Will in philosophy. The religious and historical prerequisites for posing the problem of human will in Europe determined three main eras in its philosophical research: the first is associated with paganism and antiquity, the second - with Christianity, which changed fundamental ideas about God and man, the third - represents the struggle of two principles, two worldviews and life understandings, on the one hand, Christianity, on the other - atheism, appearing in its various philosophical , social and cultural forms.

In ancient philosophy a range of issues related to the will becomes the subject of discussion, starting with a critique of Socratic ethics, the central point of which was the identification of knowledge and virtue (arethe). According to the teaching Socrates and, the implementation of goodness in life (agathon) presupposes knowledge of goodness as a necessary condition. Evil, Socrates believed, is committed by a person not of his own will, but out of ignorance. This relationship between knowledge of the good and morality, if it left a place for will in the philosophy of Socrates, was only as the will to knowledge; and found its expression in the words “know yourself,” which did not belong to Socrates, but became the motto of his teaching about moral improvement on the paths of self-knowledge. This “subjective” principle of morality, anticipating Kant’s “autonomous ethics,” not only did not reject faith in God and the existence of universally binding truths, but was also based on Socrates’ conviction that known good and a good life are consistent with universally binding truth and are pleasing to God.

Neither Plato, neither Aristotle did not share the point of view of Socrates, but they did not fully manage to overcome the intellectualistic understanding of morality and will. Plato in the dialogue “Cratylus” explains the etymology of the word “will”, referring “to the image of shooting” or hunting - ““will” (βουλη) in some way means the flight of an arrow (βολη)” Krat. 420e. Vol. In the dialogue “Protagoras,” Plato notes that “a person, knowing that evil is evil, still commits it” (Prot. 355c), and thus, it would seem, he denies the direct dependence of morality on the knowledge of good. However, leaving independence to the will in the matter of fulfillment or non-fulfillment of desires, Plato subordinates it to reason. In the dialogue “Timaeus” (69b-70c), based on the division of the soul into the immortal (reasonable) and mortal (irrational) parts, and the subsequent division of the mortal part into the “noble” and concupiscible (cf. Resp. 439b-443a3), Plato has will among aspirations and considers it as an authority acting in relation to each of the mortal parts of the soul on the basis of the “ability to reason.” In the complex mechanism of relationships between the “principles” or “parts” of the soul, Plato distinguishes between bodily and mental (“divine”) aspirations, the latter corresponding to the rational part of the soul. Plato divides bodily aspirations into natural and base; in relation to the natural, reason and will require compliance with measures, base ones are either rejected, or the soul weakly submits to them, and a free person turns into a slave of pleasures. According to Plato, this can only be prevented by education and training in virtue from an early age. Plato wrote that “no one is vicious of his own free will, but only bad properties of the body or failed upbringing make a vicious person vicious, and always to his own misfortune and against his will” (Tim. 86d-e; trans. S. Averintsev. T .3.P.495). Believing only the rational part of the soul to be immortal, Plato considered the human will to be mortal; This is partly contradicted by Plato’s mythological description of the return of the soul to God, in which the souls of vicious people resist the guides and are forcibly led by them. Contrary to some of his assumptions about the possible existence of a soul and body in God, Plato always denied the existence of will in God. According to Plato, the nature of God is simple and unchangeable, God is good and in his actions is not guided by a choice between the best and the worst.

Aristotle's doctrine of the will represents the highest point in the development of ancient research on this problem. In the treatise “On the Soul”, in the ethical and political writings of Aristotle, the main problems of the will, its relationship to reason, knowledge, desires, freedom, actions and law are analyzed with rare depth and thoroughness. The general basis of Aristotle’s understanding of the will includes: the concept of the soul as abilities, the doctrine of man as a free being in moral and political terms, the fundamental position about the difference between the theoretical and practical aspects of morality, between knowledge of virtue and action.. Depending on the purposes of the study, Aristotle uses different classifications of the soul and divides it 1) into sensations, imagination, aspirations, will and reason (in connection with the doctrine of abilities human soul) (De an. 432a15-b6); 2) into plant, animal and rational (in connection with general teaching about the soul and special - about the human soul); 3) into reasonable and unreasonable (in connection with the problem of the immortality of the human soul).

According to Aristotle's teaching about the abilities of the human soul, the will is connected both with the mind and with aspirations (these include desires, passions, lusts); the will “emerges” in the rational part of the soul (432b5), and at the same time “is an aspiration”; at the same time, Aristotle distinguishes the desire, “when the movement is carried out in accordance with reflection, ... and ... will” (433a 23), from that which “moves contrary to reflection.” This division of aspirations in Aristotle is due, on the one hand, to the intention to consider the will as a rational desire, on the other, to the need to explain the place of the will in the implementation of those aspirations and desires that contradict reason and are accomplished “contrary to reflection.”

When performing actions, Aristotle believes, the soul faces a “choice.” But how is the choice itself possible? Aristotle believes that the essential definitions of will include its understanding as an ability (δύναμις) or possibility. Will as an ability of an animate being presupposes activity (èνέργεια) “according to<своему>choice" (Met. V 12, 1019a20-25) (Met. M.-L., 1934. Translation by Kubitsky. P.92), as well as the goal, in the sense of “realization” (προς èντελέχειαν) of activity (ibid. IX 8,1050a22)(P.159). Aristotle connects his understanding of man with the choice of a goal based on imagination and mind as a rational being with free will, capable, regardless of sensory inclinations, of independently performing actions and being responsible for them.

The problem of the relationship between will and reason was considered in Greek Stoicism, in particular, the teachings of Zeno, Chrysippus and others in connection with the main and defining position of this philosophy - “to live according to nature” (Greek) or fate. This agreement with nature as the ideal of a virtuous life, regardless of whether human nature or the divine law embodied in the universe was meant, required bringing the thoughts and actions of man (into in a broad sense- own way of life) in accordance with the “laws” of this “nature”, and as a necessary condition - knowledge of this “nature”. The ideal of Stoicism is a sage who, with the help of reason, has comprehended the law of this “nature”, and is able to conform his will, or “what depends on us” (τò éφ" ήμιν), with it. Thus, the question of free will from the point of view of Stoicism acquired the character of a problem, how free will is possible on the basis of necessity, moral or physical. It remains to assume that free will as a rational desire was understood by the Stoics in terms of personal self-improvement as a means for overcoming the distorted “nature” and combating the passions of the soul, and with the solution of this. the task lost any meaning.

M. Polenz believed that the concept of “will” first appears in Roman Stoicism (Die Stoa, I, S.307-308). Cicero in the treatise “On Fate,” discussing the doctrine of atoms of Democritus-Epicurus in connection with the polemic with the Stoics on the issue of necessity and chance, he touched upon the problem of free will and noted the spontaneous nature of the movements of the soul due to the nature of the will. Cicero believed that the will is not without cause, but at the same time it “does not need external and previous causes” (De fato. 23; p. 308). In the Tusculan Discourses, speaking about the Stoics who believed that people are attracted to the good and called this attraction will (boulesis), Cicero agreed with the definition of will as “rational desire” (Tusc. IV, VI, 12).

Seneca V " Moral letters to Lucilius” noted that the key to peace is greatness of spirit, the achievement of which means: “to comprehend the truth in its entirety, to observe order, measure, decency and good will in all actions, benevolent, invariably obedient to reason...” (Ep. XCII, 3). In reason, Seneca sees the basis of human free will, and in the sage, a being hardly inferior to God in his attitude towards the external goods of this world. Seneca wrote: “What is the need for prayers? Make yourself happy! You can do this if you understand one thing: only that which contains virtue is good...” (Ep. XXXI, 5).

On the formation of doctrine Dam about the will, along with philosophical sources, Plato and Aristotle, was also influenced by Christianity, with which he was familiar. By the time of the creation of Plotinus’s treatise “On the Will and Freedom of God,” op. St. Irenaeus of Lyons “Against Heresies” (Adv. haer.), Tertullian “On the Soul” (De an.), “On the Encouragement of Chastity (De exhort. cast.), etc.; in these works, questions of the will of God and man in their relation to each other were discussed from a Christian point of view.

Plotinus is responsible for the first metaphysical interpretation of the will in the history of European philosophy, which is inextricably linked with the principles of his philosophy. For Plotinus, God or the One, the Good, is the first and eternal beginning of the Mind, the World Soul and all things. This indivisible One, according to Plotinus, is focused on itself as Good, can and wants to be what it is - Good “in its very being (εν τή ύποστάσει)” (P.264). Distinguishing the inexpressible and incomprehensible One from the essence and energy inherent in the Mind (as unity in plurality), Plotinus nevertheless considers it possible to talk about the One as absolute thinking, which is the “first energy”, identical to hypostasis (P.273), and defines God as energy, which is will. Plotinus wrote: “The will is God, who exists because he wants it and exists the way he wants” (p.275). This will of God, according to Plotinus, manifests itself both in the Mind and in the life of all things as a world plan.

In his doctrine of the human will, Plotinus considered questions about the relationship of the will to the soul and mind, desires, actions, chance, etc. Believing that a necessary prerequisite for free will is the liberation of the soul from bodily passions, Plotinus made free will itself dependent on its relationship to the mind; he wrote that “freedom belongs to the will, to the extent that the will coincides with the mind” (p. 249). Following Aristotle, Plotinus believed that in a person only the theoretical (contemplative) mind is free, the activity of which is focused on itself, which “resting on the good ... lives the life that is desirable for it” (p. 253). Therefore, the will of a person is free only by virtue of participation and proportionality to this mind, but finding itself outside the mind, it enters the world of necessity and makes the human soul not free. Plotinus noted that the mind is free in itself, but the will and soul are not free in themselves, but only because of the presence in the mind of the “benevolent light” of God (P.267).

