Funny how an 'innate understanding' had to be invented by theologians a couple of hundred years ago before which it was nowhere to be found. — StreetlightX

That's an incorrect bias, as it firstly doesn't have to be invented, secondly it would be proposed, not invented, and lastly an innate understanding isn't something limited to the human species.

If you want to be contentious, okay, but this rhetoric is just whining and moping.

That's an incorrect bias, as it firstly doesn't have to be invented, secondly it would be proposed, not invented, and lastly an innate understanding isn't something limited to the human species. — Shamshir

Perhaps I should ask my cat about free will then, given your reluctance.

It's not contentious. It's what any minimally competent understanding of philosophical and etymological history would provide. Free-will had to be invented. If you don't like the fact, maybe you can move to a different Earth with different facts.

History shows plenty of examples otherwise.
Rotten meat being bad for ingestion is a clear cut one.

It is contentious; let's not fool ourselves.

If not being ignorant is contentious then I'll concede it. Until then, I've cited my sources in previous posts here. I'm not convinced in the meantime that ignorance ought to be an index of contentiousness.

You can supply me with all the whiny rhetoric you wish, but it would be like arguing sharks don't exist just because you've never seen any.

You're using unawareness as a bias, in the same way I do the opposite.
The issue is that the odds don't favour you.

I like how sources are 'whiny rhetoric'. While I suppose your completely baseless claims in which free-will is both logical and something innate and unaruged for and altogether incoherent is.. non-whiney? OK.

But he's making perfect sense. Allow me to relay his argument for free will:

You know how ships travel behind the horizon and back, and that that implies that the earth is roughly spherical, and not flat?

Yeah, well free will's just like that.

See? I've convinced you, haven't I?

In response I'm just gonna whine a little bit:

"The great scholar of late antiquity Peter Brown... points out that Augustine has been called the “inventor of our modern notion of will.” Augustine deflected the locus of human striving for meaning and purpose away from the philosophic and scientific search for the human place in nature and the cosmos and toward a concern for the individual will. His achievement was a “shift from cosmos to will,” “a turn[ing] away from the cosmos,” Brown says." (Heidi Ravven)

"An examination of the attempts carried out by Western thought to provide an ethical foundation for sanctioned action (with this term we are indicating from this point forward action imputable to a subject and productive of consequences) shows that, when they are not simply absent, as happens in classical Greek culture, they coincide with the laborious elaboration of the concept of free will in Christian theology and remain, perhaps for this reason, singularly fragile." (Giorgio Agamben)

"It is then presumably only a slight overstatement when I conclude with saying: the problem of physical causal determinism and freedom of decision entered the scene in the 2nd century A.D., by a chance encounter of Stoic physics and the fruits of early Aristotle exegesis, with the contemporary focus on the culpability of mental events and the introduction of a power of decision making as catalysts - and it was not part of the philosophical repertoire for long." (Susanne Bobzien)

"Authors well read in Greek literature have always been aware of this lacuna. Thus [Etienne] Gilson notices as a well-known fact “that Aristotle speaks neither of liberty nor of free will...the term itself is lacking,” and Hobbes is already quite explicit on the point. ... It cannot be “seriously maintained that the problem of freedom ever became the subject of debate in the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle”... The reluctance to recognize the Will as a separate, autonomous mental faculty finally ceded during the long centuries of Christian philosophy ... It was in close connection with the preparation for a future life that the Will and its necessary Freedom in all their complexity were first discovered by Paul. ... Hence one of the difficulties of our topic is that the problems we are dealing with have their “historical origin” in theology rather than in an unbroken tradition of philosophical thought." (Hannah Arendt)

None of this, of course, can stand up to the Logical and Innate Feeling of Shamshir's circumnavigating, observational little boat of free-will.

Funny how an 'innate understanding' had to be invented by theologians a couple of hundred years ago before which it was nowhere to be found. — StreetlightX

It's not contentious. — StreetlightX

It's contentious, if you care to survey philosophical literature on free will, rather than just the works of one or two authors. And no, I am not going to get into a childish flame war with you over this; I am not that interested in history and exegesis, any way. My point of contention is that you are muddying the waters by conflating the intellectual history of free will as an articulated philosophical concept (and a very specific version of that concept, if you insist on tracing it to Augustin et al.) with that which this concept purports to address. What I particularly resent is the attempt to shout down the debate by the unsubtle insinuation that the concept is forever tainted and discredited by its history as an opium for the masses that was maliciously concocted by theologians. You can be critical and revisionist about free will without being stupid and dogmatic.

