Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM, Laozi (Lao Tzu) and Roderick Chisholm

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4 ideas

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 4. For Free Will
If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: If the action is not caused by some other event, and it is not causeless, this leaves the possibility that it is caused by something else instead, and this something can only be the agent, the man.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28)
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: According to Hobbes, if we fully know what a man desires and believes, and we know the state of his physical stimuli, we may logically deduce what he will try to do. But Kant says no such statements can ever imply what a man will do.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.32)
If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm]
     Full Idea: Chisholm holds the quaint doctrine that human freedom entails an absence of causal determination; a free action is a miracle. This gives no basis for doubting that animals have such freedom; and why would we care whether we can interrupt the causal order?
     From: comment on Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964]) by Harry G. Frankfurt - Freedom of the Will and concept of a person §IV
     A reaction: [compressed] Chisholm is the spokesman for 'agent causation', Frankfurt for freedom as second-level volitions. I'm with Frankfurt. The belief in 'agents' and 'free will' may sound plausible, until the proposal is spelled out in causal terms.
Determinism claims that every event has a sufficient causal pre-condition [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: Determinism is the proposition that, for every event that occurs, there occurs a sufficient causal condition of that event.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], 2.2)
     A reaction: You need an ontology of events to put it precisely this way. Doesn't it also work the other way: that there is an event for every sufficient causal condition? The beginning and the end of reality pose problems.