"Free Will and its origins in Aristotle"

http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/110/3-hellenistic.htm

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DEMOCRITUS was a determinist.

On the other hand, there was Aristotle.

On the other hand, there was Epicurus.

"Epicurus's philosophy of nature is an adaptation of the Presocratic Atomistic theories of Leucippus and Democritus."

"According to the classic Atomistic theory, the only things that exist are atoms in a vacuum of empty space."

"Atoms are continually moving, or at least vibrating, and have different sizes and shapes."

"Epicurus describes the basic features of the atoms here."

"The atoms are in a continual state of motion."

"Among the atoms, some are separated by great distances, others come very near to one another in the formation of combined bodies, or at times are enveloped by others which are combining."

"But in this latter case they, nevertheless, preserve their own peculiar motion, thanks to the nature of the vacuum, which separates the one from the other, and yet offers them no resistance."

"The solidity which they possess causes them, while knocking against one another, to react the one upon the other. Eventually the repeated shocks bring on the dissolution of the combined body; and for all this there is no external cause, the atoms and the vacuum being the only causes. [Epicurus, Herodotus]

"An important adaptation that Epicurus made to Atomism is that atoms have weight and thus fall downward."

"However, Epicurus recognized that if they all fell perfectly parallel to each other at the same speed, they would never collide to make larger composite bodies."

"Thus, atoms need to deviate at least a little when they fall, which allows them to make contact with other atoms."

"Expounding on Epicurus’ theory, Lucretius calls this deviation the slight swerve, and describes its operation here."

"When bodies are borne downwards sheer through void by their own weights, at quite uncertain times and uncertain spots they push themselves a little from their course: you just and only just can call it a change of inclination."

"If they were not used to swerve, they would all fall down, like drops of rain, through the deep void, and no clashing would have been begotten nor blow produced among the first-beginnings."

"Thus nature never would have produced anything. [Lucretius, On Nature, 2]

"It’s not clear exactly how the swerve takes place, but Epicurus seems to have held that it occurs without any cause."

"This claim drew attack from other early philosophers, such as the following by the Roman eclectic philosopher Cicero, who felt that there is no place in science for an uncaused event."

"The swerving is itself an arbitrary fiction."

"For Epicurus says the atoms swerve without cause."

"Yet this is the capital offense in a natural philosopher, to speak of something taking place uncaused."

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"Then also he gratuitously deprives the atoms of what he himself declared to be the natural motion of all heavy bodies, namely, movement in a straight line downwards."

"This riotous hurly-burly of atoms could not possibly result in the ordered beauty of the world we know."

----- Cicero, About the Ends of Goods and Evils, 1.6]

"Philosophers as well as scientists would have every reason to be suspicious about Epicurus’s claim regarding an uncaused natural event."

"However, the general idea gains more sympathy today in view of the contemporary theory of indeterminacy in quantum physics (electrons do not have simultaneous determinate positions and momentums)."

"And, just as Greek Atomists are considered intellectual forerunners to modern atomic theory, Epicurus’ view of the slight swerve eerily anticipates contemporary indeterminacy."

----- Ask B. Doyle -- who _knows_.

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"While Epicurus initially introduces the theory of the slight swerve to explain how falling atoms collide and form clusters, he uses the theory to another important end, namely, to explain free will."

-- and that is, to some, his own swerve.

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"Pre-socratic Atomism (of Leucippus and Democritus) implies determinism."

"All events are determined according to the physical laws which govern atoms."

"Since humans are composed entirely of physical atoms, then all of our actions are determined according to such laws."

"Many ancient philosophers, such as the early Atomists, were content with the notion of determinism."

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"Epicurus, though, believed that free will is a fact of human experience."

"The actions that we perform throughout the day display free choice."

"The 'problem,' then, is how to rectify physical determinism with free will."

"His solution is that free will is the result of the slight swerve."

"What causes this free will for LIVING THINGS all over the earth?"

"From what source, I ask, is it extracted from fate-this WILL by which we MOVE forward, where pleasure leads each one of us, and swerve likewise in our motions neither at determined times nor in a determined direction of place, but just where our mind has carried us?"

"For without doubt it is one’s own WILL which gives to each one a start for this MOVEMENT, and from the WILL the motions pass flooding through the limbs. . . . But the very mind feels no such necessity within its doing all things, and is NOT CONSTRAINED like a conquered thing to bear and suffer."

"This is brought about by the tiny swerve of the first-beginnings in no determined direction of place and at no determined time"

--- [Lucretius, On Nature, 2]

"According to Epicurus, then, atoms have the power of occasional uncaused movement, and thus the atoms that compose our human minds have this power as well."

"A single uncaused movement within an atom in my mind will trigger a sequence of events that breaks from the otherwise determined mental machinery."

---- Or something.