FREE WILL

T. view, which affirms the self-causality of the will, i.e. interpreting will as a self-positing, autonomous force, received indeterminism in the history of philosophy; , denying S. century. and defending the conditioning of the will from the outside, is known under the name of determinism. As for free will, its supporters point to the existence of freedom, which determinists dispute, considering it illusory. This is the evidence of self-consciousness introduced by Spinoza from his indeterminism. interpretation (i.e., a sense of freedom from the idea of ​​S. v.) is an indispensable argument in subsequent deterministic. reasoning (see P. Holbach, Common Sense, M., 1941, pp. 304–05; D. Hume, Research on the Human Mind, P., 1916, pp. 108–09; A. Schopenhauer, S. in . and the foundations of morality, St. Petersburg, 1896, pp. 21–22; J. Mill, Review of the philosophy of W. Hamilton..., St. Petersburg, 1869, p. , 1887, S., 264; V. Russel, Our knowledge of the external world..., L., 1952, p. Actions are usually cited as proof of the causality of the will: an immutable dependence between the motive of volitional behavior, which is the experience of the value (or simply an assessment as expedient) of the result of a given action, and the action itself. The motive is psychological. the basis of the action, how the cause determines the action; the latter only becomes preferable over other alternative actions because it is recognized as valuable and desirable, i.e. expresses the desire of the individual: it is not as such that motivates the will, but the desired object (see Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, in the book: Soch., vol. 4, part 1, M., 1965 , pp. 331–34). The action is concluded. moment of movement that began with “I want.” But if what is known is made valuable (i.e., transformed into the basis of action) by the will itself, then, consequently, the element of necessity is also introduced by it. Thus, motivation does not address the issue of causality and, therefore, the necessity of the volitions themselves; she is able to demonstrate only one thing: “I do what I want” (and not the opposite). Like any psychological An attempt to solve the question of self-control, the idea of ​​motivation turns out to be untenable (psychology remains in the field of the mechanism of the will; the problem of self-control belongs only to philosophy). Ch. The argument for indeterminism is the evidence of morals. consciousness, conscience, which requires the assumption of S. v. to justify (explain) its existence.

Depending on the factors that are considered to determine the will of a person, several can be distinguished. types of determinism. Mechanical, or physical, determinism deduces all phenomena, incl. psychic , from the movement of material particles; the mental is considered as a derivative of the movement of material bodies. Thus, for Hobbes, the source of action is mechanical. push or pressure from the side. And since the original action is outside of man, then the action itself is outside of his power. A representative of the second type of determinism - mental, or psychological - Lipps, considering the basis of everything, postulates its development with the help of the concept of mental. causality. Since every psychic. necessarily predetermined by the previous ones, Lipps’s attempt to preserve freedom (and thereby personality) through the “I”, to which all mental things belong. acts, is unjustified, because, according to Lipps, external (in relation to the “I”) long before this “I” itself determined what it would be like and what its manifestations would be. This kind of mental Kant called the system a “spiritual automaton”, and its freedom – the freedom of the skewer (see ibid., p. 426). The third determinism, the so-called. supranaturalistic determinism, puts human. will depending on supernaturals. factor (god) (see Predestination). Difficulties faced by the theologians. in solving the problem of S. v., are how to reconcile the omniscience and omnipotence of God with the self-determination of the creature, and his good will with the existence of evil in the world (see Theodicy). These contradictions can be formulated as follows: if S. v. exists, then he is not omnipotent and not omniscient; if it does not exist, then, firstly, a person is not responsible for his actions, and, secondly, the question arises, where does evil come from?

Ch. The difficulties of determinism begin outside the theoretical framework itself. construction - in attempts to establish morals. consciousness. “Priestley’s frank determinism, which destroys, is more likely to be applauded than that syncreticism that affirms morality and at the same time recognizes such a will, thanks to which all possibility of freedom is denied” (Fisher K., History new philosophy, t. 5, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 97; see also Kant, Soch., vol. 4, part 1, p. 427–28). The difficulties of indeterminism lie primarily in the theoretical. side of the issue - in the rationalistic. understanding the self-determination of will.

However, the identification of types of teachings about S. century. conditionally. The specificity of the issue, "... the enormous practical consequences ..." (Hegel, Works, vol. 3, p. 291), associated with it, lead to the interweaving of alternative positions. “When considering the problem of freedom, we everywhere encounter preconceived opinions, partly of a scientific, partly of an ethical and religious nature, everywhere with an attempt to connect, with the help of dialectical subtleties, things that are essentially incompatible; everywhere wit is directed towards saving one hand what the other missed" (Windelband V., On Freedom of Will, M., 1905, p. 4). One of the grandiose attempts to combine two opposite points of view. got its way in the concept of S. century. Kant - Schopenhauer, in a certain sense continued by Schelling and Fichte. Considered in accordance with the original principle of German classical philosophy - from the point of view. rationalism, it reveals contradictions and thereby the unsatisfactory solution to the antinomy of freedom and necessity. Denying the possibility of knowledge of theoretical freedom. reason, which, according to Kant, constitutes the phenomena we know through causality, Kant affirms freedom in the practical sphere. reason to justify morality. Evidence of freedom is the existence of a categorical imperative, which is based on the consciousness: you can, because you must. As a member of the world of phenomena, man is conditioned by previous states, subject to the law of causality; as a being, he begins from himself - he is free. When trying to explain the relationship empirically. and intelligible characters in man, Kant reveals contradictions: on the one hand, “... intelligible character would not be subject to any temporary conditions, since it is a condition only of phenomena, and not of things in themselves” (“Critique of Pure Reason”, in the book .: Soch., vol. 3, M., 1964, p. 482) and in it no one can arise or disappear, on the other hand, “... an intelligible character... constitutes the cause of these actions..." (ibid.) and empirical nature in general, i.e. still manifests itself in time; In addition, the concept of causality is illegal - from the point of view. Kant's philosophy - transferred from the field of empirical. phenomena into the realm of the intelligible “thing in itself”. By declaring dualism, Kant seeks to preserve both necessity and freedom, but in fact their reconciliation does not occur. The connection between the intelligible and the empirical remains unclear (see ibid., pp. 477–99); we cannot imagine the fact of this connection, “...has no conceivable content” (see. B. S. Soloviev, Collection. soch., vol. 10, St. Petersburg, 1914, p. 376). By proclaiming S. v., Kant actually sends it to the behind-the-scenes world. Schopenhauer, who detailed Kant’s concept (in particular, on the issue of conscience, which, like moral prescriptions, only needlessly irritates a person, but is not able to change anything in him, because it is a useless witness to the action of his once-for-all choice), tries save the situation with the doctrine of holiness. He allows, following Kant, a radical revolution (in time) of the intelligible character, which is in clear contradiction with the timeless essence of this character. Thus, the considered S. century. leaves unclear what it is intended to explain (empirical man), for as empirical. character created by the intelligible, and individual acts of will presuppose obligations. in time and therefore not explainable by reference to timelessness. The concept of freedom as an act of self-positing also remains unexplored. According to Schopenhauer, “...every existentia (existence) presupposes (being), i.e., everything must represent something, have a certain thing. It is impossible to exist and at the same time be nothing...” (“Free will and the foundations of morality”, St. Petersburg, 1896, pp. 71–72). But self-positing cannot mean anything other than defining oneself through oneself, which does not yet exist. T. sp. Schopenhauer enters with his own affirmation of the self-positing of the will as “being from itself” -. True, he tries to avoid contradiction by bringing to the rescue the concept of the timeless. Schopenhauer's reasoning leads us to the following. dilemma: if the “I” itself, whose character is chosen, was already something (and there is no “existence without essence” - see ibid.), then no act of self-determination and free election occurs - “I” defines itself by already being defined; and if it had not yet been defined, then, therefore, it was nothing (which Schopenhauer also rejects). This appears in naked form in his teaching on holiness, where the question arises about the grounds for a radical revolution in the intelligible character. Traces of the same inconsistency are found in Schelling’s “Philosophical Studies on the Essence of Human Freedom” (St. Petersburg, 1908), which in its recognition of the groundless goes further along the path of indeterminism (following Boehme and his concept of “the groundless”). On the one hand, Schelling declares that “the essence of the basis, as the essence of what exists, can only be that which precedes any basis, i.e., as such, the groundless,” on the other hand, “... so that an intelligible being can determine itself , it must be defined in itself. .. by itself..." (op. cit., pp. 67, 47). But the "groundless" is at the same time a denial of certainty. This contradiction is expressed in the fact that "... from the absolutely uncertain there is no transition to the definite "(ibid., p. 47), is further manifested in the definition of freedom as an internal necessity: "...internal, arising from the essence of the actor himself, necessity" (ibid., p. 46). But since the "being" must still be determined (“by itself”), insofar as this definition cannot be necessary (i.e., the only possible one), because it means precisely the emergence of this “itself,” or, what is the same, its determination (essence) without preliminary grounds The self-positing nature of the initial act of choice eliminates its necessity. The very concept of internal necessity, when applied to social science, is based on the interpretation of the unknown ("internal", which is still subject to positing) as known, as already given, defined; empty. Essentially, the advantage in Schelling's concept is given to S. v. “Man is placed at the top, where he has in himself the source of free movement equally towards good and evil: the beginning in him is not necessary, but free. He is at a crossroads, whatever he chooses, this decision will be his act” (ibid. , p. 39). Similar to freedom as internal. necessity in Hegel; however, the freedom he proclaims is human. will exists in its monistic. contradictory to the system. For Hegel, freedom can be possessed by the “absolute idea” (“world spirit”), but not by man, because the precondition for free is man. there can be only the recognition of a multitude of independently acting individuals.

Thus, within the limits of rationalism. understanding of freedom, i.e. at sequential In the development of the concept of self-positing, indeterminism inevitably leads to the equal possibility of two opposite actions (liberum arbitrum indeferentiae), to freedom of indifference as an expression of the possibility of choice. But freedom of indifference in the beginning. in the act of constituting selfhood there is freedom through, there is abs. . Here indeterminism returns us to the already well-known difficulty of determinism, for abs. the randomness of the nature of the agent satisfies the requirement of responsibility just as little as that of this agent from the outside. Thus, the problem of St., which appeared as both necessity and responsibility, appears in the form of a contradiction between freedom and responsibility. To get out of this difficulty, rationalism. indeterminism needs to postulate the eternity of the individual spirit (such a timelessness that would eliminate the need for an initial act of self-determination). Schelling has this idea (along with his acceptance of Kant’s understanding of a timeless character): man “... by nature eternally is...” (ibid., p. 50); it is characteristic of personalism.