Yes I can see how citing and quoting four authors (six, really, if you count Gilson and Brown) somehow becomes 'one or two' authors, while simultaneously being accused of not 'surveying the literature', while you get to be 'not that interested in history' while availing yourself of this apparent uncited and unsourced mythical history nonetheless. And I'm dogmatic.

And of course free-will is tainted by its theological roots - I'm not trying to 'insinuate' this: here's me being explicit about it: free-will is theological trash. It's as if someone were to say 'look, just because the doctrine of the trinity was a tad bit theological doesn't mean we can't use it without reference to some God or another'. Well no, they're both as rubbish as each other and stem from the same poisoned chalice.

As for concepts being 'conflated with that which they purport to address', wtf else are concepts if not designed specifically for addressing 'what they purport to address'. Concepts are not plucked from the air to play with for funsies, they're put to use in contexts which alone give them any sense. That the historically and philosophically illiterate have done just that is just the reason that "free-will" is even more fraught a concept than it was before. At least the Christians knew full well what they were doing when they invoked it, unlike our supposedly 'modern' thinkers who are currently beating an aeons dead horse called 'free will' while asking it to do a little trot for them.

For good measure, here's one last one from Albrecht Dihle's 1982 The Theory of the Will in Classical Antiquity:

"It is generally accepted in the study of the history of philosophy that the notion of will, as it is used as a tool of analysis and description in many philosophical doctrines from the early Scholastics to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche,' was invented by St. Augustine."

If 40 years ago this was 'generally accepted', one has to wonder what, exactly, is the charge of 'revisionism' other than a flagrant fucking rainbow flag of "I don't know my history and I'm making shit up in its place". Actually, looking it up, Arendt's book, The Life of the Mind, from which I quoted was published in 1971. One wonders how anyone at least 50 years too late the party has the balls to speak of 'the literature' which ought to be 'surveyed'.

And of course free-will is tainted by its theological roots - I'm not trying to 'insinuate' this: here's me being explicit about it: free-will is theological trash. — StreetlightX

Well, thank you for being so upfront, I guess - this will save me time and effort. By giving a caricature of your position I was hoping (though it wasn't much of a hope after seeing your earlier posts) that I might be proven wrong or that I might elicit a more nuanced take. But it looks like the caricature was spot-on. Oh well.

As for concepts being 'conflated with 'that which they purport to address', wtf else are concepts if not designed specifically for address 'what they purport to address'. — StreetlightX

Fortunately, that's not what I said.

StreetlightX, for clarification, your objection of free-will in a Christian context is that it allows God off the hook when it comes to the problem of evil? Your problem is the apologetic used by Christians that the evil done to others is by man alone because of our free-will. For you this absolves God of any guilt in His creation, is that right?

I just wanted to put your criticisms in the appropriate context before I would like to discuss them.

I wonder if you would be hostile to the idea of a reconciliation between an atheistic Sartrean kind of existential freedom with Christianity.

StreetlightX, for clarification, your objection of free-will in a Christian context is that it allows God off the hook when it comes to the problem of evil? — Hinterlander

No, I couldn't care less about God. That free will was invented as a theological solution to a theological conumdrum is taint enough. The problem, by the way, is not freedom, but the 'will'. Freedom had a long and illustrious history as a concept before being nailed to the cross of the 'will', on which it has rotted away on ever since. Extracting freedom from its theological context entirely is what needs to happen; not retinkering with theology to make it just so. The first thing to go ought to be the 'will'. We don't need secularized theological concepts. We need concepts utterly indifferent to theology and any of its concerns.

Aren't we always "willing" something? We can make such willing explicit by determining an act by choice but I would say we are always in this condition to will something towards something. I'm not sure how humans would go about living their lives if this wasn't the case.

Why? What warrants any of this? We did perfectly fine with any concept of 'will' for hundreds of years. It's hardly some primal datum of human experience so much as it is a cultual meme and grammatical quirk.

We don't need secularized theological concepts. We need concepts utterly indifferent to theology and any of its concerns. — StreetlightX

Where do we begin then? How do we approach this? How do we conceive without any reference to theology?

This is precisely why I think some of the intellectual projects undertaken in the 20th century have failed because there is too much theology that is secularized. Maybe coin the major writings as "atheology".

