No.2357
Where do MLs stand on the "free-will vs. determinism" debate?
No.2360
eh, illusion of free will is as good as the real thing.
it doesn't really matter from a marxist angle.
No.2364
1970s Soviet encyclopedia article:
>Free Will
>a philosophical category that designates the philosophical and ethical problem of whether human actions are self-determined or determined by outside forces—that is, the question of the conditionality of the human will.
>Since the Socratic period bitter disputes have centered on the problem of free will, which is of crucial significance because its resolution determines whether man is recognized as responsible for his actions. On the one hand, if all actions are strictly predetermined and inevitable, they cannot be the object of praise or blame. On the other hand, if the human will is viewed as a “final principle” not preconditioned by anything, a break conflicting with the requirements of scientific explanation is introduced into the chain of causality linking phenomena.
>The antinomy in the interpretation of free will has given rise to two corresponding philosophical positions: determinism, which asserts that the will is causally determined, and indeterminism, which denies that the will is dependent on causality. Depending on whether a physical or psychological factor is recognized as the cause of volitional acts, it is customary to draw a distinction between mechanistic determinism (for example, the philosophical determinism of Spinoza and Hobbes) and psychological determinism, which is less stringent (for example, T. Lipps). The theories of J. G. Fichte and M. F. Maine de Biran are representative of the most consistent indeterminism.
>In the history of philosophy the most common theories of free will are eclectic ones combining opposite positions, such as Kant’s dualism. According to Kant, man, as a rational creature belonging to the intelligible world, possesses free will. In the empirical world, however, where natural necessity prevails, the human being does not have freedom of choice, and the human will is causally determined. Traces of a similar inconsistency are found in the theories of F. W. J. von Schelling, who defined freedom as internal necessity, at the same time recognizing the self-assertive character of the initial act of choice. Hegel proclaimed freedom of will but attributed it not to human beings but to the “world spirit,” which embodies the “pure” concept of free will.
>In bourgeois philosophy of the late 19th through early 20th centuries, voluntarist and personalist indeterminism prevailed in the interpretation of free will. The positivist orientation, which avoided the problem, was also popular. Both tendencies are interwoven in the work of some philosophers, including Bergson. Defending freedom of will, Bergson refers to the organic unity of spiritual states that are not readily broken into separate elements and that are not causally determined. W. Windelband argued that volitional acts are sometimes causally determined and sometimes free. The problem of free will is a focal concern of the atheistic existentialists, including J.-P. Sartre and M. Heidegger, who believe that human beings possess an absolute freedom that is counterposed to the external world. Thus, the atheistic existentialists reduce the concept of free will to self-will, or willfulness.
>In theistic religious doctrines the problem of free will is posed on the level of human autonomy in relation to god. Thus, the concept of free will, without which a religious ethic is impossible, clashes with the concept of “grace” and unalterable divine predestination. Attempts to resolve the contradictions arising in this regard have produced a variety of contradictory currents in religious philosophy, including Thomism and Molinism in Catholic theology and Calvinism and Arminianism in Protestant theology. In addition to naturalistic determinism and the pagan belief in fate, the main components of fatalism include the extreme religious doctrines of predestination, which make the individual absolutely dependent on supernatural forces or on the divine will.
>In Marxist philosophy the dialectic of freedom and necessity serves as the foundation for assessing the problem of free will.
No.2365
Same source:
>Determinism
>a philosophical doctrine maintaining the objective law-governed interdependence and interconditionality of the phenomena of the material and spiritual world. The central nucleus of determinism is the thesis of the existence of causality, that is, a relationship of phenomena such that one phenomena, the cause, necessarily gives rise to or produces, under definite conditions, a second phenomenon, the effect.
>Contemporary determinism posits the existence of various objectively existing forms of interdependence of phenomena, many of which manifest themselves in correlations that have no directly causal nature; they do not contain the moment of production of one by the other. Among these are spatial and temporal correlations, functional dependencies, and relations of symmetry. Very important for contemporary science are probability correlations, formulated in the language of statistical distributions and statistical laws. However, all forms of real interrelations of phenomena arise on the basis of a universally acting causality, outside of which no phenomena of reality exist, even those events (the so-called accidental) that, in their totality, are governed by statistical laws. In the different fields of knowledge the general principles of determinism are given specific application; such terms as “physical determinism,” “organic determinism,” and “social determinism” are often used.
