display all the ideas for this combination of texts
15 ideas
| 4814 | A thing is free if it acts by necessity of its own nature, and the act is determined by itself alone [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: That thing is called free which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Def 7) | |
| A reaction: This points to the obvious thought that nothing is independent enough to achieve freedom. Our concept of nature is of almost endless interdependence. God seems the only thing that could possibly qualify, though some might say humans could. |
| 20834 | Chrysippus allows evil to say it is fated, or even that it is rational and natural [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus gives vice blatant freedom to say not only that it is necessary and according to fate, but even that it occurs according to god's reason and the best nature. | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1050c | |
| A reaction: This is Plutarch's criticism of stoic determinism or fatalism. Zeno replied that the punishment for vice may also be fated. It seems that Chysippus did believe that punishments were too harsh, given that vices are fated [p.109]. |
| 20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus argues against the 'swerve' of the Epicureans, on the grounds that they are doing violence to nature by positing something which is uncaused, and cites dice or scales, which can't settle differently without some cause or difference. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: That is, the principle of sufficient reason (or of everything having a cause) is derived from observation, not a priori understanding. Pace Leibniz. As in modern discussion, free will or the swerve only occur in our minds, and not elsewhere. |
| 21802 | An act of will can only occur if it has been caused, which implies a regress of causes [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Each volition can neither exist nor be determined to produce an effect unless it is determined by another cause, and this cause again by another, and so on, to infinity. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Pr 32), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 3 | |
| A reaction: Acts of will are usually responses to situations, so it seems a bit simplistic to think that they are all spontaneous sui generis causal events. That argument won't work, of course, for a random volition that is out of context. |
| 4837 | 'Free will' is a misunderstanding arising from awareness of our actions, but ignorance of their causes [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are conditioned. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 35) | |
| A reaction: I have recently come to totally agree with this. The whole concept of free will seems to me incoherent, and Spinoza pinpoints the error. We aren't equipped to know the origins of the thoughts that arrive in our consciousnesses. |
| 4843 | Would we die if we lacked free will, and were poised between equal foods? Yes! [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It may be objected, if a man does not act from free will, what will happen if the incentives to action are equally balanced, as in the case of Buridan's ass? Will he perish of hunger and thirst. ..Personally I am ready to admit that he would die. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 49) | |
| A reaction: A nicely defiant way of demonstrating his rejection of free will. I have to agree with him. Even if there were such a thing as 'free will', it is hard to see how it could act as a tie-breaker. Which way would it freely decide? |
| 4844 | The mind is not free to remember or forget anything [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It is not within the free power of the mind to remember or forget a thing at will. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], III Pr 02) | |
| A reaction: An interesting little corrective if you were thinking that your total control over you mind proved that you had free will. Once you face up to your lack of control of the memory process, you begin to realise how little of your mind even feels controlled. |
| 20808 | Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his 'On Fate') that everything happens by fate. Fate is a continuous string of causes of things which exist or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is managed. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.148 |
| 20835 | Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus's accounts of possibility and fate are in conflict. If he is right that 'everything that permits of occurring even if it is not going to occur is possible', then many things are possible which are not according to fate. | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1055e | |
| A reaction: A palpable hit, I think. Plutarch refers to Chrysippus's rejection of Diodorus Cronus's Master Argument. Fatalism seems to entail that the only future possibilities are the ones that actually occur. |
| 4311 | We think we are free because we don't know the causes of our desires and choices [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Men think themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions and their appetites, yet never give a thought to the causes which dispose them to desire or to exercise the will as they do, since they are wholly unaware of them. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) | |
| A reaction: This encapsulates the determinist idea nicely. In the end we just choose, but we have no idea why we prefer one reason to another, or simply opt for one thing rather than another. |
| 7828 | The actual world is the only one God could have created [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Pr 33) | |
| A reaction: Said to be a "notorious" proposition. This is a key idea in philosophy because it represents (like solipsism) one of the extremes - there is no such thing as contingency, and that all things are necessary. It is daft not to take Spinoza seriously on this. |
| 20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus responded to the Lazy Argument (that the outcome of an illness is fated, so there is no point in calling the doctor) by saying 'calling the doctor is fated just as much as recovering', which he calls 'co-fated'. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 28-30 | |
| A reaction: From a pragmatic point of view, this idea also nullifies fatalism, since you can plausibly fight against your fate to your last breath. No evidence could ever be offered in support of fatalism, not even the most unlikely events. |
| 21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Some causes are perfect and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence when we say that everything takes place by fate owing to antecedent causes, what we wish to be understood is not perfect and principal causes but auxiliary and proximate causes. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 18.41 | |
| A reaction: This move is described by Cicero as enabling Chrysippus to 'escape necessity and to retain fate'. |
| 20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unravelling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.01 | |
| A reaction: It seems that Chrysippus (called by Aulus Gellius 'the chief Stoic philosopher') had a rather grandly rhetorical prose style. |
| 5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus considered destiny to be not a cause sufficient of itself but only a predisposing cause. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 997) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1056b | |
| A reaction: This appears to be a rejection of determinism, and is the equivalent of Epicurus' introduction of the 'swerve' in atoms. They had suddenly become bothered about the free will problem in about 305 BCE. There must be other non-destiny causes? |