Anyway it seems obvious to me that the question of agency or free will has a history which predates the deliberations and deliverance of the church fathers, and that was all I was responding to. I haven't made bold to comment on the article, since I haven't read it — Janus

So take a quick look at the article, where Arendt presents an account which might have you reconsider what "seems obvious"...?

my shoes — Banno

You are your shoes? The shoe store must be an existential nightmare for you.
:grin:

It easy to say "the will is itself", but unless we can demonstrate that there is actually something real which is being referred to as "the will", such an assertion is pointless. — Metaphysician Undercover

As if I haven't provided numerous current definitions, compared them to the ones in question, presented current journals in neuroscience, and argued my point right along side them to this point. I'm going to attempt this one more time with you.

You'll notice just from this page of definitions alone, that the term 'will' encompasses a vast range of emotions, actions, decisions to act, exercises of habit or natural inclination, and otherwise human phenomena that covers everything said human could ever do in their existence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/will

You'll notice here that Arendt covers the entire history of the concept of freedom and will ranging from Kant, to Augustine, to Hegel, to Plato, to The Enlightenment and beyond that also covers the entire spectrum of conceivable human phenomena.
https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/hannah-arendt-what-is-freedom.pdf

You'll notice here that the brain is responsible for generating and regulating all human emotion and action, all of which is encompassed in the above two points of interest.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405011/

You'll notice here that all of the generating and regulating of emotion is connected to and organized by the prefrontal cortex, which serves as the general control center for all of the brains functions. You'll also notice here that the prefrontal cortex provides a limited amount of control of initiation of action, memory storage and retrieval, and perception.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00431/full

Keep in mind, this is all stuff I've already provided and explained.

Conclusion: Because the term 'will' describes and encompasses all human emotions and actions. And because those emotions and actions are controlled by the brain in a vast interconnected system that is not regulated by the conscious mind, which has very limited capacity for agency. And because the brain is self-perpetuating without fail by it's own genetically determined laws. The term 'will' simply describes the emergence of human behavior and action as generated and regulated by the brain. There is no "you" outside of the brain's operation, there is no 'will' outside of the brain's operation. There is only the brain's operation and the emergence of brain associated activity. Thus, the 'will' describes the sum total of individual human emotion and action, the emergent expression of all of the brain's operations and the processes that contribute to them.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, to say that "will is the sum total of...". How can you add up a whole bunch of distinct things and say the total of all those things is what is called "will". That's like saying the sum total of all living things is the soul. It makes no sense. If you were adding a bunch of the same type of things, like when we say the sum total of all human beings equals "humanity", it would sort of make sense. But you are proposing to add together a whole bunch of different things, thoughts, activities, values, etc., and say all these different things together is "will". You might as well just say the human being is will, but that makes no sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

This paragraph constitutes not even a single argument. "Makes no sense," not an argument. "Add up a whole bunch of distinct things," No, I didn't. The brain is controlling all of these "distinct" things, as explained above. "like saying the sum total of all living things is the soul," It's literally nothing like saying that, living things are not connected and controlled by a central hub that connects everything in the world and governs it. Your brain does exactly this in your body, this is nonsense."sum total of all human beings equals "humanity"," it's almost exactly like saying this, except now imagine all humans connected to a central hub of control and regulation, that's your brain."things, thoughts, activities, values, etc., " All of this and more is controlled by the brain and is emergent from the brain, together they form 'will.' "You might as well just say the human being is will." That is exactly what I am saying and it is 100% correct. You aren't anything at all outside of your thoughts and actions. That's why I said the sum total. Human = Will.

You say that as if it weren't exactly what you are. What are you if you are not your thoughts and actions? An inanimate object.

You are your shoes? The shoe store must be an existential nightmare for you.
:grin: — ZzzoneiroCosm

Funny, banno says "shoe" in a list of things that quite literally defines what he is as a living entity, in an attempt to strawman a position he hasn't been able to argue against. That's because I'm correct, he knows it, and he can't hang.

I've been scouring the SEP for evidence that shoes have free will.

I've been scouring the SEP for evidence that shoes have free will — ZzzoneiroCosm

At least they have soul.

What are you if you are not your thoughts and actions? — Garrett Travers

I'm still me when unconscious.

...defines... — Garrett Travers

It wasn't a definition.

What are you if you are not your thoughts and actions? — Garrett Travers

And as I have explained to you here, unconscious is not a state of neural inactivity. When unconscious, you are still the expression of all the operations of your brain that are, in fact, producing all of what you are at that moment. That's why "You" can't speak, move, believe, or think in any way outside of your brain's control. "You" are whatever your brain demonstrates you are when unconscious, just as it does when you are conscious.

definition. — Banno

This looks just like a definition.

