November 29, 2010
Leibniz and Frankfurt on Freedom
The history of the debate on free will is sometimes narrated as follows: first, we have the 'classic compatibilists', starting from Hobbes, through Locke, Hume, and the positivists. At first these fellows square off against libertarians like Bramhall and Reid, who are (so the story goes) deservedly obscure. The debate is terribly unsophisticated: the compatibilists hold that freedom just is the ability to do what you want to do, the absence of any sort of external constraints. The libertarians require some kind of magic 'contra-causal' agent causation they can't explain. They slowly die out as English language philosophy is purified...
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Topic(s):
Augustine
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
David Hume
,
Ethics
,
Free Will
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Harry Frankfurt
,
Historical Thinkers
,
John Bramhall
,
John Locke
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Martin Luther
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Metaphysics
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Moral Psychology
,
Peter van Inwagen
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Mind
,
Roderick Chisholm
,
Thomas Hobbes
,
Thomas Reid
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October 2, 2009
Quote of the Day: Leibniz Against Hyper-Calvinism
If there are people who believe that election and reprobation are accomplished on God's part by a despotic and absolute power, not only without any apparent reason but actually without any reason, even a concealed one, they maintain an opinion that destroys alike the nature of things and the divine perfections. Such an absolutely absolute decree (so to speak) would be without doubt insupportable. But Luther and Calvin were far from such a belief: the former hopes that the life to come will make us comprehend the just reasons of God's choice; and the latter protests explicitly that these reasons...
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