Actually, I do think it's important to understand that for something to be empirical does not imply the exclusion of language, symbolic meaning, concepts, and all that. — jamalrob

Agreed. Kripke's general argument regarding rigidity or metaphysical necessity cut across natural and institutional facts. For one U.S dollar bill to be worth what it is, or for it to be worth more or less than a Canadian dollar bill depends on socially instituted rules. The propositions that one of them was devalued with respect to the other one, overnight, still is an empirical proposition. It describes the outcome of a process governed my market forces.

Cool. Maybe you could point out where I'm wrong. — Mongrel

I did already in the first post from mine that you quoted. I explained where you may have gone wrong, though I may have mistargeted my comment at John. Early on in the thread you had commented that: "There is no possible world that contains the thing we've named "France" which has a capital that isn't Paris. That's Kripke's necessary aposteriori in a nutshell." This may involve the incorrect slide from one claim of de re necessity to another one, for one could maybe make the case that there isn't a possible world in which Paris is the capital of some country other than France. But your own statement (regarding France) would not follow from that, and it would still be false.

You also claimed that "The actual France (whose capital is Paris) can not be identical to an alternate France (whose capital is Caen). That's pretty basic. It's two different objects." This would only be true if having Paris as a capital were an essential property of France. You seemed to have been running together numerical identity and indiscernability.

My view is in keeping with Scott Soames' explanation of Kripke's views. Maybe you could add his comments to your tons. — Mongrel

I own and have read the two volumes of his Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century, as well as several of his papers. Although I disagree with Soames on some topics (mainly regarding the metaphysics of propositions, and his views on philosophical method), it never had seemed to me that his reading of Kripke was amiss. It's possible that you misread him too. Maybe another useful introduction to Kripke would be Gregory McCulloch's The Game of The Name.

Everything TGW says about Kripke in this thread seems about right to me (and I've read N&N twice, and tons of secondary literature). Most disagreements seem to stem from John and Mongrel misreading Kripke in various ways. One issue, though, where John and TGW may be somewhat talking past one another is the question regarding the possibility of Paris not being the capital of France. Thus formulated (and as formulated several times in this thread) the question is hopelessly ambiguous. One could make a broadly Kripkean argument about its being metaphysically necessary (and a de re necessity) of Paris that it be the first capital of France, say. But, and this is where John goes wrong, from this alleged de re necessity (if it is one) would not follow the different de re necessity, regarding France, that it must have Paris as its capital. The latter could still be contingent or false.

Likewise, and this is argued explicitly by Kripke, if Joe's natural parents are Sue and Tom, then it is metaphysically necessary regarding Joe that Sue and Tom be his natural parents (something that we could phrase ambiguously through saying that it is metaphysically necessary that Sue and Tom be Joe's parents, thus inviting the misreading that this is intended as a de dicto necessity). There is no possible world in which Joe has different parents (or so Kripke suggests). But it hardly follows from this, even if we share Kripke's intuition about this case (which I do), that Sue and Tom couldn't possibly never have met, or not have had Joe as a son, or not have had any children. Similarly, if Paris had been somewhat instituted as the first capital of France at some point in time, it could have been metaphysically necessary of Paris that it be the first capital of France. But it would not follow from this modal fact that France could not have had another first capital instead (in which case Paris would not have existed at all) or that Paris could not have ceased to be the capital of France at any subsequent point in time.

Biological meaning is not ethical meaning (not even the ethical meanings which reference biology). — TheWillowOfDarkness

Thompson would certainly agree. On his view, the validation of ethical principles is internal to practical reason. This is why he agrees with McDowell that ethics can't be validated "from sideways on" with an eye, that is, on empirical biological facts about our own "nature". Substantive biological facts are predicated of individual living organisms according to a form of predication that is brought to the scene a priori, and so is it for normative standards of goodness that attach to specific life forms (such as our own). Here again, it is only the form of predication that is known a priory, not the truth of the substantive propositions that results from such predication (including general ethical principles). What is also known a priori is the scope of the generality of the principles, and this is the class of the bearers of the life form that we belong to (the human form). But this again doesn't entail that there are any biological facts that we can gain a priori knowledge of, let alone them being such as to ground general moral principles (which we rather validate through practical reasoning).

My doubt, I suppose, is about how and whether the life form concept is one of these formal concepts (I know it's in the name, but still), because I can't see exactly how the life form concept differs logically from other concepts that Thompson admits are empirical, such as mammal. — jamalrob

Here is a suggestion: Although 'mammal' may be viewed as a (purely) empirical rather than a formal concept, it can't be applied in experience autonomously without reliance to the formal concept of a form of life, just like the empirical concept of something's being red can't be applied without the formal concept of a 'substance' (or a so called 'spatiotemporal continuant' -- P.M.S. Hacker); or like the "restriction of a sortal-concept" (David Wiggins), such as 'child' can't be employed without also tacitly employing the formal concept of the specific substance 'human being' that it is a restriction of. In this case, the (unrestricted) sortal-concept carries with it all the individuation and persistence criteria needed to single out in thought the singular substances falling under it.

The idea of a 'purely' empirical concept, I think, may be the idea of a common accidental feature that can be abstracted in a principled way (maybe for some explanatory, pragmatic or theoretical purpose) from a range of possible object of experience, albeit not such a highly systematic manner that the object themselves can't be thought of apart from their constitutive relations with this empirical concept. Hence when we have thought of some singular X as being a child (or as being red), we haven't fully individuated this object of experience in thought (i.e. understood what it is, in the Aristotelian sense of quiddity) unless we also have grasped that this individual also is a human being (or a bookshelf) say. However, if we have simply grasped that X is a human being (while ignoring how old she is) or that something is a bookshelf (while being unable to distinguish its color) then we still have fully singled it out in thought.

Maybe 'mammal's status as an empirical concept is contentious since, viewed as an evolutionary separate lineage (i.e. a clade), is it tantamount to a concept of a species, and hence is "formal" at this level. It is, in other words, an essential rather than an accidental property of the individuals belonging to this class. But it is still suitably 'empirical' as a category that is abstracted from experiences we have had of some range of individuals, each of which is independently understood to be an exemplar of a specific life form, and prior to our having individuated them more specifically as belonging essentially to this class. If such a more specific concept is viewed as necessary in order to fully grasp what the object falling under it is, then the more abstract and generic form can thereafter be viewed as a schema that needs being filled up with an index in order to figure in an empirical judgment concerning a singular individual.

"As you're using Kant's phrasing, shouldn't this be the other way around?"