Philohilarity aside, thank you for the article.

Arendt always writes a wonderful prose and her voice has a mesmerizing dark majesty. Like most philosophers, she's likely mostly wrong. But the ring of the omniscient seeress is priceless. The Origins of Totalitarianism is the one I pick up when I want the music of a master.

I've been scouring the SEP for evidence that shoes have free will. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I've been looking everywhere for an argument, no luck.

No, your brain controls the entire body you see in the mirror. — Garrett Travers

No. My body controls and it uses the brain. If I type these words, it's my body typing, my body steering my vingers, via the brain, not from the brain.

Philohilarity aside, thank you for the article. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Too late. I've written you out of my will.

I think it's fair to say that if we have any capability of control at all, then that is a quantum of freedom. If we never could have done otherwise than we did, then freedom is an illusion; our lives are pre-determined or at least not determined by us. — Janus

Under a certai definition of freedom. Here yoou equate every form of control with freedom. More control equals more quanta of freedom. However, that definition leads to absurd consequences because it means traffic lights would make you less free. If we define freedom as the capability to choose your own life paths than traffic lights suddenly add quanta of freedom.

That said, in the absence of external political or social forces controlling us, we can enjoy a felt freedom; would it matter if, on some externalist perspective alien to our actual lives, the feeling of freedom were thought to be an illusion? — Janus

That is a question tackled by some compatibilist philosophers I think. Possibly also by some in this thread. If you define freedom as freedom from natural impediments and control by other people, (or just control by other people) than by definition the will is free.

Anyway it seems obvious to me that the question of agency or free will has a history which predates the deliberations and deliverance of the church fathers, and that was all I was responding to. I haven't made bold to comment on the article, since I haven't read it, but only on the generalized comments of others. I don't intend to read the article, so I won't discover whether Arendt makes the claim that the idea of free will originated with the church fathers, and that's OK. — Janus

That is a dangerous way to go because others here are very silly compared to Arendt. I do not think it is obvious. Issues of control are discussed but not all control is freedom and freedom is defined differently throughout the ages that is I think the point of the article. I never come across a discussion in Greek philosophy about the problem of free will, control yes, but free will no. I know that for the church fathers it was a big issue. For Augustine and also for Boethius, in the context of the omniscience of God. that is really the only text I have looked at from the church fathers on that topic. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

However, that definition leads to absurd consequences because it means traffic lights would make you less free. — Tobias

I think traffic lights do interfere with personal freedom. Red light means you cannot go ahead. My goal is to go ahead. I am being stopped in achieving my goal, by a control; the control is curtailing my freedom.

I am not saying that your surrounding argument is invalid, but this example does serve the exact opposite of the service you used it for.

Conclusion: Because the term 'will' describes and encompasses all human emotions and actions. And because those emotions and actions are controlled by the brain in a vast interconnected system that is not regulated by the conscious mind, which has very limited capacity for agency. And because the brain is self-perpetuating without fail by it's own genetically determined laws. The term 'will' simply describes the emergence of human behavior and action as generated and regulated by the brain. There is no "you" outside of the brain's operation, there is no 'will' outside of the brain's operation. There is only the brain's operation and the emergence of brain associated activity. Thus, the 'will' describes the sum total of individual human emotion and action, the emergent expression of all of the brain's operations and the processes that contribute to them. — Garrett Travers

I'm sorry if this disappoints you, but I find your conception of "will" to be completely incoherent. Premises which are essential for your conclusion, such as the proposition "the brain is self-perpetuating without fail by it's own genetically determined laws" are completely unacceptable. Self-perpetuating, and determined by genetics, contradict each other.

And your propensity for classing together a wide variety of different affections as having the very same cause (will) is equally unacceptable. This is nothing more than a modern version of the ancient argument for a sixth sense. Basically, the argument was that the imagination can be creative, therefore we need some sort of extra "sense" distinct from the five senses, to account for the creation of images not caused by sense organ, but created. This would be the sixth sense, the faculty which creates fictitious images.

You make "the will" something very similar to the sixth sense. Notice that the fictitious image created by the imagination can be an image from any of the five senses, sound, sight taste, etc., and there is posited a single faculty (sixth sense) which can create an image from any sense. That's what you do with "the will", you take all the different bodily activities, which are creative in nature, and you class them together under "the will". But this principle of yours is based on an assumed separation between the passive reaction of receiving a sense image, and the active creation of causing activity; a separation which cannot actually be made. So in the case of the sixth sense, there is an assumed separation between the parts of the image received by the real sense organ, and the parts created by the sixth sense, which is not there in reality. There are created parts inherent in the sense image. And the same principle holds for your description of "the will". You describe the prefrontal cortex as a "control center", as if you can limit the creative aspect to one central faculty. This is what the concept of "sixth sense" demonstrates to us as a problem.

