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Should Reasoning Embarrass the Determinist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Robert Simon
Robert Simon
Affiliation:
Hamilton College
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Extract

In a recent article published in this journal, Charles Ripley argues that determinism cannot be true because it is self-defeating. According to Ripley, the determinist “holds determinism to be objectively true and supports his claim by appealing to justifying reasons” but unfortunately “it is a logical consequence of determinism that appeals to justifying reasons and also the very concept of objective truth must be abandoned.” On this view, if determinism is true, there can be neither true nor justified belief, or if there can be such things, we can never know when we have them.

Type
Discussion/Note
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 680 - 682
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1973

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References

1 Ripley, Charles, “Why Determinism Cannot be True,” Dialogue, Volume XI, No. 1 (1972), pp. 59–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 ibid., p. 59.

3 Ripley defends the stronger thesis. The weaker, and to my mind, more plausible thesis has been defended by Jordan, James, “Determinism's Dilemma,” The Review of Metaphysics, Volume 23, No. 89, (1969) pp. 48–65Google Scholar. My criticisms apply to Jordan's position as well as Ripley's.

4 Ayer, A. J., “Fatalism,” in Ayer, The Concept of A Person and Other Essays (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1963), pp. 266–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ripley, op. cit., p. 64.

6 “Jordan, op. cit., pp. 56ff. On this point, Jordan maintains that “if determinism is true, we can have no reasonable assurance that any of our various criteria of truth or warranted assertibility are cogent. Only an unbelievably pre-established harmony could insure that what ‘character and circumstances’ give us to believe is in accord with what ought to be believed if we are to believe truly.” p. 56.

7 Or, if any criteria are self-certifying, the determinist as well as the indeterminist can discover them.

8 I am grateful to Hamilton College for its support of my work and to Elizabeth Ring and Russell Blackwood for helpful discussion on the topic of this paper.