S. v., considered as the basis of morality, has an ethical. . The tragedy of freedom is that it is forced. is not good, but free (true) good presupposes the freedom of evil. The possibility of evil hidden in freedom of arbitrariness (in Kant’s terminology, negative freedom) led to its ignoring and gave rise to a powerful tradition of its denial, the origins of which go back to antiquity. The denial of negative freedom was already characteristic of Socrates, who first posed the very problem of the world of justice, then it was developed by Plato (although in the “Laws” he has hints of a deeper view), the Stoics and received an echo throughout the history of philosophy - with Thomas Aquinas , Descartes, Spinoza, Fichte, etc. Antiquity, with its consciousness of man’s dependence on higher powers, did not recognize negative freedom (Epicure is an exception). Metaphysical research From the very beginning, the foundations of St. were replaced by moral and anthropological ones. consideration of the issue. Socrates develops an essentially educational view. - everyone is equally looking for good, but not everyone knows what it is. Reason frees you from lower inclinations and leads to good (for you cannot know what is good and at the same time act evil). This t.zr. in fact, it is based on the assumption of the predetermination of the irrational nature of man and the identification of man. essences with reason (the practical aspect of this view is the assertion of irresponsibility, imputation of a non-reflecting individual). With such an (intellectualistic) position, the very problem of S. v. turns out to be bypassed - it is replaced by the problem of the relationship between different natures in man: the sensual and the rational, and the affirmation of the victory of the latter over the former does not say anything about the laws of transition from an irrational state to a rational one, about the determinability of reason itself. Freedom, which is affirmed here, is from lower passions, harmony in goodness; in contrast to freedom as a path (negative freedom), this is freedom as, i.e. positive freedom (cf. “I will teach you the truth, and I will make you free”). Fichte, center. The point of philosophy is the concept of freedom, conceptualized, in particular, as spontaneity, trying to get rid of the “costs” of arbitrariness, ultimately comes to ignore the meaning of negative freedom and essentially eliminates the scope of its action. According to Fichte, it turns out that for natural man there is no freedom, because Blind instincts operate in him, but for the rational there is none, for he must inevitably be guided by morals. by law. Thus, freedom of choice remains for Fichte only an attribute of imperfect will, its shortcoming.

Understanding freedom as unity. the possibility of goodness is characteristic of Christianity; the origins of this idea go back to the Psalms Old Testament and the Epistles of Paul and are then developed, although not always consistently, by Augustine. In line with this are John Duns Scotus, Ockham, Eckhart, Boehme, Angelus Silesius (Scheffler), as well as Kierkegaard. The pathos of freedom is revived in the “Russian spiritual renaissance” of the beginning. 20th century (Berdyaev, Shestov, Vysheslavtsev, Frank, etc.), inspired by the work of Dostoevsky. Christ. concept of S. v. believes that man, created by God, is free. (The problem of theodicy here receives the following answer: God is omnipotent, but his free will, striving for the perfection of creation, required the creation of the free will of man.) The grace sent by God to man is not coercion, but only a call; it acts not as an external force, but in the form of charm. However, the relationship between freedom and grace is antinomic: for, on the one hand, it seems to have the power that generates movement towards it, on the other hand, human freedom is independent, not determined from the outside. For Christians worldview, freedom is the last, inexplicable mystery of man. being and therefore S. v. - a problem associated with the final foundations of man. nature, is a non-rationalistic subject. thinking, but religion. experience. In contrast to the desire to rationalize freedom, which sees its rooted in nothingness, the Christian position proclaims the divine-human nature of man. The dialectic of freedom as the core of the relationship between man and God is revealed in Dostoevsky as arbitrariness and goodness, negative and positive freedom. “You,” the Grand Inquisitor turns to Christ, “desired the free love of man, so that he would freely follow you, seduced and captivated by you. Instead of the firm ancient law- with a free heart I had to decide for myself from now on what is good and what, having only your guidance before me..." (Collected works, vol. 9, 1958, p. 320). The image of Christ here is the highest good, highest only freely(through choice) a person can come to the highest - to good. But this path is the path of “terrible... torment of a personal and free decision” (ibid., p. 326). Oppressed “...by such a terrible burden as freedom of choice,” a person is looking for “someone to whom he could quickly transfer the gift of freedom with which this unfortunate creature is born” (ibid., pp. 320, 319). Refusal of “free choice in the knowledge of good and evil” (ibid., p. 320) leads to the degeneration of man; refusal of freedom of arbitrariness leads to the dominance of external arbitrariness. (The idea of ​​the severity of freedom of choice and decision, first formulated by Kierkegaard, becomes widespread in existentialism, in particular in Heidegger’s doctrine of Man.) But freedom is not the last core of man. nature. Exploring the fate of a man “set free,” Dostoevsky discovers the “unsettledness” and destructiveness of self-directed freedom. He also reveals the “seed of death” hidden in self-will (Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Ivan Karamazov). The illness of the spirit, caused by the undivided dominance of freedom in it (as retribution for neglect of another human being) reveals what is more fundamental and deeper than freedom - ethical. Start. Designed to be ethical. being, man is always faced with the dilemma of good and evil; but the path to good is not the path of speculation, but of a living feeling, a personal connection - love (the rebirth of Raskolnikov).

In addition to Christ. traditions developed in modern times. philosophy, the problem of freedom is in the center of attention of atheists. existentialism, which sees the foundations of freedom in nothingness (Sartre, Heidegger). Existentialist teaching is connected with this as a carrier of abs. freedom, not having ontological. roots. Existentialism seeks to interpret man as a force opposed to the external world. But since, according to this view, for a person there is no external moral value, since man is morally empty (according to Sartre, there are no instructions either on earth or in heaven), then, in essence, man has nothing to oppose to the world except the act of opposition itself, i.e. self-will, and he himself turns into a meaningless, formal fiction. Existentialist man - free will, a tragedy explored in the works of Dostoevsky.

In philosophy There are also other attempts to approach the problem of social justice and to solve the antinomy of freedom and necessity. Bergson's concept can be considered one of the most famous (see "Time and Time", M., 1911). The idea he defends is organic. the integrity of mental life as indecomposable into parts. elements of the individual series, in which the entire person participates, are used as evidence of the existence of S. v. Since each state of mind is unique, inimitable and, therefore, cannot be verified from the point of view. causality, then, according to Bergson, this is enough to consider such a state not causally conditioned. Bergson's phenomenalistic, positivist position is a bypass of philosophy. Problems. Windelband's teaching (see "On S. Century") is based on the scientific dualism carried out in neo-Kantianism. and moral (evaluative) viewpoints, which, responding to the various needs of the mind, coexist and can conflict with each other. This position, which recommends either treating volitional acts as causal or, ignoring causality, treating them as free, cannot satisfy the need for understanding the problem of social justice. In a certain sense, the attempt to resolve the issue made by N. Hartmann can be considered formalistic (see “Ethik”, V.-Lpz., 1926). If in Kant there is a contradiction between what is and what should be (the will must, but, unfortunately, is not forced to obey what should be and therefore can evade it), then Hartmann, positively assessing the possibility of the will not obeying what should be and violating it, sees a contradiction in the should itself: a person has freedom of arbitrariness in relation to the sphere of values, but values ​​do not leave room for arbitrariness and require the unconditional subordination of the will of the bearer of values ​​- man (see op. cit., S. 628). Thus, here the antinomy of two autonomies is revealed: the sovereignty of values ​​and the sovereignty of the individual (Kant identified these autonomies, so he had freedom only for good). Hartmann finds the solution to this antinomy in the fact that positive freedom contains not one, but two determinants: real and ideal, the autonomy of the person and the autonomy of the principle, between which I exist, not antinomically. relationship, but a relationship of replenishment. Values ​​express only the ideal and a real will is also required in order to be able to implement them. At the same time, the will without a hierarchy of values ​​has nothing to choose - a freely choosing act requires the logic of values ​​in the contemplation of the ideal directions of what should and should not be, otherwise it will be a blind, meaningless choice. Due, according to Hartmann, is modal, expressing the postulate of values, but by no means. In addition, many, incl. highest values, generally cannot be put into the form of an imperative (for example, or beauty). However, inspired by this classification, the idyllic attitude towards the problem of S. century. collapses at the first attempt to imagine the relationship between two types of determinations. How can the ideal exist as a value without being at the same time coercive? by force? And instead of the soothing “relationship of replenishment,” the same antinomy of freedom and necessity appears again, only translated into another.

In production classics of Marxism category S. v. is usually used in the sense of positive freedom: “Freedom of will,” writes Engels, “means... the ability to make decisions with knowledge of the matter. Thus, the more free a person is in relation to a certain issue, the greater necessity will determine the content of this judgment; while uncertainty, which is based on ignorance and chooses arbitrarily between many different and contradictory possible solutions, thereby proves its unfreedom, its subordination to the object that it should have subordinated to itself. "("Anti-Dühring", 1966, p. 112). T.o., S.v. acts as a concept closely related to the concept of knowledge. In the definition of freedom as a “recognized necessity,” the semantic core is the concept of cognition, with the help of which consciousness can be realized. and planned man over nature and over societies. relationships. In other words, freedom appears here as the state of individuals who have mastered objective laws on the basis of their knowledge and practicality. use. For a special discussion on this, see Art. Freedom .