For sure. I caught and fixed this mistake while you were typing your early reply to my post. Thanks for paying attention!

Hi Jamalrob,

I don't have time for a lengthy reply now, but I may make a few tentative suggestions and maybe elaborate later on. I anticipated that most readers would find it puzzling that formal concepts that find application in experience could be known a priori. My suggestion would be to understand judgments that ascribe a form to an item of experience as being expressed by synthetic a priori propositions. Maybe my comments in those earlier -- two -- posts -- about the Kantian distinction between those elements of knowledge which arise from experience, or which begin with experience, may be relevant. I would suggest that only the former, not the latter, can properly be called empirical.

It is a general feature of Thompson's work, as it is of Sebastian Rödl's (who travels a parallel path) that when he speaks of forms of judgment, the forms at issue belong to metaphysical logic, such that they characterize the way elements of thought are joined in a predicative nexus -- making up determinate judgments. Correlative to the form of such judgments (that is, to the way elements of the judgments hang together) are the metaphysical categories. Thus, a judgment that ascribes a category to an item of experience (e.g. a substance or a quantity) is a synthetic a priori judgment since it expresses how such an item can be joined to other items of suitable categories in order make up a determinate judgment. (In Haugeland's framework, we could say that the set of constitutive rules (synthetic a priori judgments) that determine a specific empirical domain express the tacit theoretical understanding a subject must bring to bear a priori to experience in order that her observations be intelligible and contentful. For one to come progressively to master a paradigm, and thus to come to see things aright, is for one to gain an a priori knowledge that "begins with" experience. When one has amassed a sufficient amount of such knowledge -- which adds up to understanding -- then, and only then, can one gain genuine knowledge from experience (that is, understand what one sees).

Don't take the Thompson paper (Apprehending Human Form) off the list please! It is a masterpiece: accessible and deep. The Anscombe paper would be my second choice among the texts proposed so far. Here is another suggestion:

Don S. Levi, Determinism as a thesis about the state of the world from moment to moment, Philosophy, vol 82, issue 3, 2007.

This paper exposes determinism as an incoherent doctrine owing to its reliance on the idea of "the state of the world at a time" and the uncritical acceptance of the assumptions that underlie this idea (both regarding the nature of time and the allegedly complete determinacy of the "states" of material things). The paper makes use of telling examples and isn't technical.

It can be read online with a free subscription to Jstor.org, or people can send me a private message.

The OP was posted in the other forum a few days ago. I'll just reproduce my comment here since my outlook contrasts with with Bitter Crank's, and it didn't elicit any further response over there.

I quite enjoyed the movie though I probably missed some of the sub-text. I wasn't previously acquainted with Olesha, and know Bergson very little. StreetlightX, who posts regularly on this forum, had recently started a thread discussing Bergson's pioneering work regarding the now popular theme of embodied cognition.

The dying man's meditations about loss of control and his feeling of distantiation from the world through language raises interesting issues regarding the conceptuality of thought. Some proponents of the essentially embodied nature of cognition take themselves to follow Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty in stressing the primordial non-conceptual character of our experience of the lived world, which we make contact with primarily through acting and finding our footing in it. However, other philosophers also suggest that our conceptual engagement with the world through the use of language doesn't normally detract from our intimacy with it. Inasmuch as the world extends beyond the limited scope of our immediately perceptible surroundings or the immediate opportunities it afford us, for satisfying our desires and carrying out our plans, language can indeed enable us to get into more intimate cognitive contact with regions of the world that only are distant from us in a merely contingent manner (that is, just because we aren't presently concerned or engaged with them at the time when we are thinking about them, though we are still capable of such engagement).

Hence, the remark from the dying man that he is losing contact with large swathes of his previously lived existence, and that the thin connection that he retains with them, merely through the use of elements of language (e.g. names and concepts) that now seem meaningless and drained of their significance, may actually be seen as exemplifying part of the truth that resides in both of the aforementioned accounts of language and embodiment. When the capacity for engagement is diminished through sickness or despair, language use becomes abstract because it is drained from the significance that it is normally endowed with when used in the context of a life filled with concerns and hopeful projects. This suggests that the "therapy" one requires -- if such is possible or desirable at all -- when faced with the diminishment of one's own capabilities is identification and empathy towards those who go on living (such as the children portrayed in the movie) rather than a narrow identification with one's own "stream of consciousness" or idle reflection about one's own foreclosed opportunities.

On edit: Here is the post, mentioned above, by StreetlightX regarding Bergson and embodiment.

At some point we start becoming increasingly responsible for who we are, what we are, and what we do. While fetal development may determine that someone is born psychopathic, even the psychopath can exercise restraint and self-control. "control" isn't the critical absence in psychopathy, it's guilt. Pedophiles feel guilt just fine, but they can not 'not desire' what they desire. They can choose, however, to pursue, or not pursue, their desired object. And so can the rest of us. — Bitter Crank

You are telling a story about complexity and unpredictability, and then suddenly transition ("...At some point...") to talking about control. I certainly agree that control is required for freedom. But I believe it to be a good point compatibilists make against (some) libertarians: that freedom actually requires some form of determination by past "circumstances" ("circumstances" that are, however, "internal" to the agent) and thereby also allow some degree of predictability. Her own actions must at least be predictable by the agent herself; though the way in which she "predicts" them normally proceeds through her deciding what she ought to do rather than through her making inferences on the basis of her own habitual behavior.

The actions of the agent must thus be the intelligible outcomes of (some of) her desires, commitments or intentions, and, optionally, of some episodes of explicit deliberation, for them to count as her own actions as opposed to things that merely happen to her. For sure, a fair amount of organizational complexity must be required in order that a living animal be capable of being acculturated, and capable of reasoning practically. But if an agent is thereby unpredictable from the standpoint of the laws that govern the complex physical evolution of her material parts (e.g. the firing of her neurons, etc.) it need not follow that her actions only are free inasmuch as they are unpredictable by anyone or by her. Quite the contrary, some capricious or arbitrary choices that a person makes may be quite unpredictable albeit quite unfree, owing to them not being intelligible even to the agent herself, while some other actions may be highly predictable by people who know the agent, owing to those actions being perfectly intelligible for her to perform in the circumstances. A parent saving his/her child from an obvious danger, or a thief grabbing an unattended wallet, may be highly predictable actions that are nevertheless free and intelligible, such that the agent is thereby fully accountable for them.

