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The Causes of Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

J. Kellenberger
J. Kellenberger
Affiliation:
California State University, Northridge
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Extract

If determinism is correct, then all that men do is in principle predictable. Further, all that they do is predictable in a certain way, namely on the basis of the causes of their actions, where those causes are sufficient for their actions. That is, according to determinism, the antecedents of human actions, their causes, are such that, given a knowledge of those antecedents, the actions that are their effects can be predicted with certainty because they cannot but occur.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 194 , October 1975 , pp. 445 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1975

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References

1 Cf. Campbell, C. A., ‘Is “Freewill” a Pseudo-Problem?’, Free Will and Determinism edited by Berofsky, B. (Harper & Row, New York, 1966), pp. 120–124.Google Scholar

2 This observation in a more general form was made by R. G. Collingwood. It also appears with this example, or one very like it, in Walsh, W. H.'s Metaphysics (Hutchinson University Library, London, 1963), p. 101.Google Scholar