Lit.: Svechin I.V., Fundamentals of Humanity. activities, St. Petersburg, 1887; Notovich O.K., A little more philosophy (On the issue of S. century). Sophisms and paradoxes, St. Petersburg, 1887; About S. century, M., 1889 (Tr. Moscow psychological society, issue 3); Astafyev P. E., Experience about S. century, M., 1897; Fonsegrive J., Experience about S. century, trans. s., part 1, K., 1899; Leibniz, On Freedom, in the book: K. Fischer, On Human Freedom, St. Petersburg, 1899; Filippov M., Necessity and freedom, "Scientific Review", 1899, No. 4–5; Vvedensky A., Philosophy. essays, St. Petersburg, 1901; Schopenhauer A., ​​The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1–2, M., 1901–03; Lossky N., Osn. teachings of psychology from the viewpoint voluntarism, St. Petersburg, 1903; his, S. v., Paris, ; Förster Φ., S. v. and moral responsibility, trans. from German, 1905; Gutberlet K., S. v. and her opponents, [trans. from German], M., 1906; Polan F., Volya, trans. from French, St. Petersburg, 1907; Gefding G., The Concept of Will, trans. from French, M., 1908; Antonov A., Another decision (On the issue of S. century), St. Petersburg, 1908; Khvostov V.M., On the issue of S. v., "Issue of philosophy and psychology", 1909, book. 1 (96); Soloviev V.S., Abstract criticism. began, Collection. cit., 2nd ed., vol. 2, St. Petersburg, [b. G.]; him, S. v. – freedom of choice, ibid., vol. 10, St. Petersburg, [b. G.]; Vysheslavtsev B., Ethics of Fichte, M., 1914; Meiman E., Intelligence and will, [M.], 1917; Berdyaev N., Metaphysics. the problem of freedom, "Put", 1928, No. 9; Stepanova E.I., Development of deterministic. understanding of will in Russian. psychology, L., 1955 (Author's abstract); Farkash E., Personal freedom and problems of morality, M., 1962 (Author's abstract); Bakuradze O. M., Freedom and Necessity, Tb., 1964 (Diss., in Georgian); Chermenina A.P., The problem of responsibility in modern times. bourgeois ethics, "VF", 1965, M 2; Secrétan S., La philosophie de la liberté, v. 1–2, P., 1849; Wenzl A., Philosophie der Freiheit, 1–2, Münch., 1947–49; Ricoeur P., Le volontaire et l "involontaire, P., 1949 (Philosophie de la volonté, t. 1); Andrillon J.-M., Le royaume de la volonté, Soisson, ; Adler M. J., The idea of ​​freedom, Garden City, ; Hook S., Determinism and freedom in the age of modern science, N. Y., 1958; Bay C., The structure of freedom, Stanford, 1958; ., ; Hospers J., Free will and psychoanalysis, in: Freedom and responsibility, Stanford, 1961; Campbell C. A., Is “free will” a pseudo-problem?, in the same place; Determinism and argument, "Modern Schoolman", 1963/64, v. 41.

P. Galtseva. Moscow.

Philosophical Encyclopedia. In 5 volumes - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Edited by F. V. Konstantinov. 1960-1970 .

FREE WILL

FREEDOM OF WILL is a concept of European moral philosophy, finally formalized by I. Kant in the meaning of an individual’s intelligible ability to moral self-determination. In retrospect, the term “free will” can be considered as a historical and philosophical metaphor: its historically recorded connotations are much wider than the possible normative meaning of the term, which emphasizes the meaning of the concept of “freedom”, and “will” can be replaced by “decision”, “choice” and etc. equivalents. However, over the course of many centuries, the meaningful “core” of the metaphor demonstrates a high degree of invariance of the main problems: what is moral action; does it imply free will? In other words: should moral autonomy exist (as a condition of morality and as the ability to generate extra-natural causation) and what are its limits, i.e., how does natural (divine) determinism relate to the intellectual and moral freedom of the subject?

In the history of philosophy, two main ways of deducing the concept of free will can be distinguished. The first (it was adhered to by Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Hegel) comes down to the analytical deduction of the concept of free will from the very concept of will as the ability of the mind to self-determinate and generate special causality. The second method (traced from Plato and the Stoics through Augustine and most of the scholastics up to Kant) is the postulation of free will as independence from external (natural or divine) causality and, therefore, as the ability to self-determination. For the second method, there are two types of justification. Firstly, (known since the time of Plato and found its completion in Leibniz), where free will is postulated to prove the innocence of the deity in world evil. Secondly, the Kantian method of proof, opposite in its initial premise (denial of any theodicy), but similar in principle, where free will is postulated by morally legislating reason. These two proofs are similar in the sense that they do not depend on the substantive definition of the will: it is enough to assume a certain quantity that ensures the formal correctness of the “moral equations.” That is why “free will” is equivalent here to “freedom of choice”, “decision”, etc.

“Freedom of will” in ancient and medieval thought (Greek το εφ" ήμίν, αύτεξούσιον, αυτεξούσια, less often προαίρεσις, αυτονομία; lat. arbitr. ium,). Greek moral originated in a universal cosmological paradigm that made it possible to explain the moral and cosmic orders through each other. : acted as one of the characteristics of the “involvement” of the individual during cosmic events. The law of cosmic retribution, appearing in the guise of fate or fate, expressed the idea of ​​impersonal compensatory justice (clearly formulated, for example, by Anaximander - V I): what is fundamental is not subjective, but the need to compensate for the damage caused to the order by any “culprit” or “cause”. The thesis dominates in archaic and pre-classical consciousness: responsibility does not presuppose free will as an indispensable condition (for example, II. XIX 86; Hes. Theog. 570 sq.; 874; Opp. 36; 225 sq.;

Socrates and Plato discovered new approaches to the problem of freedom and responsibility: imputation is more firmly associated with the arbitrariness of decisions and actions, morality is understood as the highest moral good, freedom - as the ability to do good. Responsibility in Plato has not yet become a fully moral category, but it no longer remains only a problem of violation of the cosmic order: a person is responsible because he has knowledge of moral duty (parallels in Democritus - 33 pp.; 601-604; 613-617; 624 Lurie). The virtue of an action is identified with its rationality: no one sins voluntarily (ουδείς εκών άμαρτάνει - Gorg. 468 cd; 509 e; Legg. 860 d sq.). From the need to justify the deity, Plato develops the first theodicy: each chooses her own lot and is responsible for the choice (“This is the fault of the chooser; God is innocent” - (Rep. Χ 617 e, cf. Tim. 29 e sd.). However, freedom for Plato lies not in the autonomy of the subject, but in the ascetic state (in participation in knowledge and the intelligible highest good).

Plato's theory represents a transitional stage from archaic schemes to Aristotle, with which an important understanding of free will is associated: the understanding of “volitional” as the self-determination of the mind, which allows us to talk about the “spontaneity” of arbitrariness and analytically derive the concept of non-free will.

the dependence of the decisions of reason on the concept of the decision itself; the definition of voluntary as “what depends on us” and an indication of the unconditional connection of imputation with the voluntariness of the act. Reason is first understood as a source of specific causality, different from other types - nature, necessity, chance, habit (Nie. Eth. Ill 5,1112a31 s.; Rhet.l 10,1369 a 5-6); arbitrary - as something the cause of which is in the performer of the action (Nie. Eth. Ill 3,1111 a 21 s.; III5, 1112 a 31; Magn. Mog. 117, 1189 a 5 sq.), or “that which is from depends on us” (then εφ" ήμίν) - imputation makes sense only in relation to rationally voluntary actions Nie. Eth. Ill I, 1110 b l s.; Magn. Mog. 113.1188 "a 25 s.). The concept of “guilt” receives, therefore, a subjective and personal meaning. Aristotle outlined the future semantic circle of the terms “will”, “choice” (“decision”), “arbitrary”, “goal”, etc. All terms were adopted by the Stoa, and through it passed to Roman authors and to patristics. Aristotle's conclusions are extremely productive, but he often presents them in a social context (the morality of free citizens).

The Stoics cleared the “metaphysical” core of the problem from the social “husk” and came close to the concept of “pure” autonomy of the subject. Their theodicy, or rather cosmodicy, developed the ideas of Plato: if evil cannot be a property of cosmic causality, it stems from man. Imputability requires the independence of a moral decision from external causality (Cic. Ac. rg. II 37; Gell. Noct. Att. VII 2; SVF II 982 sq.). The only thing that “depends on us” is our “consent” (συγκατάθεσις) to accept or reject this or “representation” (SVF 161; II 115; 981); The idea of ​​moral obligation was based on this basis. Stoic free will, therefore, was conceived with a double “margin of safety.” The decision of reason is the source of spontaneous causality and, by definition, cannot but be free (Aristotelian train of thought). Secondly, it must be free in order for its imputation to be possible in principle (conclusions from a theodicy of the Platonic type). However, such autonomy did not fit into the deterministic picture of Stoic cosmology.

The alternative concept of Epicurus, developed somewhat earlier, proceeded from almost the same premises, seeking to free (then εφ"ήμίν) from external determinism and connect imputation with the arbitrariness of action (Diog. L. X 133-134; fatis avolsa voluntas - Lucr. De rer. nat . II 257). However, having replaced the determinism of fate with the equally global determinism of chance, Epicurus lost the opportunity to explain the basis of a moral decision, and his concept remained a marginal phenomenon.

Thus, the idea of ​​moral autonomy and the unconditional connection between freedom and imputability of action became dominant no earlier than the 3rd century BC. e. and found its paradigmatic expression in Plotinus (Epp. VI 8.5-6). At the same time, internal responsibility in the ancient understanding is distinguished by a strong legal connotation: for the ancient consciousness of morality and law it did not have the fundamental character that it acquired in the era of Christianity, and especially in modern times. The universal imperative of antiquity can be formulated as follows: the goal is one’s own and the right of one’s neighbor. Normative terms conveying the concept of free will in the texts of non-Christian authors were Greek. then εφ" ήμίν, less often προαίρεσις (mainly in Epikgetus), even less often αυτονομία and αυτεξούσια (including derivatives, for example, Epict. "Diss. IV 1.56; 62; Procl.-In Rp II. RUR 266.22; 324.3 Kroll; In Tim. Ill p. 280., 15 Diehl), lat. arbitrium, potestas, in nobis (Cicero, Seneca).

Christianity 1) radically transformed the moral imperative, declaring the neighbor as the goal and thereby separating the sphere of ethics from the sphere of law; 2) modified the theodicy, replacing impersonal cosmic determinism with unique divine causality. However, the problematic side of the issue has not undergone significant changes. Established semantic and proven lines of thought are invariably present in Eastern patristics from Clement of Alexandria (Strom. V 14,136,4) and Origen (De rg. I 8,3; III 1,1 sq.) to Nemesius (39-40) and John of Damascus (Exp. fid. 21; 39-40) ; Along with the traditional εφ ήμιν, the term αύτεξούσιον (αυτεξούσια) begins to be widely used. The formula of Nemesius, going back to Aristotle, “reason is something free and autocratic” (ελεύθερον... και αύτεξούσιον το λογικόν De nat. horn. 2, p.36,26 sq. Morani) is typical of a large period of Christian reflection ( Wed rig. Ev. loan.fr.43).