I was kind of thinking around the same way as you regarding punishment. It's not possible to abandon punishment; not only do we, the victims, need closure and a feeling of security but the perpetrator needs to understand that these actions are not acceptable. Just because these actions are pre-determined does not mean that the person himself can just sit back and let his body do all the work. — darthbarracuda

That's right. The person being punished needs to understand that her action was unacceptable. The point of the punishment may be to coax her into building up such an understanding (leaving the rationale of deterrence on one side for now). But this hoped for nascent understanding only will be of any use if the person has the capacity to act well as a result of it -- that is, as an outcome of correct deliberation -- in the sort of circumstances where she previously failed to act well. That she has this general capacity entails that when she in fact failed to act well, that was a failure to exercise this capacity, and not due to her lacking the capacity altogether. If she were lacking the capacity, then the punishment would be pointless.

A hard determinist may argue that although she had the general capacity to act well, her failure to exercise this capacity (and deliberate properly) in the particular case was causally determined by her lack of understanding (or, equivalently, by her vicious character) and she was thus powerless, at that time, to display a character that was any better. But this reasoning relies on conceptually lumping together the external circumstances that may impede the actions, or practical reasoning, of an agent with the "internal" circumstances, including features of her own character and cognitive apparatus, that make her up as an agent.

The point of this distinction between two kinds of "circumstances" may be highlighted by a simple example. Consider the case where the agent was caught shoplifting and was sentenced to perform 50 hours of community service. First, let us suppose that the punishment coaxes her into thinking twice the next time she will have an opportunity to shoplift. That is, the main effect of the punishment is an ongoing deterrence effect. In that case, we may say that her heightened awareness that she might get caught, and punished again, refers to an external circumstance that she takes into account while deliberating. It inclines her to act well (that is, refrain from shoplifting) but it also restricts her "freedom" to acquire free stuff.

There is another possible outcome, though. During the time when she serves her sentence, she may reflect about the wrongness of what she did, talk to other people about it, feel remorse, etc. The outcome might be that, when another opportunity to shoplift occurs, her temptation to do so is diminished on grounds that mirror those of a person who simply is aware that doing so isn't a worthwhile way of living because, e.g., it wrongs others. In that case, on what possible ground might we say that her freedom is restricted? She is now acting well (or, at any rate, more likely to do so) out of her own cognizance of her opportunities. In a sense, she is less "free" to acquire free stuff, but that isn't because of a constraint that is merely external to her, as it was in the first scenario. Acquiring free stuff at the expanse of others isn't something that she wants to do anymore.

We can set up a regression where the actions of this moment were determined by the conditions of the immediate prior moment, and so on. How far into the past? Practically, we can't determine pre-existing conditions very far back, so let's just stick with everything since one's individual conception. [...]

For most of us, most of the time, our behavior is a combination of external determination and internal decision, mixed together somewhat so it isn't crystal clear at any given moment why we are doing what we are doing. — Bitter Crank

If the argument sketched in your first paragraph is sound, then the claim in your last paragraph (with which I agree) is false. It would rather follow from it that everyone, all of the time, has their behavior entirely determined by conditions outside of their control (since they were conditions that already held prior to the time of their conception).

The view that people (and things) don't have the power to do differently than they actually do has been called "actualism". It is the view that there aren't any unactualized powers, that anything that is possible is actual (and, correlatively, that anything non-actual is impossible). It has been argued to be a consequence of scientific determinism. On that view, if I didn't refrain from committing some bad deed, then I didn't have the power to so refrain. And if I didn't have this power at all, then it indeed wouldn't be reasonable to hold me responsible.

But we ordinarily do make a distinction between things that we didn't do because it wasn't in our power to do them, and things that we didn't do because we chose not to do them (even though we hold that it was in our power to do them). How do you account for this distinction, which we must necessarily be sensitive to when we deliberate about what to do while considering the range of our real options? Is it an illusory difference, or just a consequence of a lack of knowledge about our real powers, on your view? Hume, who was an actualist, thought that it was a fallacious distinction.

Holding oneself (through pride and remorse) and others (through praise and blame) accountable for our deeds just is to recognize the practical significance of the aforementioned distinction between a lack of power to do (or refrain to do) something and the merely unactualized power to do (or refrain to do) it. Punishment need not be assimilated to vengeance. It can be justified as a form of blame that is foisted on someone in circumstances where ordinary verbal admonestation wouldn't stick (or where deterrence is sought). It need not be viewed as the fulfillment of a desire to make someone justifiably suffer as much as a means to help awaken her to her own responsibilities, and to the power (as of yet unactualized) that she has to do better. Of course, punishment can be abused and the need for it may be invoked as a cover for a desire for vengeance. But the fact that punishment can be abused, and perverted into cruelty, doesn't abolish the metaphysical distinctions that justify its ordinary use.

This is not legislating morality, but rather following the laws of a country. Illegal immigration is harmful because 1. it breaks the laws of the country, 2. it disrespects the country and the authority of the law, 3. it promotes disobedience. Therefore, illegal immigration is always wrong - even if you're running away from North Korea it's wrong so long as the country you're running to doesn't want to accept you legally. — Agustino

This seems to imply that, on your view, some people's choice not to suffer and die miserably is wrong because their only means to avoiding an undeserved death constitutes a misdemeanor and is disrespectful of the law. Or maybe you just mean "wrong" pro tanto.

So you're telling me that I should license the breaking of the law for people who are smart enough to commit to actions, under cover, which makes them very difficult to remove from society, such as illegal immigrants getting married, and having children on American soil? — Agustino

Suppose there would be a 20 years prescription period (maybe assorted with some other restrictions, such as the lack of a criminal record, say). It seems unlikely to me that a prospective illegal immigrant would chose to move to the USA with the hope not to get caught during the next 20 years, but would cancel her plan if there were no prescription period. Maybe there will be a precious few that would be thus influenced, but likely not enough of them to justify the harm caused to society by the forced deportation of scores of long established individuals and families.

So you're telling me that I should license the breaking of the law for people who are smart enough to commit to actions, under cover, which makes them very difficult to remove from society, such as illegal immigrants getting married, and having children on American soil? If I license such behavior, then we will have no more laws. — Agustino

So long as the penalty produces the desired deterrence effect, there is no need to increase its severity further than that, except maybe as a means for the legislator to obtain political gain through demagoguery. Deporting families that have been long established and that may have contributed positively to society may be a penalty that is unnecessarily draconian and that harms society more than the marginal gain from the enhanced deterrence effect would justify.

The same as finding all sorts of ways to license immoral behavior, because the consequences of not licensing it are too harsh. This is nonsense. It's not practical, and it removes the legitimacy and power of the law.

