Are not the choices we make highly materially and socially determined? Where does free will come from? My position is scientific determinism coupled with ontological uncertainty. Things are complicated and contradictory as hell, and just because we study the world doesn’t mean we can predict the future.
I’m not saying we have free will, or that our choices aren’t materially and socially determined, I’m saying that we still do make those choices, and I’m cautioning against mechanical materialism that turns into pessimistic or nihilistic fatalism. We are parts of the whole, and we are conscious of it. We are active parts of the historical process and our history happens through our actions. Do you dispute Marx’s framing I quoted above?
I agree, I just don’t think that disproves determinism in any way. In my view communism is probably inevitable, but who knows? So I keep fighting. It’s easy to argue that capitalism must come to an end. I referenced socialism or extinction in my previous post.
how does determinism explain development? i feel like it should be viewed, as many things, as a spectrum and not something binary. For me development is the anti-thesis to determinism.
edit: while most things are already determined by our existing material conditions, i think we definitely have a bit of leeway, otherwise we wouldn’t be at this stage of development.
Contradictions are not precluded from determinism. All things are composed of unities of opposites constantly in change. Just because a mechanical materialist may not expect what did happen doesn’t invalidate determinism. The world is absurd, but that doesn’t bring wills into the question.
Are not the choices we make highly materially and socially determined? Where does free will come from? My position is scientific determinism coupled with ontological uncertainty. Things are complicated and contradictory as hell, and just because we study the world doesn’t mean we can predict the future.
I’m not saying we have free will, or that our choices aren’t materially and socially determined, I’m saying that we still do make those choices, and I’m cautioning against mechanical materialism that turns into pessimistic or nihilistic fatalism. We are parts of the whole, and we are conscious of it. We are active parts of the historical process and our history happens through our actions. Do you dispute Marx’s framing I quoted above?
I agree, I just don’t think that disproves determinism in any way. In my view communism is probably inevitable, but who knows? So I keep fighting. It’s easy to argue that capitalism must come to an end. I referenced socialism or extinction in my previous post.
how does determinism explain development? i feel like it should be viewed, as many things, as a spectrum and not something binary. For me development is the anti-thesis to determinism.
edit: while most things are already determined by our existing material conditions, i think we definitely have a bit of leeway, otherwise we wouldn’t be at this stage of development.
Contradictions are not precluded from determinism. All things are composed of unities of opposites constantly in change. Just because a mechanical materialist may not expect what did happen doesn’t invalidate determinism. The world is absurd, but that doesn’t bring wills into the question.