scholarly journals ‘Animals run about the world in all sorts of paths’: varieties of indeterminism

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse M. Mulder
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Biological Determinism ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical Forces

AbstractIn her seminal essay ‘Causality and Determination’, Elizabeth Anscombe very decidedly announced that “physical indeterminism” is “indispensable if we are to make anything of the claim to freedom”. But it is clear from that same essay that she extends the scope of that claim beyond freedom–she suggests that indeterminism is required already for animal self-movement (a position recently called ‘agency incompatibilism’ by Helen Steward). Building on Anscombe’s conception of causality and (in)determinism, I will suggest that it extends even further: life as such already requires physical indeterminism. Furthermore, I show that we can, on this basis, arrive at the idea of varieties of (in)determinism, along with a corresponding variety of incompatibilist theses. From this Anscombean vantage point, the free will discussion takes on a quite different outlook. The question whether free agency can coexist with determinism on the level of blind physical forces, which preoccupies the philosopher of free will, turns out to conflate a whole series of compatibility questions: not just whether life is compatible with physical determinism, but also whether animal self-movement is compatible with ‘biological determinism’, and whether free agency is compatible with ‘animal determinism’.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. Dutton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Catholic Mission ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Main Figure

This chapter introduces the book’s main figure and situates him within the historical moment from which he emerges. It shows the degree to which global geographies shaped the European Catholic mission project. It describes the impact of the Padroado system that divided the world for evangelism between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in the 15th century. It also argues that European clerics were drawing lines on Asian lands even before colonial regimes were established in the nineteenth century, suggesting that these earlier mapping projects were also extremely significant in shaping the lives of people in Asia. I argue for the value of telling this story from the vantage point of a Vietnamese Catholic, and thus restoring agency to a population often obscured by the lives of European missionaries.

The 1970s

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Borstelmann
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Retirement Plans ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
American Society

This book looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, this book creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. It demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. This book explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, this book shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.

Consciousness, law of nature, and nomological determinism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Important Thing ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Brain

Nomological determinism does not mean everything is predictable. It just means everything follows the law of nature. And the most important thing Is that the brain and consciousness follow the law of nature. In other words, there is no free will. Without life, brain and consciousness, the world follows law of nature, that is clear. The life and brain are also part of nature, and they follow the law of nature. This is due to scientific findings. There are not enough scientific findings for consciousness yet. But I think that the consciousness is a nature phenomenon, and it also follows the law of nature.

The Divided Self in the Fiction of Henry James

PMLA ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-460
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Free Spirit ◽  
Divided Self ◽  
Structural Consequence ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come

AbstractThe divided self in James’s fiction may be regarded as an inevitable structural consequence of James’s desire to dramatize the problem of the free spirit in an enslaving world. But the divided self required by art is not essentially different from the divided self known to psychology, and an understanding of the anxieties of that self, particularly of the “obsessive imagery” James uses to depict those anxieties, enriches our understanding of James’s work. The fear of a world that threatens one’s being issues in an elaborate development of an escape motif; of imagery of seizure by the eye and by the world of appearances; and of imagery of petrification, reflecting a dread of being turned into a mere tool or machine. James’s vision of “the great trap of life” permits him to come to terms with his own limitations and culminates in a searching philosophic examination of the problem of free will and determinism.

Take Heart, We Have Overcome the World: Participatory Victory in the Theological-Ethical Framework of 1 John

2017 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-319
Author(s):  
K. R. Harriman
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Explicit Statement ◽  
The World ◽  
1 John

While studies in Johannine ethics continue to develop through analysis of broad ethical instructions, this paper contributes to the conversation by conveying the belief of participatory victory that seems to inform the ethical instruction of the author of 1 John. That is, in the midst of the cosmic conflict in which John and his fellow believers find themselves, John speaks from the vantage point of one who participates in the victory of Jesus to other participants in that victory. Though there is no explicit statement of this notion of participating in the victory of Jesus, its influential place in the authorial framework is discernible at several points in the text, such as when John uses the terminology and imagery of victory, uses the terminology and imagery of participation, and particularly when he converges these two streams of thought.

