The history of fundamental ideas: Determinism

The article considers the origins, formation and problematization of the idea of determinism, understood as a statement about the existence of cause-and-effect relations in the world that form the basis of the universal certainty of things, events and processes. The idea of determinism arises as a desire to explain everything that exists by pointing to the reason for existence. It is clarified that determination and causality do not coincide in volume, it is necessary to distinguish between conditionality (determination) and generation (causality). The appeal to the idea of determination is due to the fact that in modern science doubts are expressed about the universality of the principle of causality, in philosophy new ways of understanding the traditional propositions about whether everything in the world is deterministic are proposed. The basis of the idea of determinism are such basic concepts as “cause” and “effect”, “randomness” and “necessity”, “probability”, which have their own history. At the same time, the role of D. Hume in the problematization of the concept of causality, the attitude to his views in modern thought is noted. Attention is also paid to the classical doctrine of Aristotle's causes in the context of updating the position of the presence of a target cause as determining the origin and existence of the Universe. The main points of understanding the role of the determinism principle in non-classical and post-non-classical science are briefly outlined. The main point of consideration of the idea of determinism and the acceptance of determinism as an ontological principle is to clarify the ontological status of the laws of science and the laws of nature, these questions set the perspective of understanding the world as deterministic. It is concluded that the development of the idea of determinism is connected with the expansion of the sphere of reality accessible to man and with the problematization of traditional images and concepts used for the deterministic explanation of the world. New phenomena and events (nonlinearity, self-organization) are discovered and investigated, which leads to new questions about the nature of determinism, its principles and boundaries. The criticism of determinism in modern philosophy and science is quite justified, but there are still no grounds for rejecting determinism as a methodological principle of scientific research.

1. Aristotle (1976) Essays. In 4 vol. Moscow: Mysl’. Vol. 1. 550 p. (In Russ.).

2. Bom D. (1959) Causality and randomness in modern physics. Moscow: Publishing House of Foreign Literature. 248 p. (In Russ.).

3. Bunge M. (2010) Causality: the place of the principle of causality in modern science. Moscow: Editorial URSS. 512 p. (In Russ.).

4. Gasparyan D.E. (2014) Determinism and indeterminism in dualistic and non-dualistic ontologies: from Kant to Sartre. Idei i idealy = Ideas and Ideals. Vol. 1. No. 4. P. 62-71. (In Russ.).

5. Goran V.P. (1984) Necessity and chance in the philosophy of Democritus. Novosibirsk. 208 p. (In Russ.).

6. Guthrie W. (2017) The History of Greek Philosophy. In 6 vol. Vol. II. The Pre-Socratic tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. St. Petersburg: Vladimir Dal. 845 p. (In Russ.).

7. Dubrovskii D.I. (2008) Basic categorical plans of the problem of consciousness. Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No. 12. P. 59-75. (In Russ.).

8. Gilson E. (2004) Being and essence. Izbrannoe: Khristianskaya filosofiya = Favorites: Christian Philosophy. Moscow: ROSSPEN. P. 321-582. (In Russ.).

9. Lektorskii V.A., Pruzhinin B.I., Bodyakin V.I., Dubrovskii D.I., Kolin K.K., Melik-Gaikazyan I.V., Ursul A.D. (2010) Information approach in an interdisciplinary perspective (materials of the “round table”). Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No. 2. P. 84-112. (In Russ.).

10. Categories “law” and “chaos”. Kiev: Naukova dumka. 295 p. (In Russ.).

11. Lebedev S.A., Kudryavtsev I.K. (2005) Determinism and indeterminism in the development of natural science. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Ser. 7. Philosophy = Bulletin of Moscow University. Ser. 7. Philosophy]. No. 6. P. 1-20. (In Russ.).

12. Losev A. (1977) Ancient philosophy of history. Moscow: Nauka. 208 p. (In Russ.).

13. Makovel’skii A.O. (1946) Ancient Greek atomists. Baku: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR. 401 p. (In Russ.).

14. Mamchur E.A. (2004) Objectivity of science and relativ ism (To discussions in modern epistemology). Moscow: IFRAN. 242 p. (In Russ.).

15. Motroshilova N.V. (1991) The birth and development of philosophical ideas: Historical and philosophical essays and portraits. Moscow: Politizdat. 463 p. (In Russ.).

16. Nenashev M.I. (2012) The anthropic principle and the observer problem. Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No. 4. P. 64-74. (In Russ.).

17. Pankratov A.V. (2003) Teleology and the principle of irreversibility. Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No.8. P. 73-85. (In Russ.).

18. Plato. (1993) Collected works. In 4 vol. Vol. 2. Moscow: Mysl’. 528 p. (In Russ.).

19. Mamchur E.L., Sachkov Yu.V. (2002) Causality and tele-onomism in the modern natural science paradigm. Moscow: Nauka. 288 p. (In Russ.).

20. Sachkov Yu.V. (2003) Evolution of the doctrine of causality. Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No. 4. P. 101-118. (In Russ.).

21. Stolyarova O.E. (2008) A.N. Whitehead's relational on tology and its constructivist interpretation. Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No. 12. P. 84-103. (In Russ.).

22. Kharre R. (2012) Hume and physics. Epistemologiya i filosofiya nauki = Epistemology and philosophy of Science. Vol. XXXII. No. 2. P. 16-33. (In Russ.).

23. Yulina N. (2010) Emergentism: consciousness, reduction, causality. Voprosy filosofii = Problems of Philosophy. No. 12. P. 127-143. (In Russ.).

24. Carroll, J. (1994). Laws of Nature (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. i-xii, 200 p. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511619908.

25. Ney Alyssa. Metaphysics: an introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. 328 p.