No, I didn't. The brain is controlling all of these "distinct" things, as explained above. — Garrett Travers

This is a very clear expression of the problem described above "the brain is controlling all of these 'distinct' things". Here's an example of why this is wrong. Suppose there's a person with hearing side by side with a person with out hearing, and there's a sudden noise behind them. The person with hearing responds and the person without does not. You say that the brain controlled that activity which I called the response, but obviously you are overlooking the role of the ears. Since the person without hearing did not act, then it is very clear that the ears of the person who had active ears instead of incapacitated ears, played a role in controlling the activity of the person. And if you deny the role that ears play in controlling that activity, you also must deny the role that the external thing, the noise itself, plays. Therefore you have isolated the prefrontal cortex as the "control center", as if it exercises control over the entire living body, as an unaffected cause of activity, "the will", when this is a totally improper representation.

...now imagine all humans connected to a central hub of control and regulation, that's your brain... — Garrett Travers

This is a very good indication of the problem I described above. Human beings which are connected to a central hub of control is not an acceptable representation of anything real. 'Connecting' humans in this way, so as to completely deny their capacity to decide their own activities would leave them as no longer human beings. So it is impossible to have human beings connected in this way. Any realistic description of the connection between human beings and a control hub, would allow back and forth communication between the individual and the controlling mechanism. This is because the "control" cannot be only one way, that would make the controlled individual something other than human, rendering the scenario contradictory. This is exactly the problem you have created with your description of "the brain", describing it as a one way control mechanism. You do not include the control which the individual parts have over the brain.

It is expressed in the passage with the distinction between "common good" and "private good", such that the "private good" is always sinful. This means that there is an inherent incompatibility between the common good and the private good. But this is faulty by Aristotelian principles, and those expressed by Aquinas, which were later accepted by Catholic moralists. — Metaphysician Undercover

What Augustine is referring to is not the 'private good' as expressed by Aristotle. Augustine is separating the 'what is good for oneself' as oneself from the matters of self-interest involved with participation in human affairs. In regard to the happiness of an individual, Augustine says:

[God] himself is the source of our bliss and he himself is the goal of all our striving. By our election of him as our goal … we direct our course towards him with love, so that in reaching him we may fnd our rest and attain our happiness because we have achieved our fulfillment in him. For our Good, that Final Good about which the philosophers dispute, is nothing else but to cleave to him whose spiritual embrace, if one may so express, it fills the intellectual soul and makes it fertile with true virtues — City of God, 10.3, translated by Betterson

It is argued in many places by Plato, that we knowingly do what is wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Point out a few of those places, please. Your observation does not square with the often-repeated perception of ignorance as a condition of the soul. The following was said amongst friends rather than argued against Sophists:

“Anyway, think about it this way,” I said: “aren’t hunger and thirst and [585B] things like that certain kinds of emptiness in the condition that involves the body?” “What else?” “And isn’t ignorance or lack of understanding an emptiness in the condition that involves the soul?” — Plato. Republic, 585b, translated by Joe Sachs

I'm sorry if this disappoints you, but I find your conception of "will" to be completely incoherent. — Metaphysician Undercover

If find the incoherence with which you think to be dissapointing, mister ad hominem non-argument. Keep your insults to yourself, and just present something that actually opposes the position I have provided you.

Self-perpetuating, and determined by genetics, contradict each other. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not if the genetics of the brain are its own, dude. You aren't thinking clearly. The brain has an organic biological nature, derived from the process of evolution, encapsulated in the genetic code used to build the brain in utero, and then develop in accordance with that genetic code postpartum. It is a self-sustaining organ that is responsible for the maintenance of all other functions of the body. This is a fact whether or not you understand it.

And your propensity for classing together a wide variety of different affections as having the very same cause (will) is equally unacceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Will is not the cause, I explained the brain is the cause. Will is the expression of all neural activity. Read what I am saying, and stop telling me I'm saying something else.

This is nothing more than a modern version of the ancient argument for a sixth sense. Basically, the argument was that the imagination can be creative, therefore we need some sort of extra "sense" distinct from the five senses, to account for the creation of images not caused by sense organ, but created. This would be the sixth sense, the faculty which creates fictitious images. — Metaphysician Undercover

Every word of this is a strawman. I'm not talking about any fucking sixth sense. I said the brain produces all activity of thought and action. What part of your ass are you pulling this analysis from?

