Parables of Freedom and Necessity

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Modern Time ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Thematic Relations ◽  
Narrative Poem

EpilogueGeoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Frankeleyn’s Tale” and Bertold Brecht’sThe Exception and the Rule seem to have very little in common. Chaucer’smedieval narrative poem tries to follow the norms of its genre andfulfiil the reader’s expectations, whereas Brecht’s modernist experimentalplay violates many of the rules of drama laid down by Aristotle and otherclassical critics. It deliberately shocks the reader out of any facile identificationwith the characters as well as any willing suspension of disbelief.But despite their many obvious differences, this study argues that theirsimilarities are quite relevant and significant. Both works deal with thethemes of human freedom, moral responsibility, and ability to transcend.These are among the major themes of literature throughout time-butthey have acquired particular poignancy in our modern time with the riseand gradual unfolding of what I term the “Paradigmatic sequence of secularization.”Since the terms “paradigm” and “secularism” are alreadyquite problematic, and to talk of “a paradigmatic sequence of secularization”is even more so, some kind of clarification and even redefinition isin order.ParadigmsWhen a critic singles out two literary works for comparison, thechoice is not guided by some universally established objective rules, butrather dictated by a certain set of assumptions, norms, criteria, biases, andso on. When he/she engages in the critical act itself, pointing out structuraland thematic relations (of similarity and dissimilarity), he/she does ...

“Christ’s mighty shrine above His martyr’s tomb”: Byron and Liszt’s Journey to Rome

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 17-26
Author(s):  
Paul W. Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Literary Works ◽  
The Real ◽  
English Poet ◽  
Byronic Hero ◽  
Public Enemy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Narrative Poem ◽  
Positive Force

The influence of Byron on Liszt was enormous, as is generally acknowledged. In particular the First Book of the Années de pèlerinage shows the poet’s influence in its choice of Byron epigraphs in English for four of the set of nine pieces. In his years of travel as a virtuoso pianist Liszt often referred to “mon byronisme.” The work by Byron that most affected Liszt is the long narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which was translated into many languages, including French. The word “pèlerinage” that replaced “voyageur” is a Byronic identity in Liszt’s thinking. The Byronic hero as Liszt saw him and imitated him in for example Mazeppa and Tasso is a figure who represented a positive force, suffering and perhaps a revolutionary, but definitely not a public enemy. Liszt’s life, viewed as a musical pilgrimage, led of course to Rome. Is it possible that Byron even influenced him in this direction? In this paper I try to give a portrait of the real Byron that hides behind the poseur of his literary works, and suggest that what drew Liszt to the English poet was precisely the man whom he sensed behind the artistic mask. Byron was not musical, but he was religious — as emerges from his life and his letters, a life which caused scandal to his English contemporaries. But today we can see that part of the youthful genius of the rebel Byron was his boldness in the face of hypocrisy and compromise — his heroism was simply to be true. In this we can see a parallel with the Liszt who left the piano and composed Christus. What look like incompatibilities are simply the connection between action and contemplation — between the journey and the goal. Byron, in fact, can help us follow the ligne intérieure which Liszt talked about in the 1830s.

The Third Antinomy Resolved

2021 ◽  
pp. 299-324
Author(s):  
Ian Proops
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
The Third ◽  
Moral Growth ◽  
Indirect Argument

This chapter examines the resolution of the third antinomy. Kant argues that the thesis and antithesis are (roughly speaking) sub-contraries rather than contradictories. However, the sense in which he maintains that the thesis and antithesis ‘can both be true’ is delicate. He holds that the truth of neither claim excludes the truth of the other; but this is compatible with necessary falsehood of the thesis, which affirms the existence of human freedom. Importantly, Kant does not take himself to show on theoretical grounds that freedom is even logically possible. The chapter also discusses: Kant’s conceptions of intelligible causality and of empirical and intelligible character; moral responsibility; moral growth; the rationality of blame; Kant’s criticisms of Leibniz’s compatibilism; the third antinomy as an indirect argument for Transcendental Idealism; and the first-Critique’s version of a moral argument for freedom. Kant emerges as a ‘soft determinist’ of a highly unusual stripe.

