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Single Idea 7841

[filed under theme 16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism ]

Full Idea

The will has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them, we believe ourselves independent. It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against determinism, and which brings us to believe there are difficulties where there are none.

Clarification

A 'chimera' is an imaginary animal

Gist of Idea

We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.16

Book Ref

Stewart,Matthew: 'The Courtier and the Heretic' [Yale 2007], p.285

A Reaction

It seems that in his notebooks Leibniz was actually a (Spinozan) determinist. So he should have been, given his view that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and his claim that mind and brain run like two clocks. (Ideas 2114 and 2596)

Related Ideas

Idea 2114 This is the most perfect possible universe, in its combination of variety with order [Leibniz]

Idea 2596 Maybe mind and body are parallel, like two good clocks [Leibniz]

The 58 ideas from 'works'

19359 Leibniz aims to give coherent rational support for empiricism [Leibniz, by Perkins]
13086 Metaphysics is a science of the intelligible nature of being [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
16710 Leibniz tried to combine mechanistic physics with scholastic metaphysics [Leibniz, by Pasnau]
3347 Leibniz said the principle of sufficient reason is synthetic a priori, since its denial is not illogical [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA]
16897 Reason is the faculty for grasping apriori necessary truths [Leibniz, by Burge]
3346 For Leibniz rationality is based on non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA]
8627 Leibniz is inclined to regard all truths as provable [Leibniz, by Frege]
18081 Nature uses the infinite everywhere [Leibniz]
9147 Number cannot be defined as addition of ones, since that needs the number; it is a single act of abstraction [Fine,K on Leibniz]
18080 A tangent is a line connecting two points on a curve that are infinitely close together [Leibniz]
7561 Substances are essentially active [Leibniz, by Jolley]
7565 Leibniz proposes monads, since there must be basic things, which are immaterial in order to have unity [Leibniz, by Jolley]
10419 If relations can be reduced to, or supervene on, monadic properties of relata, they are not real [Leibniz, by Swoyer]
12713 Forms have sensation and appetite, the latter being the ability to act on other bodies [Leibniz, by Garber]
13087 The essence of a thing is its real possibilities [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
12701 Leibniz moved from individuation by whole entity to individuation by substantial form [Leibniz, by Garber]
13105 The laws-of-the-series plays a haecceitist role [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
12035 Leibniz bases pure primitive entities on conjunctions of qualitative properties [Leibniz, by Adams,RM]
13091 Leibnizian substances add concept, law, force, form and soul [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
12715 Leibniz strengthened hylomorphism by connecting it to force in physics [Leibniz, by Garber]
11878 Leibniz's view (that all properties are essential) is extreme essentialism, not its denial [Leibniz, by Mackie,P]
19372 Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R]
11862 Leibniz was not an essentialist [Leibniz, by Wiggins]
16504 Two eggs can't be identical, because the same truths can't apply to both of them [Leibniz]
8650 Things are the same if one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth [Leibniz]
13828 Necessary truths are those provable from identities by pure logic in finite steps [Leibniz, by Hacking]
4307 A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist [Leibniz]
15883 Leibniz narrows down God's options to one, by non-contradiction, sufficient reason, indiscernibles, compossibility [Leibniz, by Harré]
18822 Each monad expresses all its compatible monads; a possible world is the resulting equivalence class [Leibniz, by Rumfitt]
7837 Leibniz proposed possible worlds, because they might be evil, where God would not create evil things [Leibniz, by Stewart,M]
13080 Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
19332 For Leibniz, divine understanding grasps every conceivable possibility [Leibniz, by Perkins]
5509 Leibniz said dualism of mind and body is illusion, and there is only mind [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi]
7568 Leibniz is an idealist insofar as the basic components of his universe are all mental [Leibniz, by Jolley]
19354 Leibniz introduced the idea of degrees of consciousness, essential for his monads [Leibniz, by Perkins]
16683 Leibniz eventually said resistance, rather than extension, was the essence of body [Leibniz, by Pasnau]
7841 We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz]
5510 Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi]
7564 Occasionalism give a false view of natural laws, miracles, and substances [Leibniz, by Jolley]
13467 Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD]
19365 Limited awareness leads to bad choices, and unconscious awareness makes us choose the bad [Leibniz, by Perkins]
8110 Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection [Leibniz, by Gardner]
7569 Humans are moral, and capable of reward and punishment, because of memory and self-consciousness [Leibniz, by Jolley]
7574 Natural law theory is found in Aquinas, in Leibniz, and at the Nuremberg trials [Leibniz, by Jolley]
12728 Leibniz rejected atoms, because they must be elastic, and hence have parts [Leibniz, by Garber]
7560 Leibniz struggled to reconcile bodies with a reality of purely soul-like entities [Jolley on Leibniz]
12725 Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body [Leibniz, by Garber]
7859 Leibniz had an unusual commitment to the causal completeness of physics [Leibniz, by Papineau]
3889 God's existence is either necessary or impossible [Leibniz, by Scruton]
7842 Leibniz was closer than Spinoza to atheism [Leibniz, by Stewart,M]
15307 Leibniz uses 'force' to mean both activity and potential [Leibniz]
13092 The essence of substance is the law of its changes, as in the series of numbers [Leibniz]
19374 Microscopes and the continuum suggest that matter is endlessly divisible [Leibniz]
19375 The continuum is not divided like sand, but folded like paper [Leibniz, by Arthur,R]
16507 The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature [Leibniz]
16513 Identity of a substance is the law of its persistence [Leibniz]
13078 Relations aren't in any monad, so they are distributed, so they are not real [Leibniz]
13084 How can things be incompatible, if all positive terms seem to be compatible? [Leibniz]