At the same time, the issue of free will increasingly became the property of Latin Christianity (starting with Tertullian - Adv. Henn. 10-14; De ex. cast, 2), finding its culmination in Augustine (he uses the technical term liberum arbitrium, normative for scholasticism as well) . In his early works - the treatise “On Free Decision” (“De libero arbitrio”) and others - a classical theodicy was developed, based on the idea of ​​a rationalistically understood world order: God is not responsible for evil; the only source of evil is the will. For morality to be possible, one must be free from external (including supernatural) causality and able to choose between good and evil. Morality consists in following moral duty: the very idea of ​​a moral law appears as sufficient (although the content of the law is of a divinely revealed nature). In the later period, this scheme is replaced by the concept of predestination, which reaches its completion in the anti-Pelagian treatises (“On Grace and Free Decision”, “On the Predestination of the Saints”, etc.) and leads Augustine to a final break with ethical rationalism. The antagonists of the late Augustine, Pelagius and his followers, defended the same classical theory of free will and imputation (in the form of “synergy,” i.e., the interaction of human and divine will) that Augustine developed in his early writings.

The medieval problem of free will in its main features goes back to the tradition of Augustine’s “De libero arbitrio”; The mediators between Augustine and scholasticism are Boethius (Cons. V 2-3) and Eriugena (De praed, div. 5;8;10). The early one - Anselm of Canterbury, Abelard, Peter of Lombardy, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo and Richard of Saint-Victor - steadily reproduced classic scheme, focusing on the Augustinian version, but not without some nuances. In particular, Anselm of Canterbury understands liberum arbitrium not as a neutral capacity of arbitrariness (later its liberum arbitrium indiflèrentiae), but as freedom to good (De lib. art.” 1;3). High scholasticism presented the classical tradition with a noticeable peripatetic accent: in the 13th century. the basis of the argument becomes Aristotelian doctrine about the self-movement of the soul and the self-determination of the mind, while the Augustinian theodicy with the postulation of free will recedes into the background. This position is typical of Albertus Magnus and especially of Thomas Aquinas, who uses direct borrowings from Aristotle, in particular Sth. q.84,4= Eth. Nie. Ill 5.1113 a 11-12). Liberum arbitrium is a purely intellectual ability, close to the ability of judgment (I q.83,2-3). The will is free from external necessity, since its decision is itself a necessity (I q. 82.1 cf. Aug. Civ. D. V 10). A key aspect of the problem of free will is imputation: an act is imputed on the basis that a rational being is capable of self-determination (I q.83,1).

Lit.: VerweyenJ. Das Problem der Willensfreiheit in der Scholastic. Hdib., 1909; Saarinen R. Weakness of the nill m mediaeval thought. From Angusfinc to Buridan. Helsinki, 1993; RoMeshM. Griechische Freiheit. \\fesen und Werden eines Lebensideals. Hdib., 1955; dark M. T. Augustutine. Philosopher of Freedom. A Study in comparative philosophy N.Y.-R, 1958; AdkinsA. Merit and Responsibility A Study in Greek "Values" keit. , 1980; Pohlent M. Vifesen und Werden eins Lebensideals, 1955; Clark M. Philosopher of Freedom.

A. A. Stolyarov

The Renaissance, with its characteristic anthropocentrism, and the Reformation gave particular urgency to the problem of free will. Pico della Mirandola also saw the uniqueness of man in free will as a gift of God, thanks to which creative participation in the transformation of the world is possible. God does not predetermine either man's place in the world or his responsibilities. By his own will, a person can rise to the level of the stars or angels or descend to a bestial state, for he is the product of his own choice and effort. The original sinfulness of human nature recedes into the shadows.

The rise of human free will forced us to return to the problem of its reconciliation with the omnipotence and omniscience of God. Erasmus of Rotterdam (De libero arbitrio, 1524) insisted on the possibility of “synergy” - the combination of Divine grace and human free will, subject to a willingness to cooperate. Luther (De servo arbitrio, 1525) declared free will to “pure deception” to be an “illusion of human pride”: the will of man is not free either for good or for evil, it is in unconditional slavery either to God or to the devil; the outcome of all actions is predetermined by God's will. In the human soul spoiled by the Fall, pure thoughts cannot arise without Divine grace. An even tougher position on the issue of predestination was taken by J. Calvin in the Institutes of the Christian Faith (1536): even in Christ itself is an action of Divine grace, people are eternally predestined to salvation or damnation, and no act can either gain grace or lose it .

Thus, the founders of Protestantism took the providentialist point of view of the late Augustine to its logical extreme. The consistent implementation of such “supranaturalistic determinism” led to contradiction, if not absurdity. Luther and Calvin excluded the possibility of free self-determination, but thereby the ability of man to be an actor, a subject, and not an object of action was denied and placed under human godlikeness. Trying to preserve at least human activity (without which there can be no talk of guilt and sin), Luther was forced to allow the free will of people in relation to what is below them, for example. to property, and claim that they still sin of their own free will. Calvin deprives a person of the ability to contribute to salvation, but allows the ability to make himself worthy of salvation. But here any connection between action and result is severed. Already Philip Melanchthon (“Augsburg Confession”, 1531, 1540) abandoned Luther’s extremes, and with his Armies he directed the Remonstrant movement against Calvinist predestination.

Post-Tridentine took a more cautious position on the issue of free will; The Council of Trent (1545-63) condemned the Protestant “slavery of the will,” returning to the Pelagian-Erasmus idea of ​​cooperation between man and God, the connection between action and retribution. The Jesuits I. Loyola, L. de Molina, P. da Fonyeca, F. Suarez and others declared grace to be the property of every person, and the result of its active acceptance. “Let us expect success only from grace, but let us work as if it depended only on us” (I. Loyola). Their opponents, the Jansenists (C. Jansenius, A. Arno, B. Pascal, etc.) leaned toward the moderate Augustinian version of predestination, arguing that free will was lost after the Fall. The Jesuit apology for free will and “small deeds” often turned into arbitrariness in the interpretation of moral norms (“probabilism”), and Jansenist morality bordered on fanaticism.

Theological disputes about free will determined the demarcation of positions in European philosophy New time. According to Descartes, in man the spiritual is independent of the physical, and free will is one of its manifestations. The free will of a person is absolute, since the will can make a decision in any situation and even contrary to reason: “The will is by nature free to such an extent that it can never be forced.” This neutral ability of arbitrary choice (Liberum arbitrium indifferentiae) is the lowest of free will. Its level increases with the expansion of reasonable grounds for choice. Illness and sleep fetter free will; clarity promotes its highest manifestation. Due to Cartesian dualism, it turned out to be impossible to explain how the will invades the chain of changes in bodily substance.

Trying to overcome this dualism, representatives of occasionalism A. Geiliix and N. Malebranche emphasized human and Divine will.

On Protestant soil, supranaturalistic determinism was transformed into naturalistic (T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, J. Priestley, D. Hartley, etc.). In Hobbes, Divine Providence is pushed back to the beginning of a continuous chain of natural causes; all events in the world and human actions are causally determined and necessary. Human freedom is determined by the absence of external obstacles to action: a person is free if he does not act out of fear of violence and can do what he wants. It itself is not free, it is caused by external objects, innate properties and habits. The choice is only motives, “alternating fear and hope,” its outcome is determined by the strongest motive. The illusion of free will arises due to the fact that a person does not know the force that determined his action. A similar position is reproduced by Spinoza: “People are aware of their desire, but do not know the reasons by which they are determined” and by Leibniz: “... In a person everything is known and determined in advance... and the human soul is in some way a spiritual automaton.”

The relationship between free will and causal determination is one of the central problems of Kant's philosophy. As a subject, man is subject to immutable natural laws, and with knowledge of all the preceding conditions, his actions can be predicted with the same accuracy as solar and lunar eclipses. But as a “thing in itself”, not subject to the conditions of space, time and causality, a person has free will - the ability to self-determination regardless of sensory impulses. Kant calls this ability practical reason. Unlike Descartes, he does not consider the idea of ​​free will to be innate: he derives it from the concept of ought (sollen). The highest free will (“positive freedom”) consists of moral autonomy, the self-legislation of reason.

Fichte sharply shifted the emphasis from being to, declaring the whole world (“not-I”) a product of the free creativity of the I and completely subordinating it to the practical, (Wissen) - conscience (Gewissen). Cause-and-effect relationships become alienation of target relationships, and the world of natural dependencies becomes an illusory form of perception of the products of the unconscious activity of the human imagination. Finding freedom is the return of the I to myself, the fact that it unconsciously produced an ascent from sensual attraction to conscious goal-setting, limited only by the presence of other rational selves; Through law, freedom is realized in society. The movement towards free will is the content of Hegel’s psychology of spirit, and history appears in Hegel as the formation of objective forms of freedom: abstract law, morality, morality. In the culture of the Western world, which was born along with Christianity, the acquisition of freedom is understood as a person’s destiny. Arbitrariness is only a step in the development of freedom, its negative rational form (abstraction from everything random), revealing free will as the ability to self-determination. The highest manifestation of free will is a moral act; its act coincides with the decision of reason.

Schelling, having adopted the ideas of J. Boehme and F. Baader, emphasized the moment of antinomy in the concept of free will. Human freedom will is not rooted in reason and its autonomy, but has metaphysical depth; it can lead to both good and sin, vice: in the desire for self-affirmation, a person is able to consciously choose evil. This irrationalistic understanding of free will excluded it as the dominance of reason over sensuality.

Marxism, following the Hegelian tradition, sees the main content of free will in the degree of practical awareness. According to the formula of F. Engels, free will is “the ability to make a decision with knowledge of the matter.” A. Schopenhauer returns to Spinoza’s interpretation of free will as an illusion of the human mind: freedom is applied not to phenomenal action, but to noumenal being (will as a thing in itself) and practically comes down to fidelity to one’s intelligible character.

In the 20th century in the “new ontology” of N. Hartmann, the concepts of freedom and activity, freedom and independence are separated. The lower layers of being - and the organic - are more active, but have less freedom, the higher layers - mental and spiritual - are more free, but do not have their own activity. The relationship between negative freedom (arbitrariness) and positive freedom (reasonable price determination) is being rethought; a person has free will not only in relation to the lower physical and mental determination, but also in relation to God, in other words, to the objective hierarchy of values, the world of which does not have an immutable determining force. Ideal values ​​guide a person, but do not predetermine his actions. To the Cantonese antinomy of freedom and natural causality, Hartmann adds the antinomy of obligation; what should determine individuals ideally, that is, by a spectrum of possibilities, but for the choice to take place, a real will is necessary, which is associated with the autonomy of the person, and not the autonomy of the principle.