You make "the will" something very similar to the sixth sense. Notice that the fictitious image created by the imagination can be an image from any of the five senses, sound, sight taste, etc., and there is posited a single faculty (sixth sense) which can create an image from any sense. That's what you do with "the will", you take all the different bodily activities, which are creative in nature, and you class them together under "the will". — Metaphysician Undercover

No, they are the expression of every function and process of the brain that gives rise to thought and action. There is no sixth sense and you have created a strawman and argued with it. The will is the entirety of that expression.

The person with hearing responds and the person without does not. You say that the brain controlled that activity which I called the response, but obviously you are overlooking the role of the ears. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you serious? One person's ear doesn't work for the brain to process data received by it. That has nothing to do with the brain providing any expression of that data, or not. This scenario further validates what I'm saying. One person's brain is receiving data, the other's isn't, the one who receives sound data moves when it is received, and the other doesn't. Thanks for making my point.

And if you deny the role that ears play in controlling that activity, you also must deny the role that the external thing, the noise itself, plays. Therefore you have isolated the prefrontal cortex as the "control center", as if it exercises control over the entire living body, as an unaffected cause of activity, "the will", when this is a totally improper representation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Another attempt at refuting a strawman. The ears, much like the eyes are data receivers, they play no role on their own to produce action. Only that data being delivered to the brain will do so. All you've doen is prove my point.

Human beings which are connected to a central hub of control is not an acceptable representation of anything real. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually it is an accurate representation of the human and all of its functions in relation to the brain that all those functions are connected to, and controlled by. That's why YOUR examples were stupid, THEY didn't accurately represent anything that was being discussed. I took your example and made one that worked out of it in relation to what we were actually discussing, so that you could understand. Instead, you've misunderstood and decided to critique the example YOU gave, that I modified for your clarity.

This is exactly the problem you have created with your description of "the brain", describing it as a one way control mechanism. You do not include the control which the individual parts have over the brain. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I did. I have mention executive function over and over again. This is the only domain of control that you have in regards to the brain. No matter how much you want to fight with neuroscience and believe anything that comes to your brain, nothing is going to change the fact that the brain is the direct control center of all functions of the body, including your thought and expression.

No, it quite literally doesn't. But, it doesn't matter because you're simply just going to dismiss the entire corpus of scientific work on the subject because your brain won't allow you to do anything else.

You got it the wrong way round. I don't allow my thoughts to think about all that science. I know how the brain functions. It's not that difficult. I have over 30 years experience with it! It's a neural network that's there for me, like the physical world. The neo-cortex is a nice extra feature!

You got it the wrong way round. I don't allow my thoughts to think about all that science. I know how the brain functions. It's not that difficult. I have over 30 years experience with it! It's a neural network that's there for me, like the physical world. The neo-cortex is a nice extra feature! — Dijkgraf

That's a really funny way of saying "I have no clue what I'm talking about on this particular subject, I just go with how I feel about the stuff." Which is simply doing nothing other than demonstrating my point. But, have at it, dude. I've literally waited as long as I can possibly hold out on this thread for anything even remotely approaching an argument for why any of you believe what you do about consciousness. Science doesn't shape y'all's view, logic doesn't, arguments against your position don't, facts of basic reality don't, it's quite unbelievable, really. But, again, I'm not trying to be mean to you, I just don't think this is the right topic for you or the rest of the guys on here. Everyone simply seems to be operating with a very rudimentary understanding of the nature of cognition. But, just as a gesture to you, I'll leave with this journal that was publsihed last year that can put some of this stuff into perspective. You can actually just skim through it for the most part. It's a meta-analysis on the history of the views of consciousness from the perspective of neuroscience, and a conclusion from those and the author's own research that kind of sums everything up in an interesting way. Feel free to have a look if like:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351365249_WHAT_PRODUCES_CONSCIOUSNESS?_iepl%5BgeneralViewId%5D=lhn7ZjibDGnkfzBkMEcxCBfaDEZU94efInAd&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=searchReact&_iepl%5BviewId%5D=6hj7dd19J1eHUhdAIOwfuUSjvB5fcDpSFdzK&_iepl%5BsearchType%5D=publication&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BcountLessEqual20%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BinteractedWithPosition3%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BwithoutEnrichment%5D=1&_iepl%5Bposition%5D=3&_iepl%5BrgKey%5D=PB%3A351365249&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A351365249&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle

p.s. you may need access to it from researchgate, but it should be public. If you can't access it and want to check it out, let me know I can send a pdf.

I have fairly good knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the brain. But that's contingent on the real state of affairs. I know the basic neo-cortex structures and have done a fair amount of personal experiments, even drug-induced, and read a lot about it. But personal experience shows me how the network actually functions. Just observe.