You are suggesting that it's not practical for there to be prescription periods for some forms of offence. But it is quite commonplace, seems to work, and can minimise harm to society. It's also quite unclear that illegal immigration qualifies as immoral. In some cases, it may be a vital necessity. So, I don't see there to be a slippery slope towards licensing immoral behavior.

Yes, still, it is just that illegal immigration is wrong, so it follows that this, being a just law, must be enforced adequately. — Agustino

Some law may be deemed "just" only in the sense that it proscribes an action that can reasonably be considered unjust on independent grounds (and/or because it institutes fairness for all concerned), while the prescribed penalty -- e.g. forced deportation and breakup of families, in this case -- is unjust due to its excessiveness, or due to an excessively long prescription period, or the lack of any such period.

Illegal immigrants should be out of the country though. The law is the law, and it must be respected. That's what justice is no? — Agustino

Justice is a concept that is more fundamental than the bare idea of respecting the law; for if justice reduced to that, then the very idea of an unjust law would be incoherent. I think some of the Republican presidential candidates were aware of the need to reform immigration law until Trump came along with his poisonous rhetoric, and they suddenly felt uncomfortable standing on his left.

On edit: It seems that John Kasich, to his considerable credit, resisted the pressure, though.

I'm arguing causality is ridgidly determative. The future is ridgid because there is one outcome which occurs. My point is this ridgidness is concurrent with possibility. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The determinist and the indeterminist both agree that only one outcome will be realized. The determinist claims, in addition to this, that there is only one possible outcome that can (and therefore will) be realized consistently with the present state of the universe and natural laws. So, what does it add to the account of the indeterminist to say that the future is "rigid"? She agrees with the determinist that only one future will be realized. So. in what sense is the future that will be realized "rigid" if one isn't a determinist? The actual future that will be realized is "rigid" in relation to what?

If I have understood you, you are saying that freedom consists in acting, or believing, for reasons. It is the very determinative character of reasons that constitutes freedom. — John

Actually, I never thought about defining freedom in that way. I merely accept the idea that freedom requires the ability to have done otherwise in the circumstances in which one acted (i.e. I am accepting the weak version of the PAP). And I am questioning the strange and -- I would argue, incoherent -- construal that the determinist makes of the notion of an agent's "circumstances" such that anything that occurs within her own body constitutes for her such "circumstances". This confused notion gives rise to what I have termed the strong version of the PAP, which I reject. It depends on one conceiving the agent as something essentially disembodied. This strong version of the PAP often seems to be tacitly endorsed by both the compatibilists and the incompatibilists in a large portion of the literature on free will (with many notable exceptions).

What is "historically necessary" for an agent is, then, determined by antecedent worldly events; like the bus might be predetermined to be late. So it will be historically determined that the agent will not catch the bus. But then, she might do any of a range of other things.

Yes, what it is historically necessary that an agent will do is relative to the circumstances of her action. It consists in what it is, in those circumstances, that it is not up to her to prevent anymore (or ever). Hence, the range of what it is historically necessary that will occur increases over time (from my perspective, say) since the range of the possibilities for action that are open to me diminishes over time (in other words: I settle things over time); and this range isn't the same for me as it is for you, since different persons don't have the same powers and opportunities.

However it is a strong physicalist claim that whatever she does will ultimately be determined by neural activity.

Yes. It is a reductionist claim that goes beyond the claim that she is materially constituted and that her bodily motions (as they may be described in purely physical terms) are governed by the laws of physics. The reductionist claim goes further than this claim about material constitution since it also presupposes that actions, in a sense, supervene on bodily motions in such a way that whatever determines bodily motions also determines actions.

The questions then become: is she determined by the micro-physical brain activity or is she determined by her reasons?

At this stage in the argument, I think the compatibilist will rightly point out that the question sets up a false dichotomy. The microphysical brain activity settles what bodily motions will occur and the person deliberates and choses what she will do. The former may be part of a story about what it is about the person's neurophysiology that enables her powers to do the latter (i.e. deliberate and act).

Are the reasons only a post hoc rationalization of her actions or is there a genuine 'top down' effect; a kind of 'formal causation' that is itself not reducible to micro-physical determination?

I think downward causation is ubiquitous in nature, and it isn't mysterious. Pretty much all irreducible explanations of anything that occurs in nature, and that refer to the powers or dispositions of things, are of that kind. The availability of those explanations, as genuine explanations and not mere "rationalizations", is what is contested by reductionists and eliminative materialists. (To be fair, the reductionist may grant that there are such genuine explanations at the higher level, but question their independence from explanations of what occurs at the lower level).

For sure, explanations of the actions of human agents are, for the most part, rationalizing explanations. But they are not mere (i.e. illusory or false) rationalizations but rather genuine explanations as to why someone acted in one way rather than another way. For instance, I didn't go to the supermarket because I was informed that it was closed. This genuinely explains why I didn't go. It would have been irrational for me to go (because I need to buy some milk, say) while I knew that it was closed. A close examination of what went on in my brain could explain how I was able to reason that it was useless for me to go, but whatever this inquiry discloses doesn't compete with the rational explanation of my action. It merely changes the subject of the inquiry.

Can it make sense to say that she is determined by both, and if we want to say that, how do we understand the relationship between causal and rational determination?

Rational determination is a species of causation. It explains things that occur at a higher, more relevant, level of the activity of human beings. It is an inquiry that is concerned more about their intelligible actions rather than being concerned about the etiology of their "raw" bodily motions, or about the physiological enablements of their cognitive abilities. Those three different modes of inquiry are possible, and compatible, but they have three different topics.

It doesn't seem logically coherent to claim that any kind of genuinely efficacious formal rational determination of action or belief could be compatible with a rigid micro-physical determinism, and that is why I said that it could only be compatible with micro-physical indeterminism, because that would allow for genuine novelty and creativity.

This seems incoherent only if you endorse (maybe inchoately) a contentious metaphysical doctrine such as eliminative materialism and can't allow for there being consistent explanations of what happens at different levels of organization/description. Those may be explantations that have different topics altogether. Though, as is the case for the neurophysiological explanations of our cognitive powers (which need not be reductive explanations), some constraints on our abilities are thereby disclosed -- as are explanations of some of our irrational actions, or habitual cognitive biases -- but they are constraints that fall short from determining our actions, in most cases, or so am I prepared to argue.