The ontological free will was contained in the works of such representatives of phenomenology as M. Scheler, G. Rainer, R. Ingarden). A kind of “idolatry of freedom” (S. A. Levitsky) was introduced by S. A. Levitsky, who brought antinomy human existence to deep tragedy - the “healthy tragedy of life” by K. Jaspers or the “tragic absurdity” by J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus. Religious existentialism interprets free will as instructions from the transcendent (God), expressed in the form of symbols and codes of existence, which are voiced by conscience. In atheistic existentialism, free will is the ability to preserve oneself, rooted in nothing and expressed in negation: values ​​do not have objective existence, man himself constructs them in order to realize his freedom. Necessity is what justifies “flight from freedom,” as the neo-Freudian E. Fromm put it. Absolute freedom makes the burden of responsibility so heavy that the “heroism of Sisyphus” is necessary to bear it.

Russian religious philosophy 20th century (N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, N.O. Lossky, B.P. Vysheslavtsev, G.P. Fedotov, S.A. Levitsky, etc.) proceeds from the combination of Divine grace with the free self-determination of man. The most radical position is Berdyaev, who believes, following J. Boehme, that freedom, rooted in the “abyss” coeternal with God, precedes not only nature, but also being in general; the free creative act becomes a supreme and self-sufficient value for Berdyaev. In concrete ideal-realism Η.Ο. Lossky free will is declared to be an essential attribute of “substantial figures” who independently create their character and their destiny (including from their body, character, past and even from God himself), independent of the external world, since all events are for their behavior is only reasons, not reasons.

A person’s ability to self-determinate in his actions. In the context of early Greek culture in the concept of C.B. The emphasis is not so much on philosophical categorical as on legal meaning. A free person is a citizen of the polis, one who lives... ... History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia

A person’s ability to self-determinate in his actions. In the context of early Greek culture, the concept of S. V. emphasizes not so much philosophical categorical as legal meaning. A free person is a citizen of the polis, one who lives... ... The latest philosophical dictionary

Free will- Free Will ♦ Libre Arbitre Freedom of desire, absolute and not determined by anything; “the ability to define oneself without being determined by anything” (Marcel Conches, Aleatorics, V, 7). This is a rather mystical ability that belongs strictly... Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

A category denoting the philosophical and ethical problem of whether a person is self-determined or determined in his actions, i.e. the question of the conditionality of the human will, in the solution of which two main positions emerged: determinism and indeterminism.... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

The great reformers of the church stood for unfree will, and the Jesuits for free will, and yet the former founded freedom, the latter slavery of conscience. Henri Amiel You call yourself free. Free from what, or free for what? Friedrich Nietzsche We... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

FREE WILL, a category denoting the philosophical and ethical problem of whether a person is self-determined or determined in his actions, i.e. the question of the conditionality of human will, in the solution of which two main positions emerged: determinism and... ... Modern encyclopedia, Zverev. Free will and law: Addition to the "Encyclopedia of Law" / [Oc.] Prof. N. A. Zvereva U 101/277 U 347/295: Moscow: V. S. Vasilevsky, 1898: [Oc.] Prof. N. A. Zvereva Reproduced in...

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The principle of free will has consequences in religion, ethics and science. For example, in religion, free will implies that human desires and choices can coexist with divine omniscience. In ethics, the existence of free will determines the moral responsibility of people for their actions. In science, the study of free will can reveal ways to predict human behavior.

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✪ Free will - Jacques Fresco - The Venus Project

✪ We don't have free will?

✪ Big questions about free will

✪ Marginal explains for determinism and free will

✪ Lecture #12 Free will - Jacques Fresco - The Venus Project

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Today we will touch on a very difficult topic. "Free will." Most people believe that they have free will. that they have free will, freedom of choice. After all, he does not have sensors that would tell him that there is a log on the road. The strange thing is that in mechanics, when someone says “the car is off,” it actually isn’t. Either the wires are not connected or they have shorted out. capable of sensing a magnetic field. So do some species of birds. The woman you meet is also very temperamental, you will probably advise your friend: "Stay away from redheads! They are too temperamental." But that's not true. This is just your reaction to certain red-haired girls. If a homosexual touches you, you will push his hand away and say: "What's wrong with him?" were invented by people. Especially if there are more than four people living together, they will have to introduce laws and regulations. As in, "Don't take those bows and arrows, he made them." This is why words like “This is wrong” are invented. But if a person does not have a weapon with him, and a lion comes across his way, and your spear lies nearby, he will take it for a while.

He doesn't steal. He takes it for a while and throws it at the lion, since this is the only thing he knows that will protect him.

He will say: “I decided to take the spear, although I knew that it was yours, but I had no other choice.”

And then the judge can reduce the sentence.

The main argument of incompatibilists is that if human behavior is mechanical, like a wind-up toy or robot, then people do not have free will. This argument was rejected by Daniel Dennett on the grounds that even if people have something in common with these objects, they may still differ from them to a significant extent.

American publicist and philosopher Sam Harris objects to Dennett:

Compatibilists like Dennett engage in conceptual substitution. They pass off a psychological phenomenon - the subjective experience of a conscious personality - as a conceptual understanding of oneself as a person. It's like a fraudulent marketing ploy. In fact, people mentally identify themselves with a certain information channel. Dennett argues that our structure is much more complex - we are involved in all the processes occurring inside our bodies, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not... At every moment you make countless unconscious “decisions”; the brain is not involved in making them, but different organs are involved. However, you don't feel responsible for these "decisions." Is your body currently producing red blood cells and digestive enzymes? Of course, and if he "decided" to do otherwise, you would become a victim of change rather than the cause of it. To say that you are responsible for everything that happens in your body because everything is “yours” is essentially a claim that has nothing to do with a sense of self as an individual or with moral responsibility, although these two factors give the idea of ​​freedom will philosophical meaning. It is not in my power to influence my desires. What leverage do I have over this? Other wishes? To say that if I had such a desire, I would have acted differently is tantamount to admitting that I would live in another universe if I actually lived there. Compatibilism merely states the credo: a puppet is free as long as it likes to hang on the strings... Sam Harris

Incompatibilism plays a key role in the idealist theory of free will. Most incompatibilists reject the idea that freedom of action consists solely in conscious behavior. They believe that free will implies that a person is the primary cause of his actions. It must be Causa sui in the traditional sense. To be responsible for your choice, you must be the cause of that choice, which means that there is no prior reason for the choice. Thus, if free will exists, then man is the root cause of his actions. If determinism is true, then any choice a person makes is caused by events that are beyond his control. This argument has been disputed by various compatibilists.

In addition to philosophical arguments in favor of incompatibilism, there are also biological ones.

For example, the publicist and philosopher Sam Harris cites the following experiments:

Psychologist Benjamin Libet used the electroencephalogram to show that activity in the motor centers of the cerebral cortex can be detected 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Another laboratory continued his work using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). People were asked to press one of two buttons while they watched letters appear in a random sequence on the screen. They reported which letter they saw at the moment when they decided to press one or another button. The experimenters found that two specific areas of the participants' brains already contained information about which button they would press, a full 7 to 10 seconds before making a conscious decision. Further experiments with direct recordings of cortical activity showed that data on the activity of almost 256 neurons was enough to predict with 80 percent accuracy a person's decision to move an arm or leg 700 milliseconds before he knew it. ...the fact that someone is able to predict your thoughts and actions hints that your feelings [of freedom] are illusory Sam Harris

Metaphysical libertarianism

Metaphysical libertarianism is one of the philosophical positions of incompatibilism. Proponents of libertarianism believe that the concept of free will implies that an individual, in certain circumstances, can choose from several possible actions.

Libertarianism is divided into non-physical and physical or natural theories. Non-physical theories hold that events in the brain that lead to action are not reducible to physical explanations. Such dualistic interactionism assumes that a nonphysical mind, will, or soul influences physical causation.

Some metaphysical libertarians, such as William Ockham and Thomas Reid, believe that the existence of a non-physical agent responsible for freedom cannot be revealed by empirical or philosophical methods, since otherwise it would entail a paradox, since the proof would lead to a conclusion that destroys the necessary freedom.

Hard incompatibilism

Compatibilists often define free will as an agent having free action. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: “Man can do what he wishes, but he cannot will what he wishes.” In other words, although an agent may have freedom to act according to her own motive, the nature of that motive is predetermined.

Many people, apparently without knowing it, are spontaneous compatibilists. This has been shown in psychological experiments. People were asked to imagine two universes: one deterministic, one not. Everything was painted in bright colors. Subjects were then asked questions to determine how they would assess the moral responsibility of the inhabitants of these universes. It turned out that for such a sin as tax evasion, people assign moral responsibility to violators only in a non-deterministic universe. In a world where everything is predetermined, defaulters are justified: what can you do if “their brain is designed that way.” The situation was different for more dangerous crimes such as murder and rape. Subjects held imaginary murderers and rapists responsible for their crimes regardless of which universe they lived in. So what if your brain is designed that way – it’s still your fault! Alexander Markov

Free will as unpredictability

In his book Elbow Room Dennett argues for a compatibilist theory of free will, ideas he later developed in his book Freedom Evolves. The basic idea is that, barring God, an omniscient demon, and other such possibilities, then due to the chaos and limits of our knowledge of the current state of the world, the future is ill-defined for all finite beings. Expectations, in turn, are well defined. The ability to take an alternative action can only make sense in relation to these expectations, and not to an uncertain and unknown future.

According to Dennett, since individuals can act differently from anyone else's expectations, free will exists. Incompatibilists point out that the problem with this idea is that we can only be automata, responding in predictable ways to stimuli in our environment.

