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Responsibility, Freedom and Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

John Bourke
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Extract

There may in general be said to be two ways in which progress may be made in the understanding and towards the solution of a problem. The one is that of the continual development of it in the form originally given to it, by confirming this and rejecting that point in the light of fresh evidence, by clarification of concepts, and by detecting and resolving ambiguities and inconsistencies. Here it is assumed that the standpoint from which the problem has been approached is relevant and adequate. The other is entered upon when an “impasse” has been reached which can only be avoided by the realization that the original question was asked in a way which was either partially or wholly false or misleading. This is the more radical way of partial or total reformulation of the problem to be solved.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 13 , Issue 51 , July 1938 , pp. 276 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1938

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References

1 This convenient terminology is borrowed from an acute article by H. Sidgwick on Freedom in Kant (Mind, 1888, vol. xiii, No. 51, partially reprinted as Appendix to Methods of Ethics, 6th Ed.).

2 Treatise, Bk. II, pt. 3, sect. 1, ad fin.

3 Ibid., sect. 2.

4 Ibid.

3 Ethical Studies, p. 11.

1 Metaphysic of Morals, sect, iii (Abbott’s, translation, p. 87).Google Scholar

2 Ibid. (Abbott, p. 78).

3 See Metaphysics Θ, 2 and 5. Together with Eth. Nic. iii, 1–5, these two chapters are very important for an adequate estimation of Aristotle’s account of freedom of will.

1 Met. of Morals, sect, iii (Abbott, p. 79).

1 It may be noted, as Sidgwick points out in the article above mentioned, that it is the collision between these two conceptions of freedom, those of “neutral” and of “rational” freedom, which presents perhaps the greatest difficulty in Kant's doctrine of freedom. He is interested in establishing the reality of both conceptions, but his general principles will not, it seems, admit of it.

1 Met. of Morals, sect, iii (Abbott, p. 79).

2 Theory of Morals, p. xii.

1 Ethic, Part II, prop, xxxv, Schol.

2 See especially Ethic, Part I, Appendix; and Part IV, Preface.

1 See Critique of Practical Reason, Dialectic, chap, ii, sect, iii: “Of the Primacy of Pure Practical Reason in its union with the Speculative Reason.”

1 See H. Rickert: System der Philosophie, Part I, chap, v, sect. 6.