In the Mouth of Madness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Blyth
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Initial Release ◽  
The World ◽  
Horror Literature ◽  
Global Corporations ◽  
End Of The World

Somewhat overlooked upon its initial release in 1995, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness has since developed a healthy cult reputation. But far more than simply a fan favourite, this closing instalment of the acclaimed director's self-described “apocalypse trilogy” (following The Thing and Prince Of Darkness) stands today as one of his most thematically complex and stylistically audacious pieces of work. The story of an insurance investigator drawn into the supposedly fictional universe of a best-selling horror novelist, the film is an extension of many recurring themes found in Carpenter's filmography (the end of the world, the loss of free will, a distrust of mass industry and global corporations, the cataclysmic resurgence of ancient evil), as well as an affectionate homage to the works of H. P. Lovecraft (and horror literature more broadly) and a self-reflexive celebration of the horror genre that predates the Scream-inspired postmodernist boom of late-nineties genre cinema. While numerous books and countless academic essays have been written about Carpenter's work, surprisingly little has focused exclusively on In the Mouth of Madness, a film which feels more prescient, more essential, and more daringly complex than ever. This book seeks to redress this imbalance, at last positioning this overlooked masterpiece as essential Carpenter.

Spirit, Church and Mission

2021 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Gregory J. Liston
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Major Section

Abstract This article utilises the methodology of Third Article Theology to explore the church’s missional role in the world. Initially arguing that ecclesiology and missiology are mutually informing doctrines, it develops a dialogical and pneumatological approach for viewing missiology from the vantage point of ecclesiology. This contrasts with and complements the more common approach where missiology is seen as determinative of ecclesiology. The final and major section of the article uses this approach to sketch out the constituent features of the church’s mission, particularly when the Spirit’s role is viewed as primary and constitutive.

Breaking through the Ordinary: The Arts and Future Possibility

1980 ◽  
Vol 162 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxine Greene
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
Musical Piece ◽  
Future Possibility ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Common Action

Informed and active engagements with works of art make new experimential openings visible as they turn attention to the concreteness of the world. The ordinary and the taken-for-granted must be bracketed out if a poem or a painting or a musical piece is to be achieved. Viewed within the brackets and from an unfamiliar vantage point, reality may become questionable, in need of interpretation, perhaps in need of repair. If learners are provided opportunities for understanding their part in realizing illusioned worlds, they may come to confront their contributions to the construction of their social realities. Teachers who create situations that permit this to happen will be opening up their classrooms, not only to a new sense of the totality, but to a consciousness of what might be, what is not yet. And this, in turn, may provide a ground for common action, for desired change.

scholarly journals Hans Jonas' Feeble Theodicy: How on Earth Could God Retire?

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Clavier
Keyword(s):  
Hans Jonas ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical Forces ◽  
Horrendous Evils ◽  
Central Claim

In this paper, we criticize Hans Jonas’ analogy between God’s power and the operation of physical forces. We wonder why, if omnipotence had proved to be “a self-contradictory concept”, does Jonas still need to invoke the occurrence of horrendous evils to support the view that “God is not all powerful”. We suggest that “God’s retreating into himself in order to give room to the world, renouncing his being and divesting himself of his deity” are beautiful but inconsistent metaphors of creation. Our central claim is that God’s alleged retirement, even if it were conceivable, would not the least diminish his responsibility in the occurrence of evil. 

scholarly journals Czy naprawdę „bezwolny świat"? Kwestia wolnej woli w literaturze popularnonaukowej na przykładzie tekstu Azima F. Shariffa i Kathleen D. Vohs — Is It Really "The World Without Free Will"?

2018 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Łukasz Jach ◽  
Łukasz Lamża
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
The World

Ustalenia naukowe wywierają coraz większy wpływ na życie współczesnych ludzi, jednak wraz z rosnącym znaczeniem systemu naukowego zwiększa się także ryzyko powstawania zniekształconych wyobrażeń na temat aktualnego stanu nauki oraz tego, co zostało przez nią jednoznacznie rozstrzygnięte. W związku z powyższym, badacze w przekazach kierowanych do szerokiego grona odbiorców zobligowani są nie tylko do klarownego, ale także ostrożnego prezentowania swoich ustaleń. Zalecenie to w szczególności odnosi się do problemów, których korzenie tkwią w dyscyplinach pozanaukowych. Należy do nich m.in. kwestia istnienia wolnej woli, podjęta przez A.F. Shariffa i K.D. Vohs w artykule pt. Bezwolny świat. W publikacji tej pojawiło się kilka uproszczeń, które w niniejszym tekście omówiono w oparciu o ustalenia z zakresu psychologii, fizyki oraz filozofii nauki. Ponadto wskazano problemy powstałe w momencie ekstrapolowania wyników badań naukowych dotyczących wolnej woli na sposoby jej ujmowania, pojawiające się w innych niż naukowy subsystemach społecznych.

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