Ian said to Steve:
Yes Steve, but when people say "compatibilism is the position that free will
and determinism are compatible rather than mutually exclusive positions." They
are not (cannot be) using the SEP definition of determinism you cite in (2).
They are using a less greedy definition - a la Dennett (who you also cite). You
go on to say, "presumably, the reason dmb hasn't yet responded is because he
now finally understands this and is very embarrassed. He has to deal with the
fact that he has been berating me for months for asserting logically
contradictory notions and not using terms properly, when his own beloved SEP
contradicts his usage of the term 'compatiblism'." I say, stop being a dick and
stick to the point. I actually believe there is something you're trying to say
- I just don't understand what it is yet.
dmb says:
Obviously, Ian is only taking my side because of the way I constantly flatter
him and encourage him. ;-)
But seriously, thanks Ian. I think you put your finger on the main point. For
anyone to maintain a compatibilist position, one has to use a softer definition
of "determinism", a version soft enough to allow for the freedom it is
supposedly compatible with. And, obviously, one has to use a softer version
precisely because it's logically impossible to say that freedom is compatible
with a total lack of freedom. That's the kind of nonsense I've been complaining
about throughout this debate.
What's worse is that Steve is willing to make this charge even though I made
this point already. Just yesterday, in fact, I said to Steve, "You're
describing compatibilism as a position that maintains two mutually exclusive
ideas at the same time. That is nonsense. By analogy, a thing can be warm but
it cannot be rightly described as hot and cold at the same time because one
rules out the other. It [compatibilism] says there are determining factors but
not to the exclusion of all freedom. It simply doesn't make any sense to say we
are 100% determined and also say that we are free. To be a compatibilist, you
cannot embrace determinism too. To be a compatibilist, you cannot deny freedom
but that's exactly what the determinist does."
Ron said to Steve:
Really Steve, all Daves post have been about nothing else but a compatabilist
stance against your persistant insistance that free will is not a possibility
in a MoQ. That choices and values are not free at all.
dmb says:
Obviously, Ron is only taking my side on this because of the way I always agree
with his reading of the ancients. ;-)
But seriously, thanks Ron.
Isn't it rather simple? Since the MOQ says we are controlled to some extent and
free to some extent, then the MOQ is obviously a form of compatibilism. And
since the MOQ is also a form of pragmatism and radical empiricism, the control
and freedom it posits is empirical and practical, not metaphysical. It admits
there are controlling factors without reducing everything to causes and effects
and it admits freedom without saying it is the property of a autonomous
Cartesian self. In short, there are no metaphysical posits that denigrate and
de-realize what's actually experienced. Scientific or philosophical
descriptions of the universe are not supposed trump empirical reality as it's
felt and lived through. Pragmatism says that's backwards, says that is a form
of vicious intellectualism. Causal determinism is very vicious in that sense.
It says that values and morals and meaningfulness are just things we invented
to comfort ourselves but they have nothing to do with reality. The
MOQ says approximately the opposite. It says man is the measure of all thing,
a participant in the creation of all things. It says that experience and
reality amount to same thing. And that's where we find both freedom and
constraint. To the extent that they are experienced, they are empirical
realities.
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