How does the argument that fatalism is false "proceed from axioms"? Fatalism does not argue on the basis of the existence of laws of nature (and what makes you think laws of nature are axioms anyway?). Hard determinism perhaps does, but fatalism doesn't. I think you are confusing fatalism with hard determinism. But, in any case, laws of nature are not axioms.

When I philosophize, I don't do so "on the basis of axioms". Not so far as I can tell.

The laws of nature can be interpreted as axioms. They are not. I think there is good case to be made that if determinism is true, then fatalism is also true. If you disagree, then i appreciate some argument from you.

That the laws of nature are true has nothing whatsoever to do with whether they are axioms. And certainly nothing to do with whether philosophers argue from them.

As a matter of fact, determinism and fatalism are incompatible, since fatalism implies that the decisions and choices people make are ineffectual in determining their future, whereas determinism denies that . For determinism (on the contrary) asserts that the choices and decisions people make have everything to do with what happens to them in the future. Therefore, far from determinism implying fatalism, determinism implies the falsity of fatalism.

You are surely wrong. If laws of nature are true, and deterministic, then the world is surely deterministic. Do you disagree?


I disagree. If we suppose materialism is true, and determinism is true, then the subjective act of "choosing" is ineffectual, because everything in already determined to follow from the laws of nature, and initial conditions set from the big bang.

If laws of nature are true, and deterministic, then the world is surely deterministic. Do you disagree?

No. But what has that supposed to do with what we are discussing?

If materialism and determinism are true, then making a choice is a material thing, and it enters into the chain of causation, so that if I had not chosen vanilla ice-cream, and chosen chocolate instead, I would not have been served vanilla ice-cream, and I would have been served chocolate instead. An important part of the cause of my getting vanilla was my having chosen vanilla.

You assume that "your choice" is the cause of what you have. This is not the case if materialism, and determinism is true. The cause must be "material". "you choice" is not material. It is mental.

Why cannot a choice be a brain-event? All the evidence we have is that it is. Mental events may be (and probably are) brain-events. Why would you think they are not? What would determine whether I got vanilla ice-cream if my choice to order it did not?

For is it not possible that science as we know it today, or a "search for the truth" in the style of traditional philosophy, will create a monster? Is it not possible that an objective approach that frowns upon personal connections between the entities examined will harm people, turn them into miserable, unfriendly, self-righteous mechanisms without charm or humour? "Is it not possible," asks Kierkegaard, "that my activity as an objective [or critico-rational] observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?" I suspect the answer to many of these questions is affirmative and I believe that a reform of the sciences that makes them more anarchic and more subjective (in Kierkegaard's sense) is urgently needed. Against Method. p. 154.

Of course, you can say your choices are just some physical states that goes on in your brain. If this is the case, then i have nothing to say. I advise you to not do it. You want to say the reason your are eating vanilla ice cream is because you made the choice. Otherwise, you would be saying that the reason you are eating vanilla ice cream is because some event happen in the universe that made it so.

Generally, I agree that we should not believe in that which has not been proven for us personally.

Yes. I am eating vanilla ice-cream because some event happened in the universe that made it so. Namely, I chose to order vanilla ice-cream. Why would you advise me not to say that my choices are physical states that occurs in my brain? Especially if I thought that was true? Have you any reason to think it is not true?

Well, there is good reason to think intentions are not reducible to physical states. The practical reason is that we want to take responsibility for our actions. If you kill a person, and argue that some random physical event happen in your brain that made you do it( eg: perhaps, a cold)

What would make you think that the physical event in my brain was random? Anyway I did not say that mental states were reducible to material states. I said that they were identical to material states. Mental states are no more reducible to material states if they are identical with material states, than are material states reducible to mental states. So, if mental states and physical states are identical, then it follows that if physical states are random, then metal states are random too. Therefore, it is a wash.

Does it matter that physical state in your brain is not random, but determined by some prior event? I don` t think so. You can blame why you kill someone on the big bang if you want. This problem will not go away if you blame it on some physical state in your brain.

Sorry. I no longer understand your point. What difference does it make to blame or praise whether the cause is mental or physical? Specifically, whether the anger which cause me to punch someone when I should not have done so, is an physical event, or a mental event, or both physical and mental?

Agreed. You are lost. Ask yourself under what condition where an agent is blame worthy. we normally blame a person, and not a physical state.

What difference do you think it makes whether that fit of anger was a mental state or a physical state, or both? Apparently you think it makes a difference. What is it?

We never blame a physical state, although we may, of course, cite a physical state as the cause of what the person did. Who said that we blame a physical state?

I don't know what it means that "philosophy proceeds from axioms".

Axiom - definition
1. A self-evident or universally recognized truth; a maxim: "It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can be paid for only with goods and services" (Albert Jay Nock).
2. An established rule, principle, or law.
3. A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate.

Because intention is mental state. You can have the intention of kill another people, and that is what makes you blameworthy. This is not true of some physical event.



My guess is Kennethamy.

I actually said science proceeds from axioms.



So what I am saying is that while science proceeds from axioms, philosophy questions them. I believe Reconstructo quoted Feyerabend - he and Kuhn both draw attention to the paradigm, which is kind of a super-set of axioms, the conceptual framework within which axioms are formulated. Philosophy will question both paradigms and axioms.

One might view philosophy as the science that aspires to the greatest "turning radius." Philosophy as the neck of an owl. Philosophy can be viewed as the most radical and experimental art of science, even as the ambivalent self-consciousness of science. One might argue that the supposed rejection of metaphysics was just the implicit adoption of a radically pragmatic metaphysics, which has obviously worked in many ways.

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