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Philosophers

Mortimer Adler
Rogers Albritton
Alexander of Aphrodisias
G.E.M.Anscombe
Thomas Aquinas
Aristotle
David Armstrong
Augustine
A.J.Ayer
Mark Balaguer
William Belsham
Isaiah Berlin
Bernard Berofsky
Susanne Bobzien
George Boole
F.H.Bradley
C.D.Broad
C.A.Campbell
Joseph Keim Campbell
Carneades
Ernst Cassirer
Roderick Chisholm
Chrysippus
Cicero
Randolph Clarke
Samuel Clarke
Donald Davidson
Democritus
Daniel Dennett
René Descartes
Richard Double
Fred Dretske
John Earman
Laura Waddell Ekstrom
Epictetus
Epicurus
John Martin Fischer
Owen Flanagan
Philippa Foot
Alfred Fouilleé
Harry Frankfurt
Richard L. Franklin
Carl Ginet
Nicholas St. John Green
Ian Hacking
Ishtiyaque Haji
Stuart Hampshire
Georg W.F. Hegel
Martin Heidegger
R.E.Hobart
Thomas Hobbes
David Hodgson
Shadsworth Hodgson
Ted Honderich
Pamela Huby
David Hume
William James
Robert Kane
Immanuel Kant
Tomis Kapitan
Christine Korsgaard
Keith Lehrer
Gottfried Leibniz
Leucippus
C.I.Lewis
David Lewis
John Locke
John R. Lucas
Lucretius
Hugh McCann
Colin McGinn
Michael McKenna
Alfred Mele
John Stuart Mill
Dickinson Miller
G.E.Moore
Thomas Nagel
Friedrich Nietzsche
P.H.Nowell-Smith
Robert Nozick
William of Ockham
Timothy O'Connor
Charles Sanders Peirce
Derk Pereboom
Steven Pinker
Plato
Karl Popper
H.A.Prichard
Willard van Orman Quine
Frank Ramsey
Ayn Rand
Thomas Reid
Charles Renouvier
Nicholas Rescher
Josiah Royce
Bertrand Russell
Paul Russell
Gilbert Ryle
T.M.Scanlon
Moritz Schlick
Arthur Schopenhauer
John Searle
Henry Sidgwick
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
J.J.C.Smart
Saul Smilansky
Michael Smith
Galen Strawson
Peter Strawson
Eleonore Stump
Richard Taylor
Kevin Timpe
Peter van Inwagen
Manuel Vargas
John Venn
Kadri Vihvelin
G.H. von Wright
R. Jay Wallace
Ted Warfield
Roy Weatherford
Alfred North Whitehead
David Widerker
David Wiggins
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Susan Wolf

Scientists

Margaret Boden
Neils Bohr
Ludwig Boltzmann
Max Born
Stephen Brush
Arthur Holly Compton
Abraham de Moivre
John Eccles
Arthur Stanley Eddington
Albert Einstein
Richard Feynman
A.O.Gomes
Joshua Greene
Jacques Hadamard
Martin Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Pierre-Simon Laplace
David Layzer
Ernst Mach
Henry Margenau
James Clerk Maxwell
Ernst Mayr
Jacques Monod
Steven Pinker
Max Planck
Henri Poincaré
Erwin Schrödinger
Herbert Simon
B. F. Skinner
William Thomson (Kelvin)
John von Neumann
Daniel Wegner
Steven Weinberg
 
Aristotle
The Pythagoreans, Socrates, and Plato attempted to reconcile an element of human freedom with material determinism and causal law. But the first major philosopher to argue convincingly for some indeterminism was probably Aristotle. This is despite the fact that he described a causal chain back to a prime mover or first cause, and he elaborated the four possible causes (material, efficient, formal, and final).
In his Physics and Metaphysics Aristotle also said there were "accidents" caused by "chance (τυχή)." In his Physics, he clearly reckoned chance among the causes. Aristotle might have added chance as a fifth cause - an uncaused or self-caused cause - that happens when two causal chains come together by accident (συμβεβεκός). He noted that the early physicists found no place for chance among the causes.
Aristotle knew that many decisions were quite predictable based on habit and character, but they were no less free if one's character itself and predictable habits were developed freely in the past and were changeable in the future. This was the view of Eastern philosophies and religions. Our karma (etymologically one's character) has been determined by our past actions (even from past lives), and strongly influences our current actions, but we are free to improve our karma by our good actions.
As a principal architect of the concept of causality, and the formulator of the four causes, Aristotle's statements on indefinite causes are perhaps his most significant contribution to freedom, in the world and in human decisions.

In the Metaphysics Aristotle makes the case for chance and uncaused causes (causa sui) and in the Nicomachean Ethics he shows our actions can be voluntary and "up to us" so that we can be morally responsible.