As a side matter it would be pretty easy using existing technology to give a barrage of tests on potential power positions through mandating a MRI scan on such people and having either tests done to detect the occurrence of lies or falsehoods being made by a subject or doing a statistical analysis done on their brain structure as compared to confirmed psychopaths... — Question

If the candidate leader is to have absolute power, then, assuming "psychopathy," as potentially suffered by an individual, is a unified syndrome, such a screening could have some effectiveness. But what if the power structure is more complex, shared among many individuals, and the "psychopathy" of a regime arises from a bad social dynamics, such that the individual who represents nominal power (e.g. the President or Prime Minister) just is a brainwashed tool who believes she is serving the greater good, or doing the best she can in conditions of great urgency? In this case, the psychopathology could be collective while no individual actor is a psychopath. But this could also happen to a benevolent dictator who would fall prey to her own ideological mirage. An fMRI can't screen off an individual's suitability to dangerous ideological conviction since no such physiological test can distinguish sound from unsound political and/or moral belief.

If they form an orderly queue, they can be accommodated; otherwise they will have to go to Cantor's night shelter which has infinite rooms each of infinite capacity on each of it's infinite floors. Breakfast is not provided. — unenlightened

Real numbers, pretty much by definition, can't form an orderly queue. That would mean that they are countable, which they aren't. But it Cantor's night shelter has just two floors, each of which has just two single rooms, each of which has only two sub-rooms, each of which has only two sub-sub-rooms, etc. ad infinitum, then, yes, they can be accommodated.

You may be overly pessimistic. So long as Vermin Supreme still is in the race, there is hope for America.

Pierre, sorry about the delay responding. As it seems to me you have given an account, in your post 175, which differentiates between two different conceptions of "historical necessity" based on two different perspectives; the first and third person perspectives.

You have posited an ideal observer that can see every motivation of the agent and all the laws of physics and can thus predict precisely what will inevitably happen. And you have posited a less than ideal agent who cannot see her every motivation and presumably cannot see the laws of physics and so cannot predict what will inevitably happen. This is just like Spinoza's example of the stone rolling down the hill (or flying through the air?) which, if it could experience as we do would feel itself free in its rolling (or flying?). — John

That's not quite my argument. I am not relying on an essential limitation of the knowledge that an agent would face regarding her own cognitive state and causal antecedents, such that in light of this limitation, she would be enabled to picture herself as free (i.e. not predetermined) while an external perspective would reveal her to be thus predetermined by circumstances external to her.

Although there indeed is such an essential limitation of the knowledge that an agent can have of her own internal "cognitive states", for obvious logical reasons, that is not the source of her freedom, on my view. Rather, my main point is that those unknown "internal states" are irrelevant to the identification of the cause of the agent's actions. The external observer who may have a better (or even, let us assume, a perfect) knowledge of the internal states of the agent (and antecedent circumstances) may thereby better, or even perfectly, predict her actions, but will not necessarily understand *why* those actions occurred. In order to understand why they occurred, the external observer, just like the agent herself, must rather adopt the practical perspective of the agent in order to disclose her reasons for acting thus and so, when she does. This perspective will show that the action was only externally constrained by whatever was historically necessary relative to the practical circumstances of the agent, at the time when she deliberated. This is the relevant perspective that must be adopted by both the agent herself and the external observer if they are to assess the action and its causes. But that is not all.

Most importantly, those historical necessities (including some "historical necessities" that the agent might ignore -- such as the bus being poised to arrive late at the bus stop where she is now waiting) only partially constrain the agent's action, since they leave open a whole range of possible options. The choice that the agent makes between those options can't be explained through reference to historical necessities because many of the antecedent "determinative circumstances" of her bodily motions actually make up, or enable, the cognitive functioning of the agent and aren't thus "external circumstances" that constrain her. They rather constitute enabling "circumstances" that make her up, as it were, as a cognitive agent. And those internal "circumstances" can't be understood as what they are except in reference to the agents rational abilities. They are thus only disclosable by means of the interpretation of the agent's reasons for acting.

That the agent acted for some reasons or other, therefore, doesn't show that her action was predetermined or unfree (and this is one main insight of compatibilism). It only shows that the agent's action was determined jointly by the necessary restrictions imposed on her by genuinely external circumstances (what I called historical necessities -- i.e. circumstances that she has no power to change even when apprised of them) in conjunction with the actualization of her power of practical reasoning. It is thus her, and not "external circumstances", that explain, and is the cause, of the unique choice that she makes between all the options that are historically possible, that is, open to her from the point of view of her practical deliberation perspective. This perspective can be disclosed not only to her (as it must be when she deliberates) but also to the "perfect" external observer.

The external observer may be very good at predicting what the agent will do, but that's not because the agent was predetermined by circumstances external to her, but rather because the observer was in a position to anticipate what it is that the agent would have good reasons to do -- or that she would merely believe to have good reasons to do -- and that she would thereby do precisely for those reasons.

Or else, the observer may be able to only predict the bodily motions that the agent would exhibit without understanding what actions those bodily motions constitute in context. In that case also, the observer can't construe the actions of the agent to have been predetermined, since the observer doesn't have a clue what the predetermined bodily motions of the agent amount to, qua intentional actions. So, in order to establish that a specific action was predetermined, one would have to know what action concept the bodily motion realizing it falls under, but this can't be deduced from the antecedent circumstances and the deterministic laws governing them qua material occurrences. The relevant action concept must rather be disclosed consistently with an intelligible interpretation of the agent's rational perspective. And thus the question under which action concept some predetermined bodily motions fall isn't settled by antecedent material "circumstances" and by deterministic laws just because those uninterpreted "bodily motions" might be thus predetermined.

Luckily there are always more rooms everyone can run too. It all sounds like some sort of Hellscape mystery-adventure platformer. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If a new set of guests arrives that represents the real numbers, then, in that case, Hilbert's Hotel won't be able to accommodate them all.

I wonder if that would count as a reductio ad absurdum of actual infinities (despite Hilbert's defence of them)? — Michael

Since the result merely is counterintuitive, but doesn't generate an actual contradiction, I don't think it militates against the idea of actual infinities as Cantor conceived of them (whatever one may think of infinities realized in nature -- your actual actual infinities). I am unsure how intuitionistic mathematics deals with all of Cantor's results in therms of potential infinities. It is true that the "paradox" of Hilbert's Hotel doesn't seem to arise from the point of view of merely potential infinities (since the "process" of moving the guests to new rooms in order accommodate new guests is never ending). But it still merely is a pseudo-paradox from the point of view of a Platonist mathematics that makes provision for actual infinities (e.g. actually existing sets that have transfinite cardinalities). Just like the idea of relative simultaneity in the theory of special relativity, the idea of a set that can be mapped on a proper subset of itself just is something that our intuition can be reformed to accommodate when prejudice is overcome.

