There are two possible views according to G.W.F. Hegel:
1. “The view of understanding”: Is the view held historically (by theology, idealism starting from the early Greeks, rationalism, and classical materialism including natural science, physics in particular) and generally based on causality; holds that chance and necessity are unrelated or one is the opposite of the other; you can have either chance or necessity, but not both together.
For this view (particularly that of modern theoretical physics and evolutionary biology); “Free-will” is impossible, because everything is pre-determined at the time of the creation of the universe, either by God or by the conditions obtaining at the time of the “Big Bang”. What follows is but the manifestation and the "necessity" of the plan; an example is “Our Mathematical Universe” by Harvard physicist Max Tegmark.
Even if the role of chance is recognized in modern biology and the theory of evolution for example; it is only incidental, because "necessity" is chosen by “natural selection”, so in effect is determined. Only theology allows some limited "freedom of the will" on moral choices, but with a warning of punishment if the wrong one is chosen.
2. “The view of reason” or dialectics: Originating with Heraclitus (544 – 483 B.C.) and later improved by Epicurus (384 -322 B.C.) holds that chance and necessity come together and one is inherent in the other as the dialectical "unity of the opposites" - a contradiction. For Hegel, “Chance is blind only when it is not realised in a necessity”.
For the dialectical view, “freedom of the will” is an intrinsic property of life even in its most primitive form, and is accentuated through evolution to its highest level in the thinking brain of man.
For Epicurus, “It is better to follow the myth about the gods than to be a slave of the "fate" of the physicists”.
For Frederick Engels, “Freedom is the appreciation of necessity. Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence of natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends...Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decision with real knowledge of the subject.”
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Evolutionary Biology