis the creator of the universe? Or • 2) that by definition that God is the Being that created the universe such that it would be a logical error to say that God did not create the universe. • Note that if we mean the first, we have still not said who (or what) God is, apart from what he has done. • If we mean the second, of course given the inherent assumptions, then God exists. But have we committed the logical fallacy of “begging the question?”
What is the Meaning of Existence that is Being Used to Say that God Exists? • Is existence a property of an entity? I say “This chair is black.” Blackness is a property of the chair. So that I would say that this chair has the property of “existing” and thus there could be chairs some of which have the property and some don’t. Then would I say that some chairs exist and some do not like I would say some chairs are black and some are not? • Or is existence of the chair identified in terms of its relationship to a real world, say Hobbes’ material world or Berkeley’s mental world? But then what sense does it make to say that God’s existence is dependent upon a world that He created and itself came into “existence” after Him? • If not, then what is this form of existence (or reality) for God that we are asserting?
So, is Logical Positivism right after all? • Theism is so confused and the sentences in which 'God' appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible. • A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic • Wikipedia suggests A. J. Ayer (1910-1989) was an atheist. Ayer’s position on the existence of God should not be confused with atheism. Of course, claiming that God does not exist also lacks analytic or empirical verifiability and is thus also meaningless. • Many (perhaps most?) mid to late 20th century philosophers who abandoned strict logical positivism (including Russell and Wittgenstein) still found Ayer’s response to this issue quite credible. • On the other hand, maybe the question is too obvious and important to give up on, so let’s stumble on ….
The Traditional “Proofs” • The Ontological Argument • Saint Anselm (c. 1033-1109)provided the classical ontological argument (”proof”) for the existence of God: • First of all, Anselm argues, God is that Being for which “none greater can be conceived.” • But if God did not exist, then we could conceive a greater Being, namely a God that does exist. • Thus, God must exist. • Note: This argument does not give evidence of God’s existence. It attempts to prove it. • Unfortunately, the argument seems to suppose that • Existence is a property of a thing, and • Non-existence is an imperfection.
The Ontological Argument: • Kant’s Objection • Immanuel Kant argued against Anselm’s Ontological Argument that it defines God into existence, that is, Anselm has formed a concept of God that itself requires existence as a property. • Nonexistence was an imperfection, thus God could not have that property since he by definition is perfect. • And thus, Anselm is begging the question. • Few philosophers or theologians today accept Anselm’s Ontological Argument.
The Traditional “Proofs” • The Cosmological Argument • Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)provided several cosmological arguments (”proofs”) for the existence of God that were of the following form: • First of all, Aquinas argues, “Some things move.” • What moves must be moved (caused) by something prior. • This movement (causation) can not have an infinite regression for it must have an origin. • The origin of the movement (the cause) cannot itself move (or be caused). • Thus, God (the original mover or first cause) must exist.
The Traditional “Proofs” • The Cosmological Argument • After Newton, it is necessary to refine Aquinas’ first argument to refer to acceleration rather than motion. • More damaging to his argument however is an objection that questions the assumption that there can be no infinite regress in the causal sequences of the universe. How do we know that the universe is not infinite? • The “Big Bang” theory seems potentially to counter this objection. The universe (along with space and time) does appear to have had a beginning. • But the argument still does not preclude alternatives. Could our universe have come into existence from events in another universe and thus we could still have an infinity of events in multiple universes?
The Traditional “Proofs” • The Cosmological Argument • Aquinas believed that even if the universe existed forever, then there would still need to be a First Cause which would be God. • David Hume (1711-1776) disagreed. He claimed that if one had an explanation for all the parts of a thing (in particular, all individual causal links in the universe), it did not require an additional explanation for the whole. • Many analysts, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), have argued that the argument’s premise that every event must have a cause is actually inconsistent with his conclusion that God does not have a cause.
The Traditional “Proofs” • The Argument From Design • The Argument From Design, also known as the teleological argument (thus being traced back to Aristotle) states that the order and purpose manifest in the working of nature, and particularly, human nature require that there be a logical designer or God. • This argument is very popular today and is probably the most prevalent and popular argument for the existence of God. • The best known early formulation of this argument was given by the theologian William Paley (1743-1805). • Paley compared natural organisms to the mechanism of a watch and by analogy argued that as the design of the watch demonstrates the existence of a watchmaker, natural design shows the work of a “Divine Agency.”
