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In most of what follows, I will speak simply of determinism , rather thanof causal determinism . This follows recent philosophical practice of sharplydistinguishing views and theories of what causation is from any conclusionsabout the success or failure of determinism (cf. Earman, 1986; an exception is

Mellor 1994). For the most part this disengagement of the two concepts isappropriate. But as we will see later, the notion of cause/effect is not so easilydisengaged from much of what matters to us about determinism.

Traditionally determinism has been given various, usually imprecisedefinitions. This is only problematic if one is investigating determinism in aspecific, well-defined theoretical context; but it is important to avoid certainmajor errors of definition. In order to get started we can begin with a loose and(nearly) all-encompassing definition as follows:

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of ) determinismif and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t , the way thingsgothereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law .

The italicized phrases are elements that require further explanation andinvestigation, in order for us to gain a clear understanding of the concept of determinism.

The roots of the notion of determinism surely lie in a very common philosophical idea: the idea that everything can, in principle, be explained , or that everything that is, has a sufficient reason for being and being as it is, and not otherwise . In other words, the roots of determinism lie in what Leibniznamed the Principle of Sufficient Reason. But since precise physical theories

began to be formulated with apparently deterministic character, the notion has become separable from these roots. Philosophers of science are frequentlyinterested in the determinism or indeterminism of various theories, withoutnecessarily starting from a view about Leibniz' Principle.

Since the first clear articulations of the concept, there has been a tendencyamong philosophers to believe in the truth of some sort of determinist doctrine.There has also been a tendency, however, to confuse determinism proper withtwo related notions: predictability and fate.

Fatalism is easily disentangled from determinism, to the extent that one candisentangle mystical forces and gods' wills and foreknowledge(about specific matters) from the notion of natural/causal law. Not every

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metaphysical picture makes this disentanglement possible, of course. As ageneral matter, we can imagine that certain things are fated to happen, withoutthis being the result of deterministic natural laws alone; and we can imagine theworld being governed by deterministic laws, without anything at all

being fated to occur (perhaps because there are no gods, nor mystical forcesdeserving the titles fate or destiny , and in particular no intentionaldetermination of the initial conditions of the world). In a looser sense,however, it is true that under the assumption of determinism, one might saythat given the way things have gone in the past, all future events that will in facthappen are already destined to occur.

Prediction and determinism are also easy to disentangle, barring certain strongtheological commitments. As the following famous expression of determinism

by Laplace shows, however, the two are also easy to commingle:

We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of itsantecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligenceknowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as themomentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to comprehendin one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightestatoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful tosubject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as wellas the past would be present to its eyes. The perfection that the human mind has

been able to give to astronomy affords but a feeble outline of such anintelligence. (Laplace 1820)

In this century, Karl Popper defined determinism in terms of predictability also.

Laplace probably had God in mind as the powerful intelligence to whose gazethe whole future is open. If not, he should have: 19 th and 20 th centurymathematical studies have shown convincingly that neither a finite, nor aninfinite but embedded-in-the-world intelligence can have the computing power necessary to predict the actual future, in any world remotely like ours.Predictability is therefore a faon de parler that at best makes vivid what is atstake in determinism; in rigorous discussions it should be eschewed. The worldcould be highly predictable, in some senses, and yet not deterministic; and itcould be deterministic yet highly unpredictable, as many studies of chaos(sensitive dependence on initial conditions) show.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/

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Predictability does however make vivid what is at stake in determinism: our fears about our own status as free agents in the world. In Laplace's story, asufficiently bright demon who knew how things stood in the world 100 years

before my birth could predict every action, every emotion, every belief in the

course of my life. Were she then to watch me live through it, she might smilecondescendingly, as one who watches a marionette dance to the tugs of stringsthat it knows nothing about. We can't stand the thought that we are (in somesense) marionettes. Nor does it matter whether any demon (or even God) can,or cares to, actually predict what we will do: the existence of the stringsof physical necessity, linked to far-past states of the world and determining our current every move, is what alarms us. Whether such alarm is actuallywarranted is a question well outside the scope of this article (see the entrieson free will and incompatibilist theories of freedom ). But a clear understandingof what determinism is, and how we might be able to decide its truth or falsity,is surely a useful starting point for any attempt to grapple with this issue. Wereturn to the issue of freedom in Determinism and Human Action below.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#DetHumActhttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#DetHumActhttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#DetHumActhttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#DetHumActhttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/