I assume this paradox only arises in the case of actual infinities? — Michael

You may be referring to Aristotle's distinction between actual and potential infinity?

If Hilbert's hotel was full then wouldn't everyone already be in a room? — Michael

Everyone indeed already is in a room both before and after they all are moved to a new room all at once. But after the move (where, e.g. everyone in room n moved to room 2*n), not every room has someone in it. All the odd-numbered room are freed. That's the apparent paradox. But one way to define an infinite set is: a set such that it can be mapped one-to-one to a proper subset of itself.

Since the set of natural numbers is such an infinite set, there are such mappings. For instance the set of even (positive) numbers is a proper subset of the natural numbers and, indeed, the natural numbers can be mapped one-to-one to the set of even numbers. This is what "happens" when all the guest of Hilbert's Hotel (the natural numbers) are mapped to ("moved to") the even numbered rooms, thus freeing an infinite number of odd numbered rooms. Or also, more trivially, when each guest that is currently in room N is moved to room N+1, thus freeing only the first room. This is also a mapping of the set of the rooms that were formerly occupied to a proper subset of itself (i.e. to the set of all the rooms that still are occupied after the move).

(When two sets (that can be finite or infinite) thus have a one-on-one mapping between them, they are said to have the same cardinality. It is one main achievement of Georg Cantor to have shown that there are infinite cardinalities larger that the cardinality of the natural numbers. Such is the case for the cardinality of the real numbers. But there is no set that has "fewer" elements (i.e. a smaller cardinality) than the set of the natural numbers).

But in reality infinity is not infinite, but it has an END. The same applies to the number of Pi. The number of Pi starts with 3,14... and so forth. One would say that this number is "Infinity", but in reality, there will always be a number in the end and a number coming after it 1+n. — Apple

I don't get your argument at all. What make you think that there is "a number in the end"? (Although Pi is both irrational and transcendental, that is irrelevant to your argument about infinity.) The fraction 1/9 (one ninth) is a rational number but it also has an infinite decimal expansion. It can be expressed as 0.11111... where the three dots signify that there isn't any "1" in the decimal expansion that terminates it. And so is it with the set of the natural numbers {1, 2, 3, ...}; there isn't any number N such that N+1 doesn't belong to that set. What motivates you to claim that the ordered sequence of natural numbers has an "END" then?

Your answer, as well written as it is, only reaffirms the presupposition in the performative significance. If personhood (or marriage) is not presupposed to be categorical then the performative significance is altered but not eliminated.

The counterfeit currency example seemingly relies on a mistaken theory of currency value. In representative currencies, a counterfeit note has no value because the promise of the respresentation is false. The counterfeit note can have value not connected to the representation (e.g., as a work of art), but as a representative currency the value is always nil because the note does not have a corresponding good to ground the value. That owes to the nature of the currency, not the accuracy of the symbol of representation. — Soylent

Yes. It is precisely this categorical feature of a representative currency (or of a fiat currency -- the difference is inessential for my purpose) that makes it a suitable example. What you call "the nature of the currency" is conferred, or instituted, by the performative act of its emission. A promise is an archetypal performative act, so is the backing of a currency by a government or financial institution.

A feature of my example that I may not have made clear enough, tough, and which was the main point of the analogy, is the fact that the performative signifiance of the act through which monetary value is conferred has a dual level structure, as it were. On the one hand, a categorical status is conferred and, on the other hand, the complex and multifaceted surrounding practice through which this performative act can be accomplished makes such acts possible in the first place. One can't make a promise (as a performative act) in a social context where the practice of promise-giving and promise-keeping (with all its subtle and tacitly understood expectations, caveats, admissible excuses, etc.) hasn't been instituted. So, what I am claiming to be categorical is the performative act that establishes a banknote as legal tender (such that it thereby acquires some value at all) but not necessarily the amount (or nature) of value thereby conferred. The latter may be pegged to the (variable) value of the gold standard, say (in the case of a representative currency), or to other dynamic features of the surrounding financial practices.

And so is it with personhood, adulthood (or marriage) on the account I am sketching. The performative act through which personhood is conferred to a human being is categorical but doesn't define what it is to be a person anymore that the fiat (or backing) of a financial institution defines what it consists in for the currency it emits to constitute money and to have the sort of value that it thereby acquires. That is rather established by the background practice and economic circumstances. And likewise, what it is to be a person is highly constrained and conditioned by the sorts of social practices, modes of embodiment and specific background circumstances that Bitter Crank, Moliere and Jamalrob have stressed in previous posts.

Hence, if this makes sense, there isn't a contradiction in stressing both the developmental, and hence gradual, character of the actualization of the abilities associated with personhood, and the categorical nature of the performative act through which the status is conferred.

Interestingly enough, while Bitter Crank and Moliere have both stressed the social background that sustains the features associated with the character of personhood (or humanity) that infants or fetuses come to manifest, those considerations have seemed to militate for the categorical attribution of the status of a person being accorded to her both before (Bitter Crank) and after (or no sooner than) she was born (Moliere). That's because one can stress either the concrete social construction of the specific background that serves as a receptive structure which the infant will come to inhabit (as Bitter Crank stressed), or the actual development of her abilities to more fully inhabit her natural and social world (as Moliere stressed).

While it falls short from settling the debate about the time after which abortion is impermissible, I think my suggestion about the dual level structure of the performative act though which personhood is (categorically) conferred to a newborn somewhat alleviates this quasi paradox. Since what is thereby conferred isn't a status that is defined by the performative act, one is thereby free, one the one hand, to recognize personhood as being prefigured, prepared, and partially realized even before the act through which it is conferred, and also, on the other hand to recognize that the characteristic human capabilities associated with personhood can fail to be fully actualized until long after this status has been conferred.

This smells very strongly of John McDowell, whom I understand to be wearing a fine misting of eau de Kant. — Pneumenon

That is, of course, no coincidence since Haugeland was McDowell's colleague at Pittsburgh and he offered two graduate courses on the philosophy of John McDowell (one of them specifically on Mind and World). It also happens that John McDowell is my favorite analytic philosopher.

