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Single Idea 5709
[filed under theme 16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
]
Full Idea
The fact that the mind itself has no internal necessity to determine its every act and compel it to suffer in helpless passivity - this is due to the slight swerve of the atoms at no determinate time or place.
Gist of Idea
The actions of the mind are not determinate and passive, because atoms can swerve
Source
Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.294)
Book Ref
Lucretius: 'On the Nature of the Universe', ed/tr. Latham,Ronald [Penguin 1951], p.68
A Reaction
No one likes this proposal much, but it is very intriguing. The Epicureans had seen a problem, one which doesn't bother me much. If, nowadays, you are a reductive physicalist who believes in free will, you have a philosophical nightmare ahead of you.
Related Idea
Idea 20833
A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
The
20 ideas
with the same theme
[what makes free will in humans possible]:
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20922
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Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms
[Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.]
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21671
|
Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause
[Carneades, by Cicero]
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5709
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The actions of the mind are not determinate and passive, because atoms can swerve
[Lucretius]
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23332
|
Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion
[Epictetus]
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5767
|
Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement
[Boethius]
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22131
|
The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting
[Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
|
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19922
|
People are only free if they are guided entirely by reason
[Spinoza]
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23681
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The first motion or effect cannot be produced necessarily, so the First Cause must be a free agent
[Reid]
|
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3741
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We shall never be able to comprehend how freedom is possible
[Kant]
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21053
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The manifest will in the world of phenomena has to conform to the laws of nature
[Kant]
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23235
|
I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions
[Fichte]
|
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22040
|
Freedom is produced by the activity of the mind, and is not intrinsically given
[Hegel]
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22075
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Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom
[Schelling]
|
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23111
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If we say that freedom depends on rationality, the irrational actions are not free
[Sidgwick]
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20323
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Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law
[Jaspers]
|
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23333
|
The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity
[Frede,M]
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23334
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For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis)
[Frede,M]
|
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23337
|
The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos
[Frede,M]
|
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3791
|
Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world
[Dennett]
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3794
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Foreknowledge permits control
[Dennett]
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