Subject: Re: AUT: Free Will???
From: chris wright <cwright.21stcentury-AT-rcn.com>
Date: 03 Jun 2003 23:07:26 -0500


Aside from the brilliant idea of making a toy from Legos, Duplos,
Saltpeter and a dead cat (and I mean it; that is brilliant, I was
rolling on the floor when I read that and my 5 year old would prolly
love it!), I think we have a fundamental disagreement.

I didn't take us outside social determination for a moment, nor do I
want to (and to that extent, orthodox notions of free will are rather
besides the point, but the problem of will is not.)  However, I will
insist on a genuine difference between causality and dialectic, and I
would argue that you would have to go to Hegel and Marx for clarity on
the matter, not because they are sacred texts, but because I think there
is a critique of causality as such therein that is unlike anything
else.  They are rather different notions of how things work, but that
would also be a much larger discussion.  If we want to have that
discussion, then we should wait and write something rather more
substantive, since it is a pretty big issue.

Maybe you would like to start with an example of what you mean by causal
and causality, since there are a variety of notions of causality (like
classical Aristotelian (sic), Enlightenment thinkers of various sorts,
and Althusserian overdetermined causality.)  I will happily try and
engage in a thoughtful manner, but it will be a bit labor intensive.

Cheers,
Chris

On Tue, 2003-06-03 at 21:35, topp8564-AT-mail.usyd.edu.au wrote:
> I think this is just confused and confusing. You are mixing up different senses 
> in which I may have or fail to have freedom. I can choose to eat bananas or 
> pork buns, but I can't not eat. I can decide to be a lawyer or a bricklayer (I 
> can, because I'm rich!) but I can't decide to step outside of society entirely. 
> I'd die. I can pick up stuff around the house, and choose, with very, very 
> obscure causal determinations, whether it will be Extracts from Class War or a 
> copy of Wittgenstein's On Certainty. But I can't not read.
> 
> Not only are these three examples radically different, it would be very odd 
> indeed if someone argued that I have no choice but eating bananas...because I 
> am hungry, or that I must be a lawyer...because I depend on other people, or I 
> must read On Certainty...because I'd go nuts if I didn't read something.
> 
> All of this could be, and probably is, entirely determined causally, but makes 
> absolutely no difference whatsoever. It's a huge red herring.
> 
> And note that all this pops into our problem before we get to the issue of 
> whether we have a dialectical arrangement or not. It's as if you are tying to 
> put the pieces together before sorting them (or rather: with a tacit sorting). 
> It's like trying to build a toy from a mix Lego and Duplo bricks, saltpeter and 
> a dead cat. Not that that wouldn't have a certain surreal value.
> 
> I also think that you have an unusually undialectical view of causality. Why 
> should we presume that causal relations have to be between "two 'things' or 
> 'events' which are independent objects." That's not so, though I can't see what 
> we would lose if we did restrict ourselves to this. And it is definitely not so 
> in Hegel and Marx, not that I would advocate going there for clarity on this 
> subject. In effect, they thought that Newton and friends had an incorrect, or 
> rather, partial appreciation of causality. But Marx at least was very obviously 
> not opposed to a revised concept of causality. So why can't we tell the story 
> of causal brains and causal society in a dialectical fashion? I am not sure 
> that's a good idea, for other reasons, but I can't see how it is impossible or 
> uninteresting.
> 
> Thiago
> 





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