I think the problem is that we have this rigid notion of causation on the one hand and on the other we have the idea that we do and believe things for reasons. The two ideas are utterly incompatible, we have no idea of how to map them onto one another. — John

What is it then, in the version of compatibilism that I have sketched in my recent posts, that you find unsatisfying? Is it just a matter of it merely being counterintuitive? We both agree that the doctrine of universal determinism is reliant on a flawed conception of causality (and, I also think, correlatively, to a flawed conception of "universal" laws of nature). And this is the reason why I don't fully endorse compatibilism. But it nevertheless seems to me that the compatibilist account of freedom is partially right inasmuch as it dislodges a faulty assumption shared by hard incompatibilists and many libertarians alike, and this flawed assumption is the intuition that freedom requires that some strong form of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) be true (as I explained recently). The hard incompatibilists and (many) libertarians all are incompatibilists precisely because they believe there to be such a requirement for freedom and they take universal determinism to preclude this strong version of the PAP.

That is why I agree with Hanover that the idea of rigid determinism completely undermines the idea of doing or believing anything for any reasons. People who want to maintain a belief in both of these ideas simultaneously, wriggle and squirm every which way, but to no avail. Personally, I can see no reason not to believe in freedom, (I think it's actually practically impossible not to assume it) but I also think it is unanalyzable; I don't think it is possible to understand how it is related to, or compatible with, indeterminism; but it would seem that, somehow, it must be at least compatible with it.

I also wonder why you believe there to be a difficulty in combining freedom with indeterminism (where "indeterminism" is understood simply as the negation of universal determinism). Is it troublesome that our actions wouldn't have sufficient causes? Such an alleged requirement (which may be derived from Donald Davidson's idea of the nomological character of causality) is something that you seem to be granting (as do I) as stemming from a flawed conception of causality. Hence, it doesn't seem to threaten freedom, in my view, because it isn't entailed by ordinary conceptions of the explanation of beliefs and actions that trace them back to intelligible causes -- episodes of practical or theoretical reasoning/deliberation -- that explain them but fall short from being sufficient causes (i.e. antecedent circumstances that necessitate their effects).

Is there an argument in favour of viewing personhood as a categorical distinction as opposed to a matter of degree, or are you presupposing that position? — Soylent

I think it is presupposed by society, not by me, rather in the way being married also is a categorical status rather than a measure of the closeness of a relationship between two adults that may or may not have crossed some conventionally defined threshold of commitment or intimacy, say. But it is important to distinguish such categorical social "presupposition" from mere conventional prejudices through recognizing the widespread consequences of the fact that such social recognitions, we had better call them, have performative significance.

One other example could be the value conferred to genuine dollar bills compared with the lack of value of counterfeit dollar bills. It is likewise a collective performative act that constitutes the value of the genuine dollar bill and that marks off any counterfeit specimen has having zero monetary value, quite categorically, (rather than as having a positive value proportional to the likelihood that it could be passed off fraudulently as a real one, say). Yet, it is clear that the exchange practice within which the categorical status is granted to currencies legally issued (and within which counterfeits thereby acquire some parasitic "value") is a prerequisite to their having this categorical status.

Nevertheless, it would be nonsensical to say that whatever suitably resembles a dollar bill has a monetary value that ranges from zero to 1$ in proportion to the degree to which it shares the physical characteristics of a paradigmatic or "genuine" dollar bill -- and that therefore the genuine items themselves owe their value to their high degree of physical conformity with the "standard" or "ideal" dollar bill (in a manner similar to the way some people seek to measure the "personhood" of fetuses by going through a checklist of empirical criteria). This would misconstrue the modal and categorical significance of the genuine/counterfeit ("presupposed") distinction that we are making, that is part and parcel of the practice through which we institute monetary value, and without which this practice would collapse.

If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides — Bitter Crank

Apart from having senses, which is a form of embodiment shared with other animals, none of the things that you mention constitute embodiment, but rather are prerequisites for the acquisition of embodied capabilities and statuses. Human children acquire most of the forms of embodiment (or come to inhabit those forms) that are characteristically human long after birth (e.g. months or years) -- which doesn't entail that they can't be persons before this, of course. But I would not equate personhood with the acquisition of those capabilities either since the latter is a matter of degree while the former is a categorical distinction.

One of the reasons why there can be rites of passage marking birth (broadly conceived as the acquisition of personhood) or adulthood is because the transition that is thus celebrated is categorical (e.g. one is either a person or isn't, either is an adult with voting rights, etc. or isn't) and not because there is something "objective" and independent of those rites that marks us as persons or adults. Also, when some of the requisite capacities (e.g. "sensori-motor", cognitive, emotional, linguistic, intellectual, etc) aren't yet developed, or fail to develop, the celebrated status that is normally their home usually is nevertheless granted proleptically by mature persons (or adults) both as a form of help ("scaffolding") for the development of the individual being granted this status (and an assistance to the exercises of her incompletely developed capabilities), and as providing a social circumstance that constitutes the fact for that individual having this status. That is, one important dimension of the celebration of birth (or of adulthood) is the fact that it is a performative act, in John Austin's sense, rather than a declarative act.

Finally, I would note that some confusion in these debates, it seems to me, may stem from the inability to distinguish (1) the concept of a human being, which is a sortal concept (or "substance form" concept) that supplies criteria for identifying an individual as being the same one from conception until death, from (2) the concepts of a person, or of an adult, which are "phase sortals" as David Wiggins defines them: concepts that only apply to individuals who are in specific phases of their development -- where "development" can be understood to refer to socially constituted, or socially granted statuses, in many cases. Hence it can make sense, and be consistent, to say that (1) I saw *you* in the womb, when *you* were a fetus (e.g. through ultrasonography), that (2) you are a human being, that (3) killing a human being is categorically wrong (and always constitutes murder), but that (4) had you been aborted at that time this would not have constituted murder. This is a consistent tetrad, in my view. It may be the habitual conflations of a sortal concept (e.g. the concept of a human being) with a phase sortal concept (the concept of a person) that sometimes sustains the judgment that abortion always constitutes murder. (Euthanasia also can be justified in some circumstances, in my view, consistently with the categorical significance of the prohibition of murder, but the reasoning is different since its justification doesn't require the withholding of the status of personhood to the person being euthanized.)