>The principal shortcoming of former, pre-Marxist, determinism lay in its restriction of the concept to one directly acting causality, interpreted, in addition, in a purely mechanistic fashion; this theory rejected the objective nature of chance and excluded probability from the concept of determinism, opposing in principle statistical relations to the materialist determination of phenomena. Since it was linked with the metaphysical materialism, the former determinism could not be applied consistently in many important areas of the sciences of nature, particularly biology, and was powerless to explain social life and the phenomena of consciousness. The effective application of the ideas of determinism in this field was made possible by dialectical and historical materialism. The nucleus of the Marxist conception of social determinism is the recognition of the lawlike regularity of social life. This does not mean, however, that the course of history is predetermined and is realized with an iron necessity. Sociohistorical laws, while determining the basic line of historical development, at the same time do not predetermine the diversity of each individual’s activities. In social life various possibilities constantly arise, their realization depends on conscious activity of men. Determinism, therefore, not only does not deny freedom but, on the contrary, assumes man’s ability to choose the motives and the goals of his activity.
>Determinism stands in opposition to indeterminism, which denies causality in general, or at least its universality. Another negation of determinism is idealistic teleology, which proclaims the predetermination of the course of all processes by the action of a nonmaterial “goal-positing principle.”; The stimulus for the revival of indeterminist views in the first quarter of the 20th century was the growth in physics of the role of statistical regularities, whose existence was held to refute causality. However, the dialectical-materialist interpretation of the interrelation between chance and necessity and of the categories of causality and law, and the development of quantum mechanics, which revealed new forms of an objective causal interdependence among phenomena on the subatomic level, demonstrated the unfoundedness of attempts to use the existence of probabilistic processes on the subatomic level for the refutation of determinism.
>Darwin’s theory of evolution, which provided a materialist explanation of the purposiveness of living nature, and the development of cybernetics, which created the study of self-regulating and self-governing systems, have shattered idealistic teleology, fatalism, and doctrines of predetermination and confirmed the accuracy of all the principal premises of con-temporary dialectical-materialist determinism.
>The principle of determinism serves as the leading principle in all fields of scientific knowledge and is an effective instrument for the attainment of the truth.
No.2366
Free will is a non-concept, in my opinion. Consider these alternatives, of which one must be true:
>human decisions are not determined by past events
>human decisions are determined by past events
If the latter, free will doesn't exist. If the former, this means at least some component human decision making is random/causeless. Being random or causeless means there is no way to ensure the outcome beyond that inherent randomness, and means that humans cannot the random outcome.
In both cases humans can never control their decisions beyond determinism or pure chance, which means free will cannot exist. It pretty much has no meaning.
As for the above Marxist view I haven't read or don't remember the content of the above posts, however materialism, which Marxism contains, says that the physical world is primary, and mankinds ideas are secondary reflections of the actual material state of reality. That being said ideas also have a physical form in the brain and universe and are capable of influencing the development of the material world as they are a part of it.
No.2367
Also see this thread:
>>2342 No.2368
>>2366
>means that humans cannot control the random outcome* No.2403
>>2364>>2365These seem to reject notions of free will and accept determinism i.e. everything has a material cause and is subject to the laws of science.
However this part:
>Sociohistorical laws, while determining the basic line of historical development, at the same time do not predetermine the diversity of each individual’s activities. In social life various possibilities constantly arise, their realization depends on conscious activity of men. Determinism, therefore, not only does not deny freedom but, on the contrary, assumes man’s ability to choose the motives and the goals of his activity.Seems to contradict that.
No.2414
>>2357
>This view of history [,historical materialism,] should not be interpreted as meaning that economic actors determine everything.
According to the materialist conception of history," wrote Engels to Bloch (September 1890), the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he trasforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase... We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one."
Taken from John Eaton's Political Economy. Emphasis his.
No.2422
>>2414
Raise your Hell's Engels with a Stalinator
No.2431
>>2422
i raise your Stalinator with a REAL Stalinator