Other views

The views of some philosophers do not fall under the classification of compatibilism or incompatibilism. For example, Ted Honderich (English) Russian holds that determinism is true, but incompatibilism and compatibilism are not, and the problem is really something else. Honderich concludes that determinism is true because quantum processes cannot be defined in space and time. Even if they were events at the micro level, there is no reason to believe that they play a significant role at the macro level. He believes that incompatibilism is false even if determinism is true, and indeterminists cannot provide a rationale for the origin of the will. He denies compatibilism because it operates with only one concept of freedom. In reality, there are two concepts of freedom: intentionality of action and the origin of will. Both concepts are necessary to explain free will and responsibility. If we abandon these concepts, we will also abandon moral responsibility. On the one hand, we have intuition, on the other - scientific facts. And the problem lies in resolving the conflict between them.

Free will as an illusion

David Hume considered the possibility that the whole debate about free will is merely verbal. He suggested that the explanation could be a false feeling or apparent experience that is associated with our actions when we perform them. In retrospect, we understand that they were necessary and predetermined from the beginning.

Neurology and Psychiatry

There are several brain-related disorders in which actions are not completely under the control of the subject. Although such disorders do not in themselves disprove the existence of free will, studying such conditions can help develop models and understanding of how the brain creates such sensations.

One of the important diagnostic symptoms of schizophrenia is the illusion of being under control. external influence. People with schizophrenia sometimes describe feeling as if certain actions they perform were not initiated or under their control. Such sensations are sometimes compared to the state of a robot under someone's control. Although the mechanisms of schizophrenia are this moment little known, there is a hypothesis that hallucinations and the illusion of control appear due to the malfunction of brain systems responsible for checking motor commands and signals received from the body.

Determinism and emergent behavior

Free will in Buddhism

At the beginning of the 20th century, the famous Buddhist scholar F.I. Shcherbatskaya believed that Buddhism does not recognize the free will of any person or soul due to the fact that, according to anatmavada or the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of “no soul,” Buddhism denies the existence of the soul or person itself. Buddhism, noted Shcherbatskoy, views life as an impersonal universal process that develops in accordance with the law of cause and effect (the law of karma). At the same time, the Sanskritologist R. Pichel believed that the Buddha was a supporter of the existence of free will and pointed out its existence with the following words: “I teach that there is action, deed, will.”

In modern Buddhology, free will is believed to be directly related to the concept of karma. According to the latter concept, karma has two parts: daiwa(fate) and purusha-kara(“human action”). The first part of karma is related to past actions and is the part that a person cannot change. The second part is "free initiative", through which a person can act in such a way as to create the conditions for changing the future. As the ultimate manifestation of purusha kara, a person can "cease the operation of the law of karma" and achieve nirvana.

1. “Dharmas of consciousness have the property of suppressing and directing the action of other dharmas.”
2. With help Chetans(intentions) the choice of a person’s fate is made, leading to “religious virtue” or “defilements”.

Thus, Lysenko points out, freedom of choice is an “objective” event that appears as a result of the action of other external and internal events, which, in turn, are not separated from each other, but are “the unity of many dharmic lines.”

Belief in free will

There have been several studies that have tried to find out whether people hold incompatibilist views of free will. Eddie Nahmias discovered that incompatibilism is not intuitive and determinism does not abolish moral responsibility. Edward Coakley came to the conclusion that incompatibilism is intuitive and determinism still abolishes responsibility. Other researchers have suggested that views of incompatibilism largely depend on the circumstances to which an action evokes an emotional response. They concluded that free will is a universal concept, and that most study participants believe that (a) the universe is non-deterministic and (b) moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism.

Some studies indicate that people's belief in free will is controversial. Emily Pronin and Matthew Kugler concluded that people believe they have more free will than others.

Researchers also found that people view actions as freer if a person resists external forces, plans, or performs random actions. Interestingly, "random" actions may not be possible. When participants were asked to perform tasks in a random manner (for example, generating random numbers), their behavior revealed many patterns.

see also

Notes

1. Vitaly Nikolaevich Kuznetsov. French materialism of the 18th century. - Thought, 1981-01-01. - 312 s.
2. Dennett, D. (1984). Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Bradford Books. ISBN.
3. Harris Sam. Free will, which does not exist. - Alpina Publisher. - 60 s. - ISBN 9785961439458.
4. Libet, Benjamin; Gleason, Curtis A.; Wright, Elwood W.; Pearl, Dennis K. (1983). "Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential) - The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act." Brain.106 : 623-642. doi:10.1093/brain/106.3.623. PMID.
5. John-Dylan Haynes. Decoding and predicting intentions // Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. - 2011-04-01. - T. 1224. - P. 9–21. - ISSN 1749-6632. - DOI:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.05994.x.
6. Itzhak Fried, Roy Mukamel, Gabriel Kreiman. Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition // Neuron. - 2011-02-10. - T. 69, issue. 3. - pp. 548–562. - ISSN 1097-4199. - DOI:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.045.
7. Patrick Haggard. Decision time for free will // Neuron. - 2011-02-10. - T. 69, issue. 3. - pp. 404–406. -

Man has always wondered how free his free will is, existing in a fallen world where the law of causality rules. Traditionally, the question of free will was posed as follows: if my will is woven into a complex system of world cause-and-effect relationships and is forced to fall under its laws, its freedom is determined and strictly limited. Every event of the present moment is conditioned by a whole chain of events of the past. Every action that will be carried out in the future is predetermined by what happens in the present.

Fichte wrote: “Each moment... of existence is determined by all past moments and determines all future moments, and it is impossible to think of the present situation... otherwise than what it is.”

1. Free Will.

None philosophical problem, did not have such a great social and political resonance in the history of society as the problem of freedom. This problem is felt especially acutely in the modern era, when an ever-increasing mass of people is drawn into the struggle for its practical achievement.

Freedom is one of the main philosophical categories, characterizing the essence of a person and his existence, consisting in the individual’s ability to think and act in accordance with his ideas and desires, and not as a result of internal or external coercion.

For an individual, the possession of freedom is a historical, social and moral imperative, a criterion of his individuality and the level of development of society. Arbitrary restriction of individual freedom, strict regulation of his consciousness and behavior, reducing a person to the role of a simple “cog” in social and technological systems causes damage to both the individual and society. Ultimately, it is thanks to individual freedom that society acquires the ability not only to adapt to the existing natural and social circumstances of the surrounding reality, but also to transform them in accordance with its goals. Of course, there is not and cannot be any abstract, much less absolute, freedom of man either from nature or from society, but at the same time, the concrete material carrier of freedom, its subject is always the individual, and accordingly those communities in which he is included - nations, classes, states.

In the history of philosophical thought, freedom has traditionally been considered in its relationship with necessity. Necessity itself was perceived, as a rule, in the form of fate, fate, predestination, commanding a person’s actions and denying the freedom of his will. The opposition of the concepts of “freedom” and “necessity” as philosophical antimonies, the denial or replacement of one of them by the other, has been a stumbling block for thinkers for over two thousand years, who have never found a satisfactory solution to the problem.

There are several models of the relationship between man and society regarding freedom and its attributes.

Firstly, most often this is a relationship of struggle for freedom, when a person enters into an open and often irreconcilable conflict with society, achieving his goals at any cost. But this is a difficult and dangerous path, fraught with the fact that a person can lose all other human qualities and, having become involved in the struggle for freedom, fall into even worse slavery.

Secondly, this is an escape from the world, the so-called escapist behavior, when a person is unable to gain the freedom of people, he runs to a monastery, to a monastery, to himself, to his “world”, in order to find a way of free self-realization there.

Thirdly, most often, a person adapts to the world, sacrificing in some way his desire to gain freedom, going into voluntary submission, in order to gain a new level of freedom in a modified form.

Some philosophers have tried to distinguish between positive freedom, or the freedom to do, and negative freedom, the freedom from. Roosevelt's message mentioned two positive freedoms (freedom to speak and worship) and two negative freedoms (freedom from fear and want). However, the difference between freedom to do and freedom from is not very big. philosophical significance. After all, freedom to do and freedom “from” are often just two sides of the same coin. Thus, in a social or political context, freedom from censorship means the same thing as freedom to say and write what you see fit, freedom from persecution for your religion means the same thing as freedom to worship whom you see fit, or not worship at all. In short, the main difference between freedom to do and freedom from is usually purely verbal. We will therefore ignore the supposed distinction between positive and negative freedom.

Will is a person’s conscious regulation of his behavior (activity and communication), associated with overcoming internal and external obstacles.

Will is one of the most important qualities of a person. It is this quality that makes a person a free and conscious subject of his own life. It is the will that allows you to set goals and achieve your goals. Like all mental processes, the will does not develop on its own, but in connection with the general development of a person’s personality. The human will is characterized by certain qualities. First of all, it is customary to highlight willpower as a generalized ability to overcome significant difficulties that arise on the way to achieving a goal.

Among the various manifestations of willpower, it is customary to distinguish such personality traits as excerpt And self-control which are expressed in the ability to restrain one’s feelings when required, in preventing impulsive and rash actions, in the ability to control oneself and force oneself to carry out a planned action, as well as refrain from doing what one wants to do, but which seems unreasonable or wrong.

Another characteristic of will is determination. Purposefulness is usually understood as the conscious and active orientation of an individual towards achieving a certain result of activity. Very often, when talking about determination, they use such a concept as persistence. This concept is almost identical to the concept of determination. Usually, a distinction is made between strategic purposefulness, that is, the ability to be guided in all one’s life activities by certain principles and ideals, and operational purposefulness, which consists in the ability to set clear goals for individual actions and not deviate from them in the process of achieving them. It is customary to distinguish stubbornness from persistence. Stubbornness most often acts as a negative quality in a person. A stubborn person always tries to insist on his own, despite the inappropriateness of this action. As a rule, a stubborn person in his activities is guided not by the arguments of reason, but by personal desires, despite their failure. In essence, a stubborn person does not control his will, since he does not know how to control himself and his desires.

