Berkeley and Malebranche on Human Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-177
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Will ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Order Variety

For Berkeley, I am not a substance who just happens to associate ideas; rather, I am the differentiation and association of those ideas, the will that there be such an order, variety, and comprehension. In creating minds, God creates an infinity of active principles in terms of which objects are intentionally identified in virtue of actions for which we are justifiably held responsible. As Malebranche suggests, God impels us toward the good in general, but we fixate on particular goods. For both thinkers, we need to see how things exhibit God’s grandeur in being related in infinite ways. In this way, we are freed to identify all things as purposive and harmonious.

Freedom and Personality

Philosophy ◽  
1939 ◽  
Vol 14 (55) ◽  
pp. 259-280
Author(s):  
A. E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
Practical Situation ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Speculative Hypothesis

Is it possible to say anything on the well-worn theme of human freedom or unfreedom which has not been ahready better said by someone else before us? It may be doubted; yet it is always worth while to see whether we cannot at least set what is perhaps already familiar to us in a fresh light and so come to a clearer comprehension of our own meaning. This, at any rate, is all that will be attempted in these pages; I have spoken in an earlier essay of the “practical situation” in which we find ourselves whenever we have to make a decision as involving indetermination, and my purpose is simply to make it plainer to myself, and so incidentally perhaps to a reader, what I mean by such an expression. I shall start, then, by adopting what we may perhaps agree to call a phenomenological attitude to the subject; that is, I will try to describe the facts in a way which anyone who recalls occasions when he has been driven to take a decision will recognize as faithful to his experience, without imparting into the description any element of explanatory speculative hypothesis. The description is meant to be one which will be admitted to be true to the “appearances,” independently of any theory about the “freedom of the will”—to describe correctly that which it is the object of all such theories to explain.

Augustine on will, freedom, and foreknowledge: De libero arbitrio, III, 1–3

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-332
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER HUGHES
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
Divine Foreknowledge ◽  
The Third ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Way

AbstractTowards the beginning of the third book of De libero arbitrio, Augustine defends the compatibility of human freedom and divine foreknowledge. His defence appears to involve the idea that the will is essentially free. I discuss and evaluate Augustine's reasons for thinking that the will is essentially free, and the way that Augustine moves from the essential freedom of the will to the compatibility of human freedom and divine foreknowledge.

God and the Good

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-154
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Insole
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
External Object ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Will

This chapter studies Kant’s dramatic rupture, both with his own earlier position about the highest created good, and with any theological or philosophical tradition that he would have received (from scholastic or Lutheran sources). The unconditioned, that which is all-sufficient for practical reason and the will, is not, as it would be for traditional Christian theology, loving and knowing God. Pivotal here is Kant’s rejection of any ‘external object’ for the will and practical reason. Rather, the unconditioned, for Kant, is the will itself, in its activity of rational willing, or, as Kant puts it, the ‘good will’. Kant is convinced that only in this way is genuine human freedom protected.

The Personal, Evil, and the Possibility of Philosophy in Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift

2020 ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
Richard Velkley
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Intrinsic Connection ◽  
The Will ◽  
The One

Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (Freiheitsschrift) is a reflection on the essence of the personal and its intrinsic connection to the possibility of philosophy, with which it establishes “the first clear concept of personality”. In accord with the idea of personality the essay stresses the dialogic mode of inquiry which it opposes to the will to system. The latter, as the will to an absolute ground independent of the personal, reveals itself as unable to account for the dialogic movement of thought that is without end, as thinking never fully captures itself in concepts. This reflection frames the essay’s account of God or the One, whose original self-diremption as a personal being (whereby it grounds evil) assures the permanence of dialogic philosophizing.

The Passions and Human Nature

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
In Virtue Of

This chapter addresses the causes of the passions and their role in Hume’s psychology. I argue that the passions form the foundation of Hume’s naturalistic program to explain human nature and normativity. It also addresses the relationship between the passions and the idea of the freedom of the will, showing that the account of the passions undergirds Hume’s critique of the idea of freedom. This chapter also shows how central our social context is to the development of the passions, and to our psychology in general, in virtue of Hume’s argument that not only is our social nature determined by our passions, but that many of our passions are conditioned by social factors.

The theological value of autonomy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adiel Zimran
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Will ◽  
Abrahamic Religions ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Will Of God

Abstract Western liberalism is based on two different humanistic traditions: First, the biblical tradition of the Abrahamic religions, according to which man was created in the image of God; and, second, the tradition that developed in the age of Enlightenment, which claims man’s absolute independence of any heteronomous or transcendental being and views the very existence as a goal in and of itself. Each one of these two traditions restricts the autonomy of the individual in different ways, thus influencing the constitutional structure one of whose principal functions is to safeguard the autonomy of the citizens. This article deals with the theological value of autonomy. It analyzes the tension between the humanistic-anthropocentric worldview, which sanctifies human freedom, and the humanistic-theocentric way of thinking, which sees God as the source of all norms and holds that the freedom of man is limited by the divine imperative. Subsequently, the article presents three different models of understanding the relations between the will of God and the will of man, through an analysis of the exegesis of three Jewish thinkers on the stories of man’s creation in the image of God and the sin of the Primordial Man. These models represent three attitudes towards the theological value of autonomy. After having presented the different models, I shall compare them to each other and explicate the conceptual differences between them. To conclude, I shall further assess the contribution of these models to contemporary discourse on autonomy and liberty.

Reformed Thought on Freedom: Some Further Thoughts

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Helm
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Will ◽  
First Offers ◽  
Intrinsic Feature

AbstractReformed Thought on Freedom introduces philosophical apparatus that was routinely employed by Reformed Orthodox theologians for discussing the metaphysics of human action. This article first offers critical reflection on the claims made for this apparatus as providing evidence for a commitment to the freedom of indifference. Then, taking the book’s treatment of Francis Turretin’s anthropology as an example, it is argued that the claim that his view of human freedom relies on the notion of synchronic contingency is not made out. There is a failure to distinguish between indifference as an intrinsic feature of the will, and the freedom of indifference.

scholarly journals PEMIKIRAN TEOLOGIS KAUM SALAFÎ: Studi atas Pemikiran Kalam Ibn Taymiyah

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-342
Author(s):  
Izzuddin Washil ◽  
Ahmad Khoirul Fata
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

In the field of kalam (Islamic theology), some major themes, like attributes of Allah, will of Allah and human freedom, or Quran as words of Allah, have become debate topics between thought schools of kalam in Islam. Because of the complexity of those topics, the debate becomes eternal, without an agreed end. Among those thought schools of kalam in Islam involved in the debate is salaf school, held by Ibn Taymiyah. In his opinion, the school is the right one because it quite conforms to Quran and sunna. By way of thought (manhaj) of salaf school, Ibn Taymiyah also takes part in explaining those major themes in his works. In the case of the will of Allah and human freedom, for example, he doesn’t agree with the Qadarite school’s thought and the Jabarite school’s thought although in this he hasn’t yet stretched out a convincing explanation. This essay will analyze the way of thought (manhaj) of salaf school and Ibn Taymiyah’s opinion about those major themes, especially in his book Majmû‘ al-Fatâwâ.

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