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Single Idea 23337

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

Full Idea

The Stoics said that everything happens according to a divine providential plan, so they had to explain how this was compatible with human choices. They tried to do this with their doctrine of freedom and a free will.

Gist of Idea

The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos

Source

Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 10)

Book Ref

Frede,Michael: 'A Free Will' [Univ of California 2011], p.176


A Reaction

Epictetus made our ability to choose central to moral life, so he particularly needed (and thus created, it seems) this doctrine.

Related Idea

Idea 23328 The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus]


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]