display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
8 ideas
| 3739 | Free will is a kind of causality which works independently of other causes [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings so far as they are rational. Freedom would then be the property this causality has of being able to work independently of determination by alien causes. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 446.97) |
| 5596 | We must assume an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It must be assumed that there is an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B474/A446) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is part of the Antinomies (conflicts) of pure reason. This phrase is a beautiful statement of the dream that is free will. |
| 3741 | We shall never be able to comprehend how freedom is possible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: We shall never be able to comprehend how freedom is possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 456.115) |
| 21053 | The manifest will in the world of phenomena has to conform to the laws of nature [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Whatever conception of the freedom of the will one may form in terms of metaphysics, the will's manifestations in the world of phenomena, i.e. human actions, are determined in accordance with natural laws, as is every other natural event. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], Intro) | |
| A reaction: So free will either requires total substance dualism, or it is best described as transcendental fictionalism. This seems to imply the Leibnizian idea that metaphysics contains facts which having nothing to do with the physical world. |
| 9756 | We must be free, because we can act against our strongest desires [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: The fact that we are able to act against our strongest desires reveals to us that we are free, and so are members of the intelligible world. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Can he prove that we can act against our strongest desires? If you choose to drown yourself in the sink, you may just be in the grips of a very strong desire to do so, which defeats the normal desire to survive. |
| 5597 | If there is a first beginning, there can be other sequences initiated from nothing [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Because we must establish the necessity of a first beginning to make comprehensible an origin of the world, we are permitted to allow that in the course of the world different series may begin on their own as far as their causality is concerned. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B478/A450) | |
| A reaction: This reinforces my firmly held view, that human free will is a bogus concept, which was invented in order place God above nature, and then ascribed to human beings because no other explanation of moral responsibility could be found. |
| 3740 | We cannot conceive of reason as being externally controlled [Kant] |
| Full Idea: We cannot possibly conceive of a reason as being consciously directed from outside in regard to its judgements. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 448.101) |
| 5296 | Kant made the political will into a pure self-determined "free" will [Kant, by Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Kant made the materially motivated determinations of the will of the French bourgeois into pure self-determinations of the "free will", of the will in and for itself. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by K Marx / F Engels - The German Ideology §II | |
| A reaction: This is the social determinism of Marx and Engels. Most commentators would say that Kant was taking the idea of "free will" from religion rather than politics, but presumably Marx would merely reply "same thing!" |