Introduction to Philosophy

Scientific psycholgy reveals there is no such thing as 'free-will'

Alexandre Herzen, 1874:

"The word 'freedom', when applied to individual activity, means precisely the absence of external or internal, physical or moral obstacles that might prevent the individual from acting in full conformity with the tendencies inherent to his physical or moral constitution, that is, in conformity with the result of the conditions within which he has developed. In other words, the individual's freedom consists of the faculty of being able to react in one's own way and without constraint, according to the volitions of desires awakened in him by circumstances."

Herzen, Physiologie de la volonté , Paris, 1874, p.129

Quotations from Herzen taken from Jean Starobinski, Action and Reaction, English edition, New York, 2003, Zone Books 1st published in French, 1999. p.146 - 7.

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