Maybe coin the major writings as "atheology". — Hinterlander

Bataille tried this already. In any case no. The only properly atheist response to God is: 'what's that? Never heard of it; doesn't sound very interesting, got better things to do'.

I would argue that "willing" is fundamentally integral to human existence. If we are not willing something, then what are we doing? How one wills can be modified that allows for spontaneous free choices that transcend pure determination. However I think this modification is rare simply because we don't simply go about consciously choosing freely this or that. We are still mostly conditioned and determined, but that doesn't forbid a possibility to will otherwise. In any case I think there is something more fundamental than choice, which is where I see "free-will" as the necessary condition that opens up the space for example synergy with God, one that is freely reciprocal between both created and Creator. There has to be a state where one can either accept or reject God's calling, otherwise I'm not sure how freedom can work in most monotheisms. There must be a possibility to reject God totally, atheism might seem totally necessary.

Bataille tried this already. In any case no. The only properly atheist response to God is: 'what's that? Never heard of it; doesn't sound very interesting, got better things to do'. — StreetlightX

I guess we shouldn't waste another keystroke talking about God then. If we are talking about The Philosopher's God (i.e. Unmoved Mover) then yes I have to agree the proper response is total indifference. All the philosophical arguments for such are simply a non-starter for me. They are not convincing at all and all are in some manner a form of question begging.

However I find God, as understood variously by different religious traditions, to be of a wholly different character that might be worth engaging with. I'm not sure God, as understood here, warrants a wholesale removal to the dustbin.

Okay, so you also think that will is only partly free. Can you do any better than Shamshir at providing an acceptable basis for how you supposedly know this to be the case? The determined part seems more supportable, whereas this idea of free will seems only to warrant scepticism at best. — S

I said I think there is a continuum between constraint and freedom, I didn't say I know the will is partly free.

To you it may "seem" that determinism is "more supportable". That says more about you than anything else.

Perhaps there's a free won't!

If we are not willing something, then what are we doing? — Hinterlander

Eating, fucking, building, working, lying, typing, listening, standing, staring, crying, holding, shooting, laughing, praying. Willing? Humbug.

Eating — StreetlightX

A free lunch then?

But those quotes are incompatible. Did Paul or did Augustine or did a 2nd century thinker invent the idea? The only reading of that collection of contradictory quotes that makes sense to me would be to see them all as instances of a contemporary attempt to tie the concept of 'free will' to christianity, linking [accepted thing] to [bad thing] (presumably doing so in a attempt to shift focus from the individual to the collective, in alignment with a certain political outlook, sanctifying it with scholarly conceptual archaeology.) And then shotgun results when trying to do that.

I super like the idea of 'free won't', which has the merit of being able to be made sense of, unlike a certain 'free will'. Still, while I think that such a notion has a part to play in a broader conception of freedom, it remains too 'punctive', a depthless instant that largely - but not altogether - shares with 'free will' an inattention to the conditions under which freedom is excercized and sustained. A kind of freedom ex post rather than ex nihilo. It's inspiration is at least biological, which is more than can be said of free will.

I agree with what I think you are saying here. I don't think the idea of completely unconditioned freedom, whether to say "I will" or "I won't" is intelligible. At the same time I don't think we are completely determined, and I think the freedom we do have, as opposed to a mere lack of external constraint is, in the final analysis, irreducible and inexplicable.

Let's say I have a choice between having a chocolate eclair and a jam doughnut and I don't mind which. However I somehow manage to choose one. Is my choice determined or undetermined?

[The relevance of this is to see if there is an application for the idea of free will or undetermined choice without reference to theology]

I said I think there is a continuum between constraint and freedom, I didn't say I know the will is partly free. — Janus

Okay, Mr. Pedantic. Then why do you think that?

To you it may "seem" that determinism is "more supportable". That says more about you than anything else. — Janus

Yes, it says that it seems to me that it's more supportable for reasons x, y, z, and your reply says that you were in a petty and unhelpful mood at the time you came up with that response.

Let's say I have a choice between having a chocolate eclair and a jam doughnut and I don't mind which. However I somehow manage to choose one. Is my choice determined or free? — bert1

Ordinarily, freedom refers to an availability of alternative courses of action, in relation to a partial specification of the influences bearing upon a decision making process.

Conversely, determination refers to a causal or logical relation within a partially specified context.

These concepts are therefore compatible, in virtue of them being under-determined. Their use in any given situation is analogous to describing a glass of water as being half-full and half-empty.