The Conflict Between the Arguments for Determinism and Free

The Conflict Between the Arguments for Determinism and Freedom Essay 1. Discuss the conflict between the arguments for determinism and freedom. Everyone in this world has asked this very old question: Are we humans really free in our willing and choosing, or are we predetermined to be and to do what antecedent â€Å"programmingâ€Å" dictates? We feel great for the things we go correct but we feel guilty and blame ourselves for bad decisions. How can we be sure the existence of freedom exists and not that its just a plain illusion. We also find ourselves in a dilemma we have to sides we have the feeling of being free and on the other side we have a feeling of being etermined to accomplish something. In reality we come to the real human dilemma we are both determined and free; and somehow work around the contradictions until we achieve a viable understanding on how both can be true. We as humans operate on the assumption that human beings can be morally and legally responsible -if our assumption of freedom is false, then life as we live it is a cruel joke founded upon a tragic illusion. We are not what we think we are; life is not what we think it is; the rules of the game are not what we thought. Skinner’s way of thinking, â€Å"freedom is a myth, and a dangerous yth because we have invested the myth and its symbol (â€Å"freedom†) with something close to sacred qualities. Freedom is an emotion that is a conditioned response, conditioned (cause) response. If we can’t explain human choice by cause and effect, then there is no answer. There is no other way to explain human choice. No explanation for what freedom means . By selecting specific causes and (stimuli), desire effects (responses) will result. Sartre is convinced that there is no determinism of any kind . Nothing tells me what to do, I decide; I myself decide, I cannot blame God, or others or y past environment , I am now what I make myself to be, I have to accept the consequences of my own freedom, take the responsibility for my decisions, and face the consequences thereof. Environment influences my freedom. Confuse my freedom with uperconditioning. Sartre claimed that man is condemned to be free. A person is the center of freedom. We exist in a world without guidelines. Nothing = no meaning. We live in two realities objective which is real and the subjective not real. Its choose what I want to be and become- so human meaning is nothing. Meaningful things in life would be: ultural norms, what u was brought out to be, and social norms. But to live means to dream a million dreams and forge ahead to catch the fullness of our being. There is nothing to help us, because the moment we became conscious of what we are, then we became responsible for everything we are and do. Freewill: the human consciousness is not subject to the same casual principles that the scientists assumes to operate in the rest of the physical world. A human is free, absolutely and unconditionally free; â€Å"there is no determinism-man is free, man is freedom†. Sartre: human life is inescapably tragic. Live life without myth: means for an explanation for life, getting through life with the human condition and living with that. This can have self cons to make yourself feel better. Sartre wants us to be accountable for our doings, what we do is our responsibility, we assume the consequences for our doings. He doesn’t want us to loose our freedom. Self deception becomes the center of consciousness that becomes and ties with the egocentric predicament. We have to be authentic in our minds choice becomes ours, our actions our own, and the consequences ours. We see how freedom becomes more of a choice, eterminism as the definition defines it: the assumption or doctrine that every event in the universe has a prior cause and that all effects are at least theoretically predictable in all the causes are known; becomes conflicting with freedom, because freedom as I mentioned is more of a choice, because every choice we make comes with a consequence. Its not predictable as determinisms explains. 3. Discuss Toynbee’s â€Å"organismic interpretation† of history. How is it different from that of Marx and Hegel ?  Arnold Toynbee’s Study of History was a research program where he discovered he meaning of history and of the western civilization. In his study he discovered patterns. Consistent, clear patterns of birth, growth, maturity, decline, disintegration, and death for each and every civilization in the world. To him the patterns were unmistakable, and he tried to study the movements of civilizations without prior doctrinal commitment. He believed that the patterns he was were real, not subjective. He gave labels to the stages of development; a â€Å"primitive society†, â€Å" creative minority†, and the â€Å"dominant minority†. Toynbee’s philosophy of history runs something like this: individuals experience a state f peace and contentment, then disillusionment and suffering, after that comes salvaging of values, then again a period of contentment and peace and the cycle repeats itself again. What Toynbee was saying in general was that people don’t get down to the business of assessing life’s values until their loss compels them to do so. In other words individuals learn by suffering, and only by suffering. But they learn and thereby alter the pattern of their civilization. Friedrich Hegel’s and Karl Marx way of thinking is way different that Toynbee’s history view. Friedrich Hegel stated that the thought process moves in a three beat rhythm that he called the â€Å"dialectic†. It begins with an idea, thesis, then proceeds to develop into its opposite, the anti-thesis; after that the mind sees the relatedness of the thesis and the antithesis and weaves them together into a synthesis. This synthesis, in turn, become another thesis, and so the dialectic repeats itself. The dialectic effects comprehension of the connections of the content of thought. Hegel was quite sure that that was the way Gods mind works. He said that God is pure thought or in his own words the Absolute Mind. He is no love or compassion, just pure thought. The Absolute Mind of God manifests reason through the human mind and therefore in human history. He mentioned that whenever people think and act more rationally, they are actualizing God’s will, and this progressive manifestation of logic is the theological purpose underlying human history. Human kind is a crucial part of the program, that man was becoming more reasonable. All of this would end in a state that Hegel described as â€Å"pure thought thinking about pure thought† or in other worlds Absolute mind contemplating itself. Karl Marx as one of Hegel’s students but as other students found the whole Absolute Mind thing was just dispassionate. He believed in Hegel’s â€Å"dialectic† and he believed it was real. But Marx saw it more as a â€Å"materialistic dialectic† an in his vision is was a dialectic of social struggle determined by man’s economic needs. Class struggle creates the three-beat rhythm. Marx interpretation is contrast to Hegel’s theistic dialectic. All Marxists know that history has purpose; it follows â€Å"inexorable law† toward a goal-the classless society where equality, justice, and plenty will prevail. Each individual is a part of history’s drama.