“Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism?”

Source: Think (1999), Chapter Three, Free Will, p. 84

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism?" by Simon Blackburn?

Simon Blackburn29

British academic philosopher 1944

Related quotes

“We do not want a new war. But we are not afraid of it if mobilisation of German power should prove to be the ultimate means of restoring German freedom.”

Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty

"Germany from Defeat to Conquest, 1913-1933", Władysław Wszebór Kulski - History - (1945)

“To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II, p. 505.

“In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of "openness" and freedom.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

"Nature Is My God" - interview with Fred Matser in Resurgence No. 184 (September-October 1997) http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/184/gorbachev.htm Context: We have retreated from the perennial values. I don't think that we need any new values. The most important thing is to try to revive the universally known values from which we have retreated. As a young man, I really took to heart the Communist ideals. A young soul certainly cannot reject things like justice and equality. These were the goals proclaimed by the Communists. But in reality that terrible Communist experiment brought about repression of human dignity. Violence was used in order to impose that model on society. In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of "openness" and freedom.

“If there is a class war—and there is—it is important that it should be handled with subtlety and skill. … it is not freedom that Conservatives want; what they want is the sort of freedom that will maintain existing inequalities or restore lost ones.”

Maurice Cowling (1926–2005) historian

"The Present Position," Conservative Essays (Cassell, 1978), p. 1, p. 9.

“Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism, not somebody else’s. It is not the determinism that makes a difference, but the ownership. If freedom is what we prefer, then it is preferable to be determined by forces that originate in ourselves and not in others.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 22 “Free Will” (p. 313)

“We believe in freedom with a passion that only those who have been denied it for so long can understand it. We believe in equality because so many in our nation have been denied for so long, we believe in human worth for that is the basis for all our current work in India.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Jul 29 1982 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHk9zoG6PXw

“To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Green Mumford (18 June 1799) http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/munford/munford.html 1790s Context: To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement. The generation which is going off the stage has deserved well of mankind for the struggles it has made, and for having arrested the course of despotism which had overwhelmed the world for thousands and thousands of years. If there seems to be danger that the ground they have gained will be lost again, that danger comes from the generation your contemporary. But that the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and country.

“That men should pray and fight for their own freedom, and yet keep others in slavery, is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and, perhaps, impious part, but the history of mankind is filled with instances of human improprieties.”

John Jay (1745–1829) American politician and a founding father of the United States

1780s, Letter to Reverend Doctor Price (1785)

“If the Jews are denied the right to live in freedom and peace, soon we will all be denied this right. If the light of Israel is extinguished, we will all face darkness. If Israel falls, the West falls.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech delivered in Tel Aviv in December of 2010, quoted in The Blaze: "‘Marked for Death’: Beck Interviews Anti-Islamist Dutch MP Geert Wilders" (2 May 2012) http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/02/beck-hosts-anti-islamist-dutch-mp-geert-wilders/ 2010s

“Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

The Dilemma of Determinism (1884) republished in The Will to Believe, Dover, 1956, p. 149
1880s

“Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Simon Blackburn29

Related quotes

Related topics