The Argument From Design • Relying on a multitude of examples including the migration of birds, the adaptability of species, and the human eye, Paley seemed to make a pretty convincing argument given the science of the day, • David Hume did object however on the basis that as an argument from analogy, the argument was weak. Arguments from analogy are only as strong as our knowledge of the relevant similarities. In this one, we do not know how nature and living things are made and thus that it is at all “like” a watch being made. • Hume was arguing against Paley’s assumption that complex order can be produced only by an intelligent being. That may or may not be the case, Hume would say. Anticipating Darwin, he suggested that perhaps a finite amount of particles in random motion might achieve order.
The Argument from Design & Darwinism • Charles Darwin (1809-1882) filled in the missing pieces of Hume’s argument by producing scientific evidence for just what the mechanism could be in nature to produce the order and appearance of design that Hume was suggesting. • Darwin suggested that the process was one he called natural selection. Over millions of years, Darwin argued, random mechanical processes could produce organisms that seemed perfectly designed. • Darwin contended that life forms exhibit inherited “variations” that were gradually selected in a “struggle for survival” to produce new characteristics of species and even new species.
The Argument from Design & Darwinism • Others continue to defend the Argument From Design while granting the possibility of natural selection processes, rationalizing that it is then just the process by which God produces living things. • But this later posture gives up a lot of theological ground. It allows for God to act randomly and that He allows harmful consequences to exist in his creation. • For many others, the Darwinian theory of evolution was taken as a “threat” to the Argument From Design which seemed to be the last bastion of a ultimate support for the existence of God. Thus many theists to this day resist the Darwinian view which meanwhile has become the dominant scientific theory within Biology and has also developed extended applications in other sciences and our entire intellectual culture.
Do We “Prove” God Exists Because We Can Talk Meaningfully about HIM? • We generally believe that only things that exist can have properties. Thus, by referring to God with properties, I.e. omnipotent, do we not “prove” that God exists? • Probably not of course. We refer to Santa Claus as “having a white beard” and “living at the North Pole.” • Bertrand Russell proposed a Theory of Descriptions to account for how we refer to things that may or may not exist. • Russell’s solution is to take names to be shorthand for descriptions. For example, “Santa Claus” is a person who goes by the description that he lives on North Pole, and delivers toys to kids for Christmas”, and the sentence “Santa doesn’t exist” should be understood as “There is no X, such that X is a person that lives on North Pole, etc., etc…”.
How is it Possible to Talk About God without Affirming that He Exists? • For Russell to say “God does not exist” is to say “There is no Being, such that the Being “existed” prior to the creation of the universe, and then created the universe, etc., etc…”. • Thus, Russell (as we mentioned last week) in using philosophical analysis of language to clarify misguided metaphysical constructions of supposed “reality.” • This seems reasonable enough, but Omaha native and renowned philosopher of logic Saul Kripke has a problem with Russell’s view. (Kripke graduated from Central High.)
How is it Possible to Talk About God if We are Not Asserting He Exists? • Kripke counters: But if Santa does exist, wouldn’t we be able to imagine Santa not living on the North Pole? Or wouldn’t we be able to imagine him not delivering presents for Christmas? If that is so, then Santa can’t be a shortened description of the type we presented, because it would fail to refer to Santa in these cases. • And now we are back to Square One! Or are we? • Has what Kripke shown is that there are still difficulties in Russell’s analysis, but NOT that the approach of using language analysis by logic will not work! • Thus, as we discussed before, Russell’s theory though technically perhaps in error has furthered the clarification of the issue and has advanced our knowledge, as has Kripke’s criticism of Russell.
Wrapping it up (perhaps) …. • If any of these arguments were successful, they still do not demonstrate that God is necessarily personally engaged in the affairs of you or I today. • Thus, they still may only be an argument for a form of pantheism or panentheism, not Theism. • Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) argued that if God is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful), and omnipresent (always present), then God must beeverything. There can be no world outside God (even one he created). • Panentheism is an alternate view that all of the universe is in God, but God is GREATER than the universe. God is unchanging but also among all that HE is, HE is a unity of all diversity, being and becoming. This is the view of the Pragmatist Charles Peirce (1839-1914).
