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Single Idea 23235

[filed under theme 16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will ]

Full Idea

I want to be independent - not to be in and through another but to be something for myself: and as such I want myself to be the fundamental cause of all my determinations.

Gist of Idea

I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions

Source

Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)

Book Ref

Fichte,Johann G.: 'The Vocation of Man', ed/tr. Preuss,Peter [Hackett 1987], p.21


A Reaction

I think this sums up the absurdity of the concept of free will. The only reason he gives for his passionate belief in free will is that he desperately wants some imagined 'fundamental cause' for his action, and he wants full control of that chimera.


The 20 ideas with the same theme [what makes free will in humans possible]:

Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms [Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.]
Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause [Carneades, by Cicero]
The actions of the mind are not determinate and passive, because atoms can swerve [Lucretius]
Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion [Epictetus]
Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius]
The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
People are only free if they are guided entirely by reason [Spinoza]
The first motion or effect cannot be produced necessarily, so the First Cause must be a free agent [Reid]
We shall never be able to comprehend how freedom is possible [Kant]
The manifest will in the world of phenomena has to conform to the laws of nature [Kant]
I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions [Fichte]
Freedom is produced by the activity of the mind, and is not intrinsically given [Hegel]
Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom [Schelling]
If we say that freedom depends on rationality, the irrational actions are not free [Sidgwick]
Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law [Jaspers]
The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity [Frede,M]
For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis) [Frede,M]
The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos [Frede,M]
Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett]
Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett]