PHILOS 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Christian Philosophy, Stoicism, Intelligent Design
11 Apr 2015
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No incompatibility between action being made necessary by causes and being free. A stoic idea that hume reintroduces into modern philosophy. Necessity is just a name for our expectation; that which we are accustomed to. Free will became a serious problem during christian philosophy. Our freedom allows us to do what lies in our character to do. To have a fate is to have a character; to be one character as opposed to another. Begins section 8 with: all mankind has ever agreed in the doctrine of liberty as well as in that of necessity and the whole dispute has been up to now merely verbal (231) The part of our action that can be predicted is necessitated. Think an event is caused when it is made intrinsically necessary in some things. Causation is a part of human nature, not a habit. Our actions are free when there are no physical constraints.