I avoided that suggestion deliberately. Yes, it is true that many of these arguing "Universal (pre)determinism envision the are talking about the absence of alternative possibilities, but how does this make sense? To say something is a possible event is to speak of context where the future is not yet defined. That's why a suggested outcome is a "possible" outcome, as opposed to "The Outcome." — TheWillowOfDarkness

Here I am going to agree with the compatibilist for the sake of argument. I don't know, myself, what to make of the claim that there is one well defined "state of the universe" (a state of the universe, that is, that I am inhabiting presently) such that this state is actual and, conditionally to its being actual, the laws of physics ensure that there only is one possible future unfolding of events. But the compatibilist believes that she can live happily with this idea and I am going to follow through on her reasons for believing that she can be free in such a deterministic universe.

The important distinction for the compatibilist to make is the distinction between (1) what is, in a sense historically necessary, from the standpoint of her historicized and embodied circumstances in the world and (2) what it is up to her to chose to do in those very same circumstances. Such historically necessary circumstances don't consist in whatever determines the "present state of the universe", which is something necessarily inaccessible to her limited perspective as a rational agent, but rather what it is about her past history (and the history of her world) that constrains the range of things she can do conditionally to her seeing to it that she will do them. For instance, her historical circumstances can make it impossible that she will get to work on time if her work shift begins in two minutes and her workplace is 50 miles away. But if her work shift begins in two hours and she has access to suitable means of transportation, then it may be (mostly) up to her whether she will get to work in time. There are thus many options that are open possibilities from the standpoint of her deliberative perspective as a rational agent, and it is precisely the availability of those several options that constitute, according to compatibilism, her freedom to get to work in time (or be late intentionally).

The hard determinist will argue that in the case where the agent takes the means necessary to get to work in time, then it was in fact historically necessary that she would have done so, and hence her belief that there were other options available to her, which she had while she was deliberating what to do, was an illusory belief. An impartial observer who would have been better apprised of the agent's "circumstances" (including every details of her cognitive states), and of every constraints that the laws of physics entail, would have known that the agent could only have gotten to work in time.

The broadly correct response that the compatibilist can make to the hard determinist, it seems to me, is that the latter is conflating two distinct ranges of historical possibility that hold relative to two distinct agential perspectives. Maybe the "observer", from her own stance, can see that the agent is bound to get to work in time. But that's because her perspective encompasses the fact that the agent is (or will come to be) motivated to get to work in time. From the perspective of the agent, however, her own motivations aren't part of the circumstances that are constraining her action. They are rather part of what she is. So long as those two perspective (i.e. the observer's and the agent's) are properly kept separate, then the fact that from the point of view of the observer the first agent was bound to get to work in time (and thus that it was impossible that she would have gotten to work late) has no bearing on the range of possible outcomes that are genuinely open to her (and hence possible) relative to her own deliberative perspective -- a practical perspective, that is, from within which her own motivations don't constitute external constraints.

In light of those considerations, I just wanted to make clear that the specific feature of the compatibilist account that I am agreeing with is that the idea of a singular outcome that is necessary conditionally to the universe being in a determinate state in the past (or present) of the agent has no bearing on the range of possible courses of actions that this agent can possibly take, consistently with historical necessity, from the point of view of her own deliberative perspective. But I hold, in addition, that there doesn't exist any such perspective, practical, theoretical, or of any other kind (not even in the mind of God) from which our universe can be said to exist in a definite state; though I haven't argued for this here. Any necessity that is knowable or intelligible to us always has the shape of historical necessity -- and hence there doesn't exist any perspective from which freedom is totally absent.

What you described is really basic stuff. — jamalrob

Except for DNA, which is acidic stuff. ;-)

“Universal (pre)determinism” is about claiming an absence of possibility. It's problem is it tries to talk about events while denying they can be. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Don't you mean that it is a claim about the absence of alternative possibilities (alternative to what is actual, that is)? I would rather say that determinism is the doctrine according to which, given the "state of the universe" at any time (and the laws of nature), then there is just one state that the universe can possibly be in at any other given time. Of course, this means that what will in fact occur necessarily will occur given what was the case in the past (or given what is the case now). This doesn't entails actualism (i.e. the idea that only the actual is possible, and hence that possibility entails actuality) since one can still maintain, as compatibilists do, that many future outcomes are possible conditionally on whatever state one (and the universe) might possibly be in at earlier times. Only if the "initial state of the universe" is the only initial state possible, does determinism entail actualism.

I’m afraid to say this rather missies my point. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes, I must acknowledge that I had (mis)understood your argument to be much simpler than it actually is. But you are working from metaphysical assumptions so radically different from those I am relying on that it is difficult to meaningfully engage; though we may, of course, try.

I couldn't understand your post. — Hanover

Yes, the wording is defective. But I think TWOD may be making an argument similar to mine, targeting the very idea of universal determinism. In a way, I am both a compatibilist and an incompatibilist. That is, I hold the issue of determinism at the level of micro-physical law to be irrelevant to the analyses of free will and of the power of knowledge. Hence, our self-conception qua free cognitive agents ought not to be hostage to whatever discovery physicists might hold in reserve. We can still establish a priori that the doctrine of universal determinism spells trouble for our self-conception, but that this doctrine however is, fortunately, unintelligible. So, I hold free will (and the possibility of knowledge) both to be consistent with the possibility of determinism holding at the level of physical law but to be incompatible with universal determinism; while the latter can't be true anyway.

So, I think TWOD is right to question the coherence of the idea that our beliefs can be determined by the past (in the sense that they would necessarily follow from the past "state of the universe" conjoined with deterministic laws). For sure, our beliefs can be strongly influenced or, to some extent "governed" by intelligible social or cultural or cognitive forces (e.g. strong sources of cognitive bias that social or evolutionary psychologists are studying). Those are conditioning forces, or hurdles, that fall short from absolving us from our cognitive responsibilities and hence, also, from negating our powers to acquire knowledge.

So, there are two sorts of deterministic forces that we are subjected to. Intelligible forces of the first kind (cultural/cognitive, etc.) are sources of bias in our abilities to judge, but they fall short from completely determining us. Our awareness of them doesn't lead to a justified sentiment of powerlessness, but, on the contrary, ought to raise our awareness of our cognitive responsibilities. We have the power to, and therefore are responsible for, defeating our own biases. And then there are sources of "determination" of our "behaviors" that are strict and inescapable. We can't violate the laws of physics, and those laws, in conjunction with the past (physical) "state" of the world govern what it is our physical "bodies" do and how our brains are configured. But the doctrine of universal determinism is incoherent because it attempts to lawfully bridge the gap between (physical) "body" and human bodies, between physical process and human behavior, between brain states and states of knowledge. But there are no such bridging laws. Physics and psychology disclose only partially overlapping empirical domains. The concept of a cause may also bridge them somewhat, but not in accordance with deterministic laws.