An important characteristic of the will is initiative. It lies in the ability to make attempts to implement the ideas that a person has. For many people, overcoming their own inertia is the most difficult moment of an act of will. Only an independent person can take the first conscious step towards the implementation of a new idea. Independence - this is a characteristic of will that is directly related to initiative. Independence is manifested in the ability to consciously make decisions and in the ability not to be influenced by various factors that impede the achievement of a goal. An independent person is capable of critically evaluating the advice and suggestions of other people, acting on the basis of his views and beliefs, and at the same time making adjustments to his actions based on the advice received. Negativism should be distinguished from independence. Negativism manifests itself in an unmotivated, unfounded tendency to act contrary to other people, to contradict them, although reasonable considerations do not provide grounds for such actions. Negativism is regarded by most psychologists as weakness of will, expressed in the inability to subordinate one’s actions to the arguments of reason, conscious motives of behavior, in the inability to resist one’s desires, leading to idleness, etc. Very often, idleness is associated with laziness. It is laziness that is a comprehensive characteristic of qualities that are opposite in meaning to the positive qualities of the will.

It should be noted that the initiative shown by a person, in addition to independence, is always associated with another quality of will - determination. Decisiveness lies in the absence of unnecessary hesitation and doubt when there is a conflict of motives, in timely and quick decision-making. First of all, determination is manifested in the choice of the dominant motive, as well as in the choice of adequate means to achieve the goal. Decisiveness also manifests itself when implementing a decision. Decisive people are characterized by a quick and energetic transition from the choice of actions and means to the actual execution of the action. From determination, as a positive volitional quality, it is necessary to distinguish impulsiveness, which is characterized by haste in decision-making and rashness of actions. An impulsive person does not think before taking action, does not take into account the consequences of what he does, and therefore often regrets what he has done. The haste in making a decision by such a person is usually explained by his indecision, the fact that making a decision for him is an extremely difficult and painful process, so he strives to get rid of it as soon as possible.

An extremely important volitional quality of a person is sequence human actions. The sequence of actions characterizes the fact that all actions performed by a person follow from a single guiding principle, to which a person subordinates everything secondary and incidental. The sequence of actions, in turn, is closely related to self-control And self-esteem. The actions taken will only be carried out when a person controls his activities. Otherwise, the actions performed and the goal that a person strives for diverge. In the process of achieving a goal, self-control ensures the dominance of leading motives over secondary ones. The quality of self-control and its adequacy largely depend on the individual’s self-esteem. Thus, low self-esteem can lead to a person losing self-confidence. In this case, a person’s desire to achieve the goal may gradually fade away and what was planned will never be accomplished. Sometimes, on the contrary, a person overestimates himself and his capabilities. In this case, it is customary to talk about inflated self-esteem, which does not allow one to adequately coordinate and adjust one’s actions on the way to achieving the set goal. As a result, the ability to achieve what was planned becomes much more difficult and, more often than not, what was previously planned is not fully realized in practice.

FREE WILL - a person’s ability to self-determinate in his actions. In the context of early Greek culture in the concept of S.V. The emphasis is not so much on philosophical and categorical as on legal meaning. A free person is a citizen of the polis, one who lives on the land of his ancestors. The opposite of him is a prisoner of war, taken to a foreign land and turned into a slave. The source of personal freedom is the polis, its land (Solon); free from birth, living on the land of the polis, where a reasonable law is established. Therefore, the antonym of the term “free” is not so much “slave” as “non-Greek”, “barbarian”. In Homer's epic, the concept of freedom reveals another meaning. A free person is one who acts without coercion, by virtue of his own nature. The ultimate possible expression of freedom is in the actions of a hero who overcomes fate and thereby becomes compared to the gods.

The theoretical premise of the scientific and philosophical formulation of the question about S.V. takes shape in the thinking of the sophists, who contrasted “phusis” (the only possible order generated by nature itself) and “nomos” (the order of life independently established by each people). Socrates emphasizes the decisive role of knowledge in the exercise of freedom. Truly free, moral action is possible only on the basis of clear concepts of goodness and virtue. No one can act badly of his own free will, a person strives for the best in his actions, and only ignorance, ignorance pushes him onto the wrong path. Plato connects the concept of S.V. with the existence of good as the highest “idea”. Good sanctifies the order that acts in the world as an expedient order. To act freely means to act, focusing on the ideal of the good, coordinating personal aspirations with social justice.

Aristotle considers the problem of S.V. in the context of moral choice. Freedom is associated with a special kind of knowledge - knowledge-skill ("phronesis"). It is different from “techné” knowledge, which provides solutions to problems according to a known model. Moral knowledge-skill, paving the way for freedom, focuses on choosing the best action in the context of ethical choice. The source of such knowledge is a specific moral intuition, which is cultivated in a person through life’s trials. Stoicism develops its vision of freedom by recognizing the priority of providence in human life. The Stoics see the independent significance of personality in the observance of duties and duty (Panetius). At the same time, providence can be considered both as a law of nature and as the will in man (Posidonius). Will in the latter case acts as a weapon of struggle against fate, and as such requires special education. Epicurus considers the question of S.V. in his atomic physics. The latter is opposed to the deterministic atomism of Democritus. The physics of Epicurus substantiates the possibility of S.V.: as its physical model, Epicurus points to the possibility of free deviation of the atom from a rectilinear trajectory. The reasons for such a deviation are not external; it occurs completely spontaneously. A special stage in raising the question of S.V. constituted Christian ideology. Man is called to realize his essence in unity with the Divine, the Bible teaches. The problem, however, is to combine the universalism of God’s will, on the one hand, and the moral effort of man, who has not yet achieved (and in fact never achieves) union with the Divine, on the other.

Christian literature dealing with this issue can be classified according to its emphasis on one side or another of this interaction. Thus, Pelagius (5th century) substantiates a fairly broad interpretation of the Christian idea of ​​the participation of man’s will in shaping his destiny, unwittingly downplaying the significance of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The idea of ​​the universality of Providence in polemics with this point of view is defended by Augustine. The realization of good in human activity is possible only with the help of God's grace. Moreover, Augustine does not connect its action with a person’s conscious appeal to it. It manifests itself independently of him. Thomas Aquinas sees the sphere of S.V. in choosing goals and means to achieve the good. According to him, only one true path leads to the goal. A rational being necessarily strives for good, but evil, as a result of rational choice, is impossible. The diversity of positions also manifests itself in the era of the Reformation; Erasmus of Rotterdam defends the idea of ​​S.V. Luther opposes it, insisting on a literal reading of the dogma of Divine predestination. God initially called some people to salvation, and condemned others to eternal torment. Future destiny man remains, however, unknown to himself. At the same time, Luther pointed to a special sphere of existence, “experiencing” which a person is able to consider the signs of chosenness appearing in it. We are talking about the sphere of human everyday life and, above all, about professional activity, the successful implementation of which is a sign of the solvency (chosenness) of an individual in the face of the world and God. Calvin takes a similar position, believing that the will of God completely programs human existence.

Protestantism practically reduces free will to a minimum value. The fundamental paradox of the Protestant ethic is, however, that by postulating the passivity of the human will in the implementation God's grace, she, forcing a person to look for the “ciphers” of chosenness, thereby managed to cultivate an activist type of personality. The Jesuit L. de Molina (1535-1600) argued with Protestantism: among the various types of God's omniscience, his theory highlighted a special “average knowledge” about what can happen in general, but will be specifically realized if a certain condition is met. Molina associated this condition with living human will. This view was further developed by Suarez, who believed that God imparts his grace only to those human actions during which God’s help does not suppress S.V. The teaching of C. Jansen (1585-1638), in fact, revives the ideas of Calvin and Luther - a person is free to choose not between good and evil, but only between various types sin. A similar view was also developed by the mystic M. de Molinos, who affirmed the idea of ​​the passivity of the human soul in the face of God (see Quietism). Topic S.V. finds itself in the philosophy of modern times. For Hobbes S.W. means, first of all, the absence of physical coercion.

He interprets freedom in an individual-natural dimension: a person is the more free the more opportunities for self-development open to him. The freedom of a citizen and the “freedom” of a slave differ only quantitatively: the first does not have absolute freedom, the second cannot be said to be completely unfree. According to Spinoza, only God is free, because. only his actions are determined by internal laws, but man, as a part of nature, is not free. Nevertheless, he strives for freedom, translating vague ideas into distinct ones, affects into rational love of God. Reason multiplies freedom, suffering reduces it, says Leibniz, distinguishing between negative freedom (freedom from...) and positive freedom (freedom for...). For Locke, the concept of freedom is equivalent to freedom of action; Freedom is the ability to act in accordance with conscious choice. It is S.V., opposed to reason, that acts as the fundamental definition of man - such is Rousseau’s view. The transition from natural freedom, limited by the forces of the individual himself, to “moral freedom” is possible through the use of laws that people prescribe to themselves. According to Kant, S.V. is possible only in the sphere of moral law, which opposes itself to the laws of nature. For Fichte, freedom is an instrument for the implementation of the moral law.

Schelling finds his solution to the problem of S.V., considering actions to be free if they stem from the “internal necessity of essence”; human freedom stands at the crossroads between God and nature, being and non-being. According to Hegel, Christianity introduces into the consciousness of European man the idea that history is a process in the awareness of freedom. Nietzsche considers the entire history of morality to be the history of errors regarding S.V. According to his opinion, S.V. - fiction, “delusion of everything organic.” The self-realization of the will to power presupposes its purification from the moral ideas of freedom and responsibility. Marxist philosophy saw the condition for free development in the fact that associated producers are able to rationally regulate the exchange of substances between society and nature. The growth of the productive forces of society creates the material prerequisites for the free development of individuals. The kingdom of true freedom was conceived in Marxism as communism, destroying private property, exploitation, and thereby the very basis of coercion. S.V. - one of the central concepts of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology.

Freedom is the deepest definition of being, the “foundation of foundations,” which places existence in a permanent situation of choice. Likewise, for Sartre, freedom is not a quality of the individual or his actions, but rather a supra-historical definition of the generic essence of man. Freedom, choice and temporality are one and the same thing, the philosopher believes. In Russian philosophy the problem of freedom, S.V. was specially developed by Berdyaev. The world of objects, where suffering and evil reign, is opposed by creativity, designed to overcome conservative forms of objectification. The results of creativity will inevitably be objectified, but the creative act itself is just as inevitably free. Perhaps the dominant trend in the interpretations of S.V. (especially in v. 20) there is a point of view according to which a person is always worthy of what happens to him. It is possible to find grounds for justification only in “borderline” cases. (See Transgression.)

A.P. Zhdanovsky

The latest philosophical dictionary. Comp. Gritsanov A.A. Minsk, 1998.

Animals