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Free will in antiquity is a philosophical and theological concept. Free will in antiquity was not discussed in the same terms as used in the modern free will debates, but historians of the problem have speculated who exactly was first to take positions as determinist, libertarian, and compatibilist in antiquity. [1]
The problem of free will has been identified in ancient Greek philosophical literature. The notion of compatibilist free will has been attributed to both Aristotle (4th century BCE) and Epictetus (1st century CE): "it was the fact that nothing hindered us from doing or choosing something that made us have control over them".
He suggests free will is denied whether determinism is true or not. He says that if determinism is true, all actions are predicted and no one is assumed to be free; however, if determinism is false, all actions are presumed to be random and as such no one seems free because they have no part in controlling what happens.
What exactly al-Farabi posited on the question of future contingents is contentious. Nicholas Rescher argues that al-Farabi's position is that the truth value of future contingents is already distributed in an "indefinite way", whereas Fritz Zimmerman argues that al-Farabi endorsed Aristotle's solution that the truth value of future contingents has not been distributed yet. [3]
The paradox predates Buridan; it dates to antiquity, being found in Aristotle's On the Heavens. [4] Aristotle, in ridiculing the Sophist idea that the Earth is stationary simply because it is spherical and any forces on it must be equal in all directions, says that is as ridiculous as saying that [4]
Susanne Bobzien FBA (born 1960) is a German-born philosopher [1] whose research interests focus on philosophy of logic and language, determinism and freedom, and ancient philosophy. [2] She currently is senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford .
Because of the guidance by the universal law that guides maxims, an individual's will is free. Kant's theory of the will does not advocate for determinism on the ground that the laws of nature on which determinism is based prompts for an individual to have only one course of action—whatever nature's prior causes trigger an individual to do. [32]
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. [1] As Steven Weinberg puts it: "I would say that free will is nothing but our conscious experience of deciding what to do, which I know I am experiencing as I write this review, and this experience is not invalidated by the ...