Isaac Chan’s Reviews > An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding > Status Update

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It is obvious to me that God loves us and knows us so well as his people, that he granted us free will, but at the same time he already knows what choices we will freely make, like how a father knows his children will choose candy over plain bread.

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circumstances. That does not mean they were determined to make said choices! I also KNOW (in the common, natural language sense of the word) that my boss would be furious if I slapped him across the face, and I KNOW that I will get fired if I slapped GMD across the face, but that doesn't mean they are determined to happen.

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influenced Hume which influenced Smith.

And in response to ii), Hume says that it is a 'mystery', to evade accusations of heresy.

As a theist, I never really bought into the view that God having perfect foreknowledge means that all events must necessarily be determined. It is obvious to me, that if I know a person extremely well, let's say Joyce, I would know what they would choose to do in certain ...

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action is right or wrong, because pure reason seemingly only tells us that there is no moral responsibility due to the deterministic argument), we must adopt a sentimentalist moral philosophy, which Hume, of course, does, and which I am looking forward to reading in the 'Enquiry concerning the principle of morals'. To my knowledge, Hutcheson pioneered this sort of sentimentalist moral philosophy, which ...

Note 3/n:
response to i) - this may be the conclusion from abstract philosophical reasoning, but our 'sublime reflections' crumble under the heated emotions of blame or a moral crisis. I can certainly attest to this - many times have all my profound reflections vanished when I am in a crisis or in great pain. Since, in practice, all moral reasoning are grounded in the passions (our emotions tell us whether an ...

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I finally see now how Hume is a compatibilist - well first of all, he accepts/ borrows Aquinas's prime mover argument. It is clear that everything has a cause, and every cause has a cause ..... going down this infinite regress of causes we can deduce that there was a prime mover.

But how can there be moral responsibility if everything was predetermined?

Hume says that this determinism is not only ...

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it feels like we can reach any radical philosophical conclusion of our fancy as long as we can think of sufficiently neat definitions.

Note 4/n:
definitions. Wtf is the good in this form of linguistic wordplay?

It's like how he first defines an idea to be a copy of an impression, and then proceeds at breakneck speed to search for the corresponding impression of every single idea and discard ideas whose impressions cannot be readily identified as meaningless .....

Note 3/n:
free will - do I even know how crushing it is to REALLY understand the implications of determinism? The only outcome can be a futile devastation like Sergeant Slick. I must be like Rex and Cody - ignorant of the truth (whatever it may be), but focused on worldly missions to achieve worldly success.

Also, much of Hume's arguments regarding liberty and necessity are obviously just playing around with ...

Note 2/n:
discussions, I reflected on how the problem of free will has really never been a foremost philosophical interest of mine. It is also fitting that I watched Ep16 - Season 1 of 'The clone wars' yesterday, with the profound opening crawl 'Truth enlightens the mind, but won't always bring happiness to your heart'. I feel like there is really nothing much to gain with too much penetration into the problem of ...