Abstract
Most studies on Riehl focus on his arguments about the problem of human knowledge. Far less attention has been afforded to his discussion of morals, even though morality undoubtedly plays a fundamental role within Riehl’s philosophical concerns. One of the central axes around which Riehl’s considerations of morality revolve is the fundamental philosophical problem concerning the relation between the freedom of the will and determinism. In his major work, The Philosophical Criticism, Riehl rejects the metaphysical conception of the freedom of the will and advocates absolute determinism. The originality of his view, however, lies in the fact that Riehl elaborates a non-metaphysical concept of freedom that he calls practical freedom, which he intends to be not only compatible with, but directly based on, determinism. The aim of this article is to retrace this original approach to the problem of determinism and freedom by analyzing Riehl’s argumentation regarding metaphysical freedom of the will, determinism, and practical freedom as it is developed in the chapter entitled “The Determinism of Will and Practical Freedom” of the last volume of his main work, The Philosophical Criticism.