Nor is there any definite cause for an accident, but only chance (τυχόν), namely an indefinite (ἀόριστον) cause.
(Metaphysics, Book V, 1025a25)1
Without such indefinite (uncaused) causes, everything would happen by necessity.
It is obvious that there are principles and causes which are generable and destructible apart from the actual processes of generation and destruction; for if this is not true, everything will be of necessity: that is, if there must necessarily be some cause, other than accidental, of that which is generated and destroyed. Will this be, or not? Yes, if this happens; otherwise not.
(Metaphysics, Book VI, 1027a29) 2
Some determinist philosophers have interpreted Aristotle's "accident" as the convergence of two causal chains as being compatible with determinism, but Aristotle himself is unequivocal in opposing strict necessity. Accidents are a consequence of chance.

Aristotle rejected determinism in his statement on chance. Unfortunately, his description of chance as "obscure" (ἄδηλος) to human reason led centuries of philosophers to deny the existence of chance:

Causes from which chance results might happen are indeterminate; hence chance is obscure to human calculation and is a cause by accident.
(Metaphysics, Book XI, 1065a33) 3
Aristotle clearly believed our deliberations (βουλευτῶν) involved choices (προαιρετῶν) between alternative possibilities. At a minimum it was up to us whether to act or not to act, and this implies both the possibility to do otherwise and moral responsibility for our actions.

His definition of the voluntary will as caused from within an agent (the first agent-causal libertarianism) is still valid today.

If then whereas we wish for our end, the means to our end are matters of deliberation and choice, it follows that actions dealing with these means are done by choice, and are voluntary. But the activities in which the virtues are exercised deal with means. Therefore vίrtue also depends on ourselves. And so also does vice. For where we are free to act we are also free to refrain from acting, and where we are able to say No we are also able to say Yes; if therefore we are responsible for doing a thing when to do it is right, we are also responsible for not doing it when not tο dο it is wrong, and if we are responsible fοr rightly not doing a thing, we are also responsible fοr wrongly doing it. But if it is in our power tο dο and tο refrain from doing right and wrong, and if, as we saw, being good οr bad is doing right οr wrong, it consequently depends οn us whether we are virtuous οr vicious.

But if it is manifest that a man is the author of his own actions, if we are unable to trace conduct back to any other origins than those within ourselves, then actions of which the origins are within us (ἐν ἡμῖν), themselves depend upon us (ἐφ' ἡμῖν), and are voluntary (ἐκούσια - willed).
(Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.6, 1113b19-22) 4

Aristotle challenged those who said our actions are determined by our character. That would deny moral responsibility. He admitted that some aspects of our character may be innate and thus limit our responsibility. But we are at least partially free to form our character.

Even when our character adequately determines our choices, since we were directly responsible for forming at least part of that character at an earlier time in our lives, so we are now indirectly responsible for all those choices.

But suppose somebody says: "All men seek what seems tο them good, but they are not responsible for its seeming gοod: each man's conception οf his end is determined by his character."
(Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.17, 1114a30-1114b1 ) 5

If then, as is said, our virtues are voluntary (and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our states of character, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a certain kind), it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary in the same manner as our virtues.
(Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.20, 1114b22-25 ) 5

That Aristotle believes in an open and ambiguous future with alternative possibilities is also shown by his denial of the Master Argument for determinism of Diodorus Cronus, in the form of Aristotle's famous "sea battle."

Diodorus argued from an assumed necessity of past truths (which is understandable, if a misapplication of logic to physical reality) that something is impossible that neither is or ever will be true.

Aristotle reframed the argument as the truth or falsity of the statement that a sea battle will occur tomorrow. Despite the law of the excluded middle, which allows no third case, Aristotle concluded that the statement is neither true nor false, supporting an ambiguous future.

What is, necessarily is, when it is; and what is not, necessarily is not, when it is not. But not everything that is, necessarily is; and not everything that is not, necessarily is not. For to say that everything that is, is of necessity, when it is, is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity. Similarly with what is not. And the same account holds for contradictories: everything necessarily is or is not, and will be or will not be; but one cannot divide and say that one or the other is necessary.

I mean, for example: it is necessary for there to be or not to be a sea-battle tomorrow; but it is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one not to take place — though it is necessary for one to take place or not to take place. So, since statements are true according to how the actual things are, it is clear that wherever these are such as to allow of contraries as chance has it, the same necessarily holds for the contradictories also. This happens with things that are not always so or are not always not so. With these it is necessary for one or the other of the contradictories to be true or false — not, however, this one or that one, but as chance has it; or for one to be true rather than the other, yet not already true or false.
(De Interpretatione, IX, 19a23-39 ) 6

Aristotle never denied the law of the excluded middle, merely that the truth or falsity of statements about future events does not exist yet. Note that this implies at least some things in the past may be changed in the future, i.e., the truth values of statements about the future.

