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16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will

[what makes free will in humans possible]

20 ideas
Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms [Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.]
Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause [Carneades, by Cicero]
The actions of the mind are not determinate and passive, because atoms can swerve [Lucretius]
Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion [Epictetus]
Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius]
The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
People are only free if they are guided entirely by reason [Spinoza]
The first motion or effect cannot be produced necessarily, so the First Cause must be a free agent [Reid]
We shall never be able to comprehend how freedom is possible [Kant]
The manifest will in the world of phenomena has to conform to the laws of nature [Kant]
I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions [Fichte]
Freedom is produced by the activity of the mind, and is not intrinsically given [Hegel]
Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom [Schelling]
If we say that freedom depends on rationality, the irrational actions are not free [Sidgwick]
Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law [Jaspers]
The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity [Frede,M]
For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis) [Frede,M]
The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos [Frede,M]
Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett]
Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett]