Pre-determinism implies that all the information in the universe today was implicit in the earliest moments of the universe. It is information conserving. It is consistent with the theological idea of God's foreknowledge (which is logically inconsistent with His omnipotence).
Since modern physics shows that the universe in indeterministic, with profound effects on the atomic scale of microscopic processes, we will find it valuable to distinguish pre-determinism (inevitable causal chains) from the adequate determinism that we have in the real world and obvious in the classical physical laws that apply in the macrocosmos.
Determinism is a modern name (nineteenth-century) for Democritus' ancient idea that strict causal laws control the motion of atoms, and that everything - including human minds - consists merely of atoms in a void.
As Democritus' mentor and fellow materialist Leucippus put it, an absolute necessity leaves no room in the cosmos for chance. Pre-determinism is a better name for this idea of necessity and total absence of chance.
"Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity." 1οὐδὲν χρῆμα μάτην γίνεται, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἐκ λόγου τε καὶ ὑπ’ ἀνάγκης
Determinism, especially the variation of "soft" determinism (cf. William James) or compatibilism, is supported as a theory of free will by a majority of philosophers, each with special vested interests in one or more of the many determinisms.
Compatibilism is a form of determinism that argues man is free as long as his own will is one of the steps in the causal chain, even if his choices are completely pre-determined for physical reasons or preordained by God.
The core idea of determinism is closely related to the idea of causality. But we can have causality without determinism, especially the "soft" causality that follows an "uncaused" event (a causa sui) that is not predictable from prior events.
Aristotle called such events archai (ἀρχαί) - starting points or "fresh starts" in new causal chains which break the bonds of determinism.
Despite David Hume's critical attack on the necessity of causes, many philosophers embrace causality and determinism strongly. Some even connect it to the very possibility of logic and reason. And Hume himself believed strongly, if inconsistently, in necessity. " 'tis impossible to admit any medium betwixt chance and necessity," he said.
Despite this, Hume was disturbed by the implications of pre-determinism in his theory. Most compatibilists and determinists since Hobbes and Hume never mention the fact that a causal chain of events going back before our birth would not provide the kind of liberty they are looking for. But Hume frankly admits that such a causal chain would be a serious objection to his theory.
I pretend not to have obviated or removed all objections to this theory, with regard to necessity and liberty. I can foresee other objections, derived from topics which have not here been treated of. It may be said, for instance, that, if voluntary actions be subjected to the same laws of necessity with the operations of matter, there is a continued chain of necessary causes, pre-ordained and pre-determined, reaching from the original cause of all to every single volition, of every human creature. No contingency anywhere in the universe; no indifference; no liberty. While we act, we are, at the same time, acted upon.To escape this objection, we must imagine that Hume wanted some kind of agent-causal freedom in voluntarist acts.
Indeterminism for some is simply an occasional event without a cause. We can have an adequate causality without strict determinism. Strict determinism means complete predictability of events and only one possible future. Adequate determinism provides statistical predictability, which in normal situations for physical objects approaches statistical certainty.
Phillipa Foot argued that because our actions are determined by our motives, our character and values, our feelings and desires, in no way leads to the conclusion that they are predetermined from the beginning of the universe.
The presence of quantum uncertainty leads some philosophers to call the world indetermined. But indeterminism is somewhat misleading, with strong negative connotations, when most events are overwhelmingly "adequately determined." Nevertheless, speaking logically, if a single event is undetermined, then indeterminism is true, and determinism false. 1
The sense of "coming to a firm decision" (to do something) is from 1450.
Determination as a "quality of being resolute" dates from 1822.
Before the nineteenth century determinists were called Necessarians. William Belsham contrasted them (favorably) with the incoherent Libertarians in 1789, the first use of Libertarian.
Determinism appears in 1846 in Sir William Hamilton's edition of Thomas Reid's works as a note on p.87.
There are two schemes of Necessity - the Necessitation by efficient - the Necessitation by final causes. The former is brute or blind Fate; the latter rational Determinism.At about the same time, it is used by theologians to describe lack of free will.
In 1855, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) wrote,
The theory of Determinism, in which the will is determined or swayed to a particular course by external inducements and forced habits, so that the consciousness of freedom rests chiefly upon an oblivion of the antecedents of our choice.
Ernst Cassirer claimed (mistakenly?) that Determinism in the philosophical sense of a "doctrine that everything that happens is determined by a necessary chain of causation." dates from 1876.
Note that ancient philosophers worried about this causal chain (ἄλυσις), but those philosophers who allowed the existence of chance, (Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, and Alexander of Aphrodisias), denied such a causal chain, while maintaining that human decisions were caused by neither chance nor necessity but by a tertium quid - our autonomous human agency.
The adjective determinist appeared first in the Contemporary Review of October 1874 - "The objections of our modern Determinists." In the Contemporary Review of March 1885 R. H. Hutton described "The necessarian or determinist theory of human action."
And now at last we can define- "determinism" and "indeterminism." Determinism is the doctrine that every event is completely determined, in the sense just defined. Indeterminism, is the doctrine that some, and it may be all, events are not completely determined, in the sense defined. Both doctrines are, prima facie, intelligible, when defined as I have defined them.There is one other point to be noticed. An event might be completely determined, and yet it might have a "causal ancestor" which was not, completely determined. If Y is the total cause of Z and X is the total cause of Y, I call both Y and X "causal ancestors" of Z. Similarly, if W were the total cause of X, I should call Y, X, and W "causal ancestors" of Z. And so on. If at any stage in such a series there is a term, e.g. W, which contains a cause-factor that is not completely determined, the series will stop there, just as the series of human ancestors stops with Adam. Such a term may be called the "causal progenitor" of such a series. If determinism be true, every event has causal ancestors, and therefore there are no causal progenitors. If indeterminism be true, there are causal progenitors in the history of the world.
We are now in a position to define what Ι will call "libertarianism." This doctrine may be summed up in two propositions. (i) Some (and it may be all) voluntary actions have a causal ancestor which contains as a cause factor the putting-forth of an effort which is not completely determined in direction and intensity by occurrent causation. (ii) In such cases the direction and the intensity of the effort are completely determined by non-occurrent causation, in which the self or agent, taken as a substance or continuant, is the non-occurrent total cause. [Broad means a non-physical mind as the non-occurent cause.] Thus, Libertarianism, as defined by me, entails indeterminism, as defined by me; but the converse does not hold.
If I am right, libertarianism is self-evidently impossible, whilst indeterminism is prima facie possible.
Although the notion of determinism appears frequently through this book, the free will discussion is concerned only with a tiny subset of what might be determined, viz., those events that affect human decision making. Whether there is, e.g., indeterminacy in quantum physics is an empirical matter outside of philosophers' ken and, by itself, does not bear on the free will debate, although some libertarians have argued that quantum indeterminacy could bear on human choices (see Chapter 8). This book is primarily about free will, though, and about determinism only incidentally.Compatibilism — The view that the theses of free will and determinism can both be true.
Incompatibilism — The view they cannot both be true.
Soft determinism — Technically, compatibilism plus determinism, but in fact, the view that we have free will not as a result of indeterminism, whether or not determinism is true.
Hard determinism — Technically, incompatibilism plus determinism, but the view that humans lack free will because their decisions are determined, again, whether determinism in its fullest generality is true.
Libertarianism — The view that humans have free will as a result of indeterminism in their choices. {This is an extreme view that makes chance the direct cause of our choices.]
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Chapter 1.6 - The Scientists ![]() |
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Part Two - Knowledge ![]() |