I have fairly good knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the brain. But that's contingent on the real state of affairs. I know the basic neo-cortex structures and have done a fair amount of personal experiments, even drug-induced, and read a lot about it. But personal experience shows me how the network actually functions. Just observe. — Dijkgraf

Yeah, I guess if that's really what you think. It's not like the human brain is the single most advanced system in the known universe that neuroscientists all over the world are trying desperately to understand. But, sure okay. Observation, and raw inductive observation at that, will do it I suppose.

I think traffic lights do interfere with personal freedom. Red light means you cannot go ahead. My goal is to go ahead. I am being stopped in achieving my goal, by a control; the control is curtailing my freedom.

I am not saying that your surrounding argument is invalid, but this example does serve the exact opposite of the service you used it for. — god must be atheist

Yes and that you are forced to draw that conclusion shows how implausible your definition of freedom is. It follows that a society in which we have well regulated traffic is a less free society than a society in which everyone just does something, meaning no one arrives at their destination. Every political and social philosopher I have read on the subject considers freedom as freedom from something, but also as freedom to reach the goals you have set for yourself. The traffic light example by the way is Charles Taylor's. Those goals are much easier to reach in a society with well planned roads than in societies one just has to fin out everything by oneself.

However, that definition leads to absurd consequences because it means traffic lights would make you less free. — Tobias

Sorry it wasn't clear, but I meant personal control, not external control.

That is a question tackled by some compatibilist philosophers I think. Possibly also by some in this thread. If you define freedom as freedom from natural impediments and control by other people, (or just control by other people) than by definition the will is free. — Tobias

I consider freedom from external control to be freedom, as experienced, of course. Beyond that, the metaphysical question as to whether we are completely determined by brain activity over which we have no control is undecidable, in my view. How could it be tested?

And here we get to the heart of Arendt's article, and to the title of this thread.

Stopping at red traffic lights allows one to get to one's destination safely and quickly.

We have worked with a notion of freedom that pits one person against the others by imagining a battle between freedom and sovereignty. Arendt contrasts this with a notion of freedom as satisfying one's goals, achieving what one is capable of, by being part of a social space that not just enables but builds cooperation and capacity.

It would not be difficult to link this to Nussbaum's capabilities approach.


Hence, "If men wish to be free, it is precisely sovereignty they must renounce.”

I consider freedom from external control to be freedom, as experienced, of course. — Janus

But until now you may not have been aware that there were alternatives.

Arendt contrasts this with a notion of freedom as satisfying one's goals, achieving what one is capable of, — Banno

Not just satisfying goals but inventing new goals, and not just achieving what one is capable of but going beyond what one thought one was capable of.



“… action occurs in two different stages; its first stage is a beginning by which something new comes into the world.The Greek word apxav which covers beginning, leading, ruling, that is, the outstanding qualities of the free man, bears witness to an experience in which being free and the capacity to begin something new coincided.”

What Augustine is referring to is not the 'private good' as expressed by Aristotle. Augustine is separating the 'what is good for oneself' as oneself from the matters of self-interest involved with participation in human affairs. — Paine

This is the same distinction Aristotle makes then. What one sees as good for oneself is called the apparent good. The common good, or good from the perspective of participation in human affairs is called the real good. To separate the two forms of "good" is a mistake. The goal of Christian moral philosophy, following Aquinas, is to unite the two, such that 'what is good for oneself' is apprehended as the very same thing as 'what is good in one's participation in human affairs', the real good. The person in which these two are united as one and the same, is the moral person.

Point out a few of those places, please. — Paine

I haven't the will to engage in this pointless exercise. Plato definitely points to this issue in his attacks on the sophists. And Augustine spends a considerable amount of time pondering this point, how it is possible that a human being can go ahead and do what they know is wrong. I don't understand your skepticism concerning this. Do you not believe that it is true that people can behave in this way? Have you not ever yourself, done something you know to be wrong, cheated, lied, stolen, or something like that? Or do you claim to be an angel?

Sure, ignorance or lack of understanding is a condition of the soul, but this is not the issue I am talking about. What I am talking about is a human soul who is informed, and understands, yet proceeds to act in a way which they know to be wrong. Acting wrongly out of ignorance, and intentionally acting wrongly (robbing the bank for example), are two very different things. We are not discussing the former, ignorance, we are talking about the latter, intentional bad acting. The fact that people intentionally act wrongly constitutes the substance of Plato's attack on the sophists who claim to be teaching virtue, supporting that claim with the further claim that virtue is a sort of knowledge.