The Problem of Determinism: a Sociological Solution

Volume 9, Issue 2, April 2025     |     PP. 120-143      |     PDF (432 K)    |     Pub. Date: April 14, 2025
DOI: 10.54647/sociology841387    16 Downloads     406 Views  

Author(s)

Peter Ernest Razzell, Retired Research Fellow from the University of Essex

Abstract
The conflict between the assumption of personal freedom and the determinism of modern science has continued to perplex both philosophers and the practitioners of modern social science. The current paper proposes a sociological solution to these problems, by arguing that the two perspectives should be seen as the outcomes of two distinct and separate social roles.

Keywords
Free Will, Determinism, Social Roles, Social Science, Personal Responsibility.

Cite this paper
Peter Ernest Razzell, The Problem of Determinism: a Sociological Solution , SCIREA Journal of Sociology. Volume 9, Issue 2, April 2025 | PP. 120-143. 10.54647/sociology841387

References

[ 1 ] Isiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, 1969, p. 113.
[ 2 ] J.O. Urmson and Jonathon Rie (eds.), The Concise Encyclopaedia of Western Philosophy, 1989, p. 113.
[ 3 ] J.R. Lucas, The Freedom of the Will, 1970, p. 1.
[ 4 ] Quoted in Ted Honderich, The Consequences of Determinism, 1990, p. 84.
[ 5 ] B.A.O. Williams, ‘Freedom and the Will’, in D.F. Pears (ed.), Freedom of the Will, 1963, pp. 5, 6.
[ 6 ] John Cottingham (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, 1992.
[ 7 ] David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature [Book 1], 1962, p. 258.
[ 8 ] Ibid., p. 329.
[ 9 ] Ibid., p. 349.
[ 10 ] Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1949, pp. 15, 16.
[ 11 ] See George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 1934.
[ 12 ] Anthony Flew (ed.), A Dictionary of Philosophy, 1979, p. 299.
[ 13 ] Hume, op.cit., p. 343.
[ 14 ] Ibid, p. 238.
[ 15 ] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1933, p. 478.
[ 16 ] Ibid, p. 343; Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1956, pp. 5, 6.
[ 17 ] Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, pp. 464, 467.
[ 18 ] Keith Ward, The Development of Kant’s View of Ethics, 1972, p. 72.
[ 19 ] Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1933, pp. 330. 331.
[ 20 ] Quoted in Euan Squires, The Mystery of the Quantum World, 1986, p. 122.
[ 21 ] See for example Ted Honderich, Mind and Brain, 1990, p. 105.
[ 22 ] Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond, 1971, p. 236.
[ 23 ] See Edgar Wilson, The Mental as Physical, 1979 and D.M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of Mind, 1968.
[ 24 ] Honderich, Mind and Brain, p. 105.
[ 25 ] Wilson, op.cit.
[ 26 ] Lucas, op.cit., p. 17.
[ 27 ] Emmanuael Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1783, Conclusion, [Translated by Lewis White Beck]
[ 28 ] James Morrill, Sketch of a Residence Among the Aboriginals of Northern Australia, 1864, pp. 19, 20.
[ 29 ] B. Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion, 1948.
[ 30 ] E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, 1937, p. 74.
[ 31 ] Marcel Mauss, ‘A Category of the Human Mind: the Notion of the Person, the Notion of the Self”, in Michael Carrithers et.al. (eds.), The Category of the Person, 1985, p. 3.
[ 32 ] Steven Lukes ‘Conclusion’, in Carrithers, op.cit., p. 297.
[ 33 ] William E. Moore, ‘Functionalism’, in Tom Bottomore and Robert Nisbet (eds.), A History of Sociological Analysis, 1978, p. 342.
[ 34 ] Karl Popper and John Eccles, The Self and Its Brain, 1977, pp. 108, 114.
[ 35 ] Walter Brugger and Kenneth Baker, Philosophical Dictionary, 1976, p. 381.
[ 36 ] Paul Radin, The World of Primitive Man, 1953, p. 114.
[ 37 ] Ibid, p. 290.
[ 38 ] Colin Turnball, The Forest People, 1961.
[ 39 ] Radin, op.cit., pp. 249, 257.
[ 40 ] Ibid, p. 330.
[ 41 ] Ibid, p. 80.
[ 42 ] P.F. Strawson, ‘Freedom and Resentment’ in Gary Watson (ed.), Free Will, 1982, p. 66.
[ 43 ] Honderich, op.cit.
[ 44 ] Ibid, p.3.
[ 45 ] Strawson, op.cit., p. 75.
[ 46 ] B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971.
[ 47 ] Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness, 1962.
[ 48 ] Galen Strawson, Freedom and Belief, 1986, p. 234.