The Freedom of God and Human Freedom

1983 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
Axel D. Steuer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Our peculiar dignity as persons seems to rest on our freedom of action, since freedom of action is required to make sense both out of moral responsibility and out of the God—man relationship. Indeed, the possession of freedom seems to be a (if not the) major justification for claims that humans are in an important way images of God. Furthermore, the most promising theodicies all ascribe a good portion of the evil experienced in the world to the free actions of human beings.

Determined to Come Most Freely

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-297
Author(s):  
James N. Anderson ◽  
Paul Manata
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
To Come ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Libertarian Free Will ◽  
Rule Out

It is commonly held that Calvinism is committed to theological determinism, and therefore also to compatibilism insofar as Calvinism affirms human freedom and moral responsibility. Recent scholarship has challenged this view, opening up space for a form of Calvinism that allows for libertarian free will. In this article we critically assess two versions of ‘libertarian Calvinism’ recently proposed by Oliver Crisp. We contend that Calvinism (defined along the confessional lines adopted by Crisp) is implicitly committed to theological determinism, and even if it were not so committed, it would still rule out libertarian free will on other grounds.

Dilige Et Quod Vis Fac

1965 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 444-456
Author(s):  
William Lillie
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Christian Ethic ◽  
The One ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Personal Decision ◽  
The Church

Of all our theological disciplines Christian ethics appears to be the one most open to attack. However careful the modern exponents of Calvinism have been in setting forth the truths of God's sovereignty and human depravity, they have sometimes used language which suggests that, since all good actions are the outcome of God's grace, ‘Christianity transcends morality altogether, and there is no such thing as a Christian ethic’. Again the apparently rigorous determinism of both Dialectical Materialism and Freudian Psychology has been interpreted in popular thought as removing every possibility of moral responsibility, for men's actions are thought to be as mechanistically determined as all other events in physical nature. Today the emphasis on personal decision in much existentialist thought is a welcome reaction against such determinisms whether theological or scientific. Yet the very demand for a new recognition of human freedom has sparked off a new attack on the Christian ethic, at any rate as this has been taught in the tradition of the Church. This ethic is now being labelled authoritarian, puritan, legalistic, rigoristic, heteronomous and the like, and it is taken for granted that these are all derogatory terms. If we are to seek a slogan for this new attack, we cannot find a better one than the familiar, if not quite accurate, translation of the saying of St. Augustine, ‘Love and do what you like’, and it is by examining this principle, that we shall try to gain some light on the position of Christian ethics today.

Popper on Determinism

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 149-162
Author(s):  
Peter Clark
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growth Of Science ◽  
Human Rationality

There is no doubt at all that the issue of determinism versus indeterminism was a central, dominating theme of Popper's thought. By his own account he saw his criticism of the thesis of determinism as crucial to his defence not only of the reality of human freedom, moral responsibility and creativity but also as equally fundamental to his account of human rationality and to his theory of the content and growth of science as an objective, rational and most importantly demonstrably rational enterprise. Consequently a great deal of his writings discussing both the content and methodology of the natural and the social sciences alternately bear upon and presuppose his defence of indeterminism.

Augustine on the Election of Jacob

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyue Wu
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Manipulation Argument ◽  
Good Action ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Philosophical Challenge

This essay aims to take up the philosophical challenge of causal determination in divine predestination to human freedom by reconstructing Augustine’s relevant insights to argue that divine predestination still can accommodate our intuitions concerning freedom and moral responsibility today. Section 1 briefly reconstructs the development of Augustine’s reflections on predestination by focusing on his interpretation of the election of Jacob. Section 2 appeals to attacks from the Idle Argument and the Manipulation Argument to present the theoretical difficulties in Augustine’s account. Section 3 argues that Augustine’s teaching of predestination contains a significant but often-neglected aspect of moral intuitions: the asymmetry of moral responsibility, namely, the conditions of being praised for a good action are substantially different from those of being blamed for an evil one. In conclusion, this essay considers some possible objections to the Augustinian asymmetry thesis to show its relevance to our moral responsibility practices today.

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