Free Will

            On Tuesday morning I edited my weekly paragraph assignment for Philosophy class and printed it. I took my laptop with me with the intention of getting some writing done but when I arrived in the lecture theatre, I noticed that Ryan, who sits behind me, was reading a book with a vaguely familiar cover. I asked what he was reading and he said it was “The Female Eunuch”. I’d never read it but I remembered it being a best seller and I recognized the cover. He said that he was reading it for his Social Criticism philosophy course, as well as some Freud, among others. It sounded interesting, so I wrote the name of the course down, but I’ll have to see if it fits in with any required courses for my minor.

            We discussed some of the other philosophy courses we’ve taken or plan to take. I told him about The Philosophy of Sex and he said that he plans on taking it. He said he took a Philosophy of Film course that was very interesting. He’s currently taking Continental Philosophy, which I took the winter before last.

            Professor Black arrived only a couple of minutes late. Her lecture continued with our look at The Consolations of Boethias.

            Providence is realized by the divine plan.

            Fate is realized by physical or secondary causes. Fate implies determinacy and Lady Philosophy presents a deterministic picture with a place for everything, including torture.

            Aristotelian Physics is concerned with chance. Random events allow for freedom. Chance is associated with the teleological account leading to ends, purposes and the final cause. This differs from Augustine for whom a chance event might have no cause.

            Lady Philosophy says that providence is the overall teleological structure of the universe and chance is the means.

            A farmer finds gold while ploughing his field (She lamented that it did not happen to her when she was working in her garden over the weekend). This is neither random nor uncaused. This is an intersection of causes and effects. There are two distinctly different goals but in aiming for a ploughed field the farmer achieves the end of the robber.

            Chance does not say that events are uncaused. Chance is unforeseen and unintended and so it cannot provide a means of inserting human freedom.

            By definition humans have free will. 

            Boethias and Lady Philosophy agree that acting voluntarily is one through reason. Freedom comes from being able to deliberate and make choices. Freedom of choice is the core of freedom. Freedom is in the preference. The more informed your choice is the freer it is. One that does the right thing in prison is freer than someone that does the wrong thing while unchained.

            Later Middle Ages philosophers will turn away from this.

            Providence is determinist

            Freedom is voluntary.

            The dilemma is that if god has foreknowledge then what it sees will occur.

            That future contingents are not knowable is not where Boethias and Lady Philosophy go.

            One way we don’t want to solve the problem is by the easy route of god intervening. Lady Philosophy claims it’s a physical necessity. Epistemic necessity comes from knowledge. What we observe in the present, like you sitting there, is necessary. Most would say that the knower’s role in determining kind of knowledge are objects – opinion – contingent or objects – knowledge – necessary.

            Aristotle’s Analytics. The knower determines the knowledge. Every knower has different knowledge of the same object.

            The hierarchy of cognitive connectivity:

            Understanding – exemplar or idea – humans only have a glimmer

            Reason – roundness

            Imagination – round shape – imagination sees roundness with out universalized particulars.

            Sensation – material – round bottle

            From lower in the hierarchy one cannot see the existence of what is above. To a cat a human is just another animal.

            Eternity leads to understanding. God’s eternity is like the now of all time and doesn’t spill into the temporal succession. Nothing is out of place. There are no future contingents. The future does not exist for us but it is part of god’s present. Seeing someone fall asleep does not cause them to fall asleep.

            We’re left with a deterministic picture.

            After the lecture I rode up to University College. The sun was bright and warm and so I sat and dozed on one of the benches in front of the college until about fifteen minutes before tutorial. I went inside to use the washroom and then I sat in the atrium for a few minutes. I saw Scott, my 20^th Century US Lit professor. He said hi and waved, then went into his office.

            My TA was wearing bright red lipstick, which took me by surprise she didn’t look like someone that would wear lipstick the first time I saw her. It also stood out because she has very pale skin and small lips and didn’t seem to be wearing any other makeup.

            If there is no free will then to reward or punish any action is meaningless.

            Boethius is a libertarian rather than a compatibilist. We have a choice of attitude. A dog tied behind a cart can either trot along or be dragged. Boethius wants to know if the dog has the freedom to walk away.

            God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of action. It just knows the outcome. God knows that x leads to x is the case and not x is necessarily the case. If it is true that x is the case that x, standing here is a fact but not necessarily.

            Time 1 – god knows that x at time 2 entails x at time 2 entails not not x at time 2.

            If god knows x at time 2 it has to be that x at time 2.

            If god knew yesterday that I would come to the tutorial today then I had to come.

            More closely, based on the Platonic, we can only have knowledge of necessary inevitable truths like 2+2=4. If you can have knowledge of it then it must be true.

            You can’t have knowledge of how tall someone is because that could change.

            If god knows that x, then necessarily x. 

            This is restricted scope with only knowledge of necessary truth.

            Move away from god knowing x entails x.

            God knowing x entails necessarily x.

            God’s present truth cancels out possibility.

            The necessary can’t be otherwise.  Boethias’s solution is if x at time 1, then necessarily x at time 1.

            One can’t change from being here to not being here. If one is here at a time it is necessary to be here now. Here now does not mean necessary to come. I can know the present because now is unchangeable. I can know how tall someone is now. To god all is present.

            When we imagine, we imagine things that we think of. Spacially extended things.

            Reason abstracts from the special. This boggles the imagination. We can reason about wisdom but we don’t see wisdom embodied.

            Why can’t a mind be separate from time.

            Lady Philosophy says that God can’t exist temporally

            Boethias rejects spectator model of god. God’s will resuscitates everything.

            We don’t need god to get rid of free will.

            I actually thought I was starting to understand this stuff from the readings and the lectures until she got into the x entails this or that bullshit. I didn’t speak during this tutorial though a few others did that seemed to get it all.

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought grapes, bread, half a ham, an eye of round roast and a lot of my usual other purchases.

            I took a late siesta and got up in the early evening. I seasoned the roast with salt, pepper and paprika and then rubbed it all over with olive oil. I grilled it on high for 35 minutes and then at medium for an hour. It turned out perfect.