In the century following Aristotle, Epicurus proposed a random swerving of some atoms, at no particular places and times, as the cosmological source of chance. Although this physical model for chance is ingenious and anticipated twentieth-century quantum mechanics, Epicurus provides little of deep significance for free will and moral responsibility that is not already implicit in Aristotle.

For Teachers
For Scholars

1. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book V, 1025a25

οὐδὲ δὴ αἴτιον ὡρισμένον οὐδὲν του̂ συμβεβηκότος ἀλλὰ τὸ τυχόν: του̂το δ' ἀόριστον.
Metaphysics, Book V, 1025a25

2. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book VI, 1027a29

ὅτι δ' εἰσὶν ἀρχαὶ καὶ αἴτια γενητὰ καὶ φθαρτὰ [30] ἄνευ τοῦ γίγνεσθαι καὶ φθείρεσθαι, φανερόν. εἰ γὰρ μὴ τοῦτ', ἐξ ἀνάγκης πάντ' ἔσται, εἰ τοῦ γιγνομένου καὶ φθειρομένου μὴ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς αἴτιόν τι ἀνάγκη εἶναι. πότερον γὰρ ἔσται τοδὶ ἢ οὔ; ἐάν γε τοδὶ γένηται: εἰ δὲ μή, οὔ.
Metaphysics, Book VI, 1027a

3. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book XI, 1065a33

τὰ δ' αἴτια ἀόριστα ἀφ' ὡ̂ν ἂν γένοιτο τὰ ἀπὸ τύχης, διὸ ἄδηλος ἀνθρωπίνῳ λογισμῳ̂ καὶ αἴτιον κατὰ συμβεβηκός, ἁπλω̂ς δ' οὐδενός.
Metaphysics, Book XI, 1065a

4. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, III.v

ὄντος δὴ βουλητοῦ μὲν τοῦ τέλους, βουλευτῶν δὲ καὶ προαιρετῶν τῶν πρὸς τὸ τέλος, αἱ περὶ ταῦτα πράξεις κατὰ προαίρεσιν ἂν εἶεν καὶ ἑκούσιοι. αἱ δὲ τῶν ἀρετῶν ἐνέργειαι περὶ ταῦτα. ἐφ' ἡμῖν δὴ καὶ ἡ ἀρετή, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἡ κακία. ἐν οἷς γὰρ ἐφ' ἡμῖν τὸ πράττειν, καὶ τὸ μὴ πράττειν, καὶ ἐν οἷς τὸ μή, καὶ τὸ ναί: ὥστ' εἰ τὸ πράττειν καλὸν ὂν ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἐστί, καὶ τὸ μὴ πράττειν ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔσται αἰσχρὸν ὄν, καὶ εἰ τὸ μὴ πράττειν καλὸν ὂν ἐφ' ἡμῖν, καὶ τὸ πράττειν αἰσχρὸν ὂν ἐφ' ἡμῖν. εἰ δ' ἐφ' ἡμῖν τὰ καλὰ πράττειν καὶ τὰ αἰσχρά, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὸ μὴ πράττειν, τοῦτο δ' ἦν τὸ ἀγαθοῖς καὶ κακοῖς εἶναι, ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἄρα τὸ ἐπιεικέσι καὶ φαύλοις εἶναι.
Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.1-3

εἰ δὲ ταῦτα φαίνεται καὶ μὴ ἔχομεν εἰς ἄλλας ἀρχὰς ἀναγαγεῖν παρὰ τὰς ἐν ἡμῖν, ὧν καὶ αἱ ἀρχαὶ ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ αὐτὰ ἐφ' ἡμῖν καὶ ἑκούσια.
Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.6

5. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, III.v,17-20

εἰ δ' οὕτω, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων αἱ ἐπιτιμώμεναι τῶν κακιῶν ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἂν εἶεν. εἰ δέ τις λέγοι ὅτι πάντες ἐφίενται τοῦ φαινομένου ἀγαθοῦ, τῆς δὲ φαντασίας οὐ κύριοι,
Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.17


εἰ οὖν, ὥσπερ λέγεται, ἑκούσιοί εἰσιν αἱ ἀρεταί ̔καὶ γὰρ τῶν ἕξεων συναίτιοί πως αὐτοί ἐσμεν, καὶ τῷ ποιοί τινες εἶναι τὸ τέλος τοιόνδε τιθέμεθἀ, καὶ αἱ κακίαι ἑκούσιοι ἂν εἶεν: ὁμοίως γάρ.
Nichomachean Ethics, III.v.20


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