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The Incoherence of Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Bernard Mayo
Bernard Mayo
Affiliation:
University of St. Andrews
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Extract

Of the many possible, and no doubt actual, forms of incoherence covered by my title, I shall be concerned with only one, and must begin by dismissing the others. The incoherence I shall speak of is not any alleged inconsistency between deterministic and indeterministic physical theories, such as between classical particle mechanics and quantum theory. It is an inconsistency internal to determinism. Not, that is, internal to any deterministic theory; but to the general claims put forward by determinists—whether scientists, philosophers, or laymen. Still another qualification—it is ‘hard’ determinism I shall be concerned with—‘hard’ in the sense in which William James distinguished between hard and soft determinism. Soft determinism James himself ridiculed as glaringly incoherent, and in any case I shall not be specially concerned with determinism as regards human conduct—with the problem of free will and responsibility.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 168 , April 1969 , pp. 89 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1969

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References

1 James, William, ‘The Dilemma of Determinism’, in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York, 1897).Google Scholar

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