Objectivist Volition vs Indeterminism

In the free will-determinism debate, Objectivism stands in rare company with those philosophies that adopt the libertarian view of volition (which is free will considered as incompatible with determinism). Most philosophies embrace one of the alternative theories to libertarian free will: hard determinism, soft determinism (compatibilism), and indeterminism.  Responses to the hard and soft versions of determinism will be forthcoming. This current essay will present an overview of the indeterminist perspective on free will. Afterwards an Objectivist response to the indeterminist position will be explored, both to explain the differences between the two theories as well as to point out errors on the part of the indeterminists.

Hobbes and Hume on the Senses: a Response

This essay is a follow-up to “The Perceptual Level as Given.” It will discuss a philosophical school that tried to answer the question of what the mind starts with: the sensualists/empiricists. The bulk of this essay will be an extended presentation of the sensualist approach of consciousness and knowledge as expounded by key sensualists like Hobbes and Hume. That section will be followed by a couple of my own problems with sensualism as they relate to the perceptual level of consciousness. (My issues with the sensualist view of the conceptual level will have to wait until I work through the inductions of concept-formation. I’ve also modernized the words in Hobbes’ and Hume’s quoted statements.)

Objections to the Axioms (Part 2)

Previous: Objections to the Axioms (Part 1)

This next objection is about the utility of the axioms.  

Objection: “Axioms Must Have Deductive Implications”

[...]A first principle is only useful and workable if you can deduce the rest of the worldview from it. You can't deduce anything from 'whatever exists exists'. You can't deduce any kind of epistemology (ie, how we know that whatever exists exists, how we know that we know, etc); we can't deduce any kind of metaphysic (ie, what is the nature of existence, what is the ground of existence, etc); and we certainly can't deduce any ethical or anthropological propositions (ie, what is right and wrong, what is the nature of man, etc).[...][1]

The Law of Causality (Cause-and-Effect)

Previous: On Axiomatic Concepts and Axioms

Causality is something inherent in reality; it is an inescapable law of existence. In Objectivism, it is the first principle of Metaphysics after the identification of the basic axioms. I will give an inductive investigation of sorts into how this law can be formed. Afterwards, I will show why it can’t be an induction strictly speaking, and is rather a self-evident corollary of the Law of Identity.

Inducing Cause-and-Effect

Causality, or cause-and-effect, is the view that the world is lawful, orderly, or uniform in its operations. To understand what this means, we’ll have to revisit a number of concepts I discussed previously in my essay on axiomatic concepts and axioms.

Induction of Aristotle’s Theory of Four Causes

The aim of this essay is to retrace the steps Aristotle had to reach in order to induce his revolutionary theory of causality, second only to his theory of logic in philosophical importance. In presenting these steps, we’ll also see several philosophical problems he solved in the process of reaching his theory of four causes.

Reduction of Aristotle's Theory of Four Causes

Let’s start with the definition of “causality”: “the principle that agents bring something about; a person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition.”

In Aristotle’s mature view, there were four ways for something to be a cause, to be an explanation of a fact: the material, formal, efficient, and final. 

Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 2 of 3)

(Previous post: Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 1 of 3) )

This essay will focus on the aspects of John Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy that discuss his ideas on causation and induction. Before presenting his rules of philosophizing, which amounts to his theory of how induction works, John Herschel discusses the characteristics of cause-and-effect.

Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 1 of 3)

Introduction

John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871) was an important 19th Century scientist, arguably the most important. (I currently put William Whewell and Herschel on nearly the same footing, with Whewell having a slight edge.) He studied and made applications to the fields of astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, botany, and electricity. He was also one of the first modern "philosophers of science," and an advocate of the use of inductive reasoning in scientific investigations, particularly a version of Francis Bacon's method of induction, informed by the discoveries of science since the early 17th Century (Bacon died in 1626). To promote and encourage the activities of the "men of science," Herschel published the work A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830), a treatise on the scientific method, detailing the elements of science, scientific subjects that had been and were being studied, and the procedures that a good man of science should utilize. (This book would be influential for many later scientists, notably Charles Darwin.) Most importantly, Herschel proposed in this work an enhancement of Francis Bacon's philosophy of induction, discussing both the nature of inductive reasoning and the value that should be placed upon it in science. Indeed, the very progression of science from the state of pre-science speculations and collections of facts is a progression of inductions, Herschel would remind us.

This three part essay will detail the elements and rules of Herschel's view of induction, starting with his empiricist view of experience being the source of all knowledge, working our way through his rules for inductive reasoning and ways for verifying inductions made, and the role of analogy, hypothesis, and the complimentary relation of induction and deduction in science. As a result, it isn't a complete discussion of all the important points about science made by Herschel in his Preliminary Discourse, such as the role of precise measurement in describing laws of nature, and I would suggest that the reader takes some time to read the book itself.