Tradition
Predeterminism
Overview
Predeterminism is the philosophy that all events of history, past, present and future, have already been decided or are already known (by God, fate, or some other force), including human actions.
Predeterminism is closely related to determinism. The concept of predeterminism is often argued by invoking causal determinism, implying that there is an unbroken chain of prior occurrences stretching back to infinity. In the case of predeterminism, this chain of events has been pre-established, and human actions cannot interfere with the outcomes of this pre-established chain. Predeterminism can be used to mean such pre-established causal determinism, in which case it is categorised as a specific type of determinism. It can also be used interchangeably with causal determinism—in the context of its capacity to determine future events. Despite this, predeterminism is often considered as independent of causal determinism. The term predeterminism is also frequently used in the context of biology and heredity, in which case it represents a form of biological determinism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Between the phenomena, then, which exist at any instant, and the phenomena which exist at the succeeding instant, there is an invariable order of succession; and, as we said in speaking of the general uniformity of the course of nature, this web is composed of separate fibres; this collective order is made up of particular sequences, obtaining invariably among the separate parts. To certain facts, certain facts…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Predeterminism is; the author is tied to Predeterminism in the knowledge graph.
But the notion of force is not all of the principle of causality. This consists in a judgment stating that every force develops in a definite manner, and that the state in which it is at each particular moment of its existence predetermines the next state. The former is called cause, the latter, effect, and the causal judgment affirms the existence of a necessary connection between these two moments for every force…
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
States what Predeterminism is.
46. There is therefore a freedom of contingency or, in a way, of indifference, provided that by 'indifference' is understood that nothing necessitates us to one course or the other; but there is never any _indifference of equipoise_, that is, where all is completely even on [149] both sides, without any inclination towards either. Innumerable great and small movements, internal and external, co-operate with us, for…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
States what Predeterminism is.
Philosophers who discussed Predeterminism
Related ideas
- Epicurus
- Philosophy
- Philippa Foot
- John Stuart Mill
- Metaphysics
- Henry Sidgwick
- Omnipotence
- Omniscience
- Physicalism
- Predestination
- Quantum mechanics
- Christian theology
- Self-determination
- Thomas Hobbes
- Theology
- Secularity
- Fatalism
- Compatibilism
- Bertrand Russell
- Naturalism (philosophy)
- F. H. Bradley
- Free will
- Determinism
- Biological determinism
Place in the tradition
Part of Determinism.