Determinism Quotes - Page 3

• I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. ... Statistics ... apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. ... There will always be some indeterminism ... in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man's intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method.

  Claude Bernard

  Believe, Science, Men

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• The semimetaphysical problems of the individual and society, of egoism and altruism, of freedom and determinism, either disappear or remain in the form of different phases in the organization of a consciousness that is fundamentally social.

  Margaret Mead

  Organization, Different, Phases

  "Social Cognitive Psychology: History and Current Domains" by David F. Barone, James E. Maddux, Charles R. Snyder, (p. 20), 1997.

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• Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.

  William James

  Freedom, Real, Names

  William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.23, Harvard University Press

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• How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

  Laozi

  Peace, War, Men

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• The Marxist combination of materialism and determinism is fatally anti-humanistic. It denies a consciousness, a mind, that is independent of material conditions and class relations. It denies a will and volition that are capable of shaping the course of history. It denies an individuality that is not reducible to class. It denies both the idea and the reality of freedom, a freedom that is something more than the "bourgeois" freedom to buy and sell. It denies a morality that transcends class interests. And it denies the spirituality of man.

  Gertrude Himmelfarb

  Freedom, Independent, Reality

  Gertrude Himmelfarb (1995). “On Looking Into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society”, Vintage

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• Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing--suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning?

  J. L. Austin

  Giving, Done, May

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• And now having a child has been taken out of the sphere of biological determinism and placed instead in the domain of intentional action. Another option to consider and decide upon. And ... not to choose is to choose.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Children, Taken, Decide Upon

  Rebecca Goldstein (1993). “The Mind-Body Problem”, Penguin Group USA

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• ... the space left to freedom is very small.ends are inherent in human nature and the same for all.

  Hannah Arendt

  Freedom, Space, Human Nature

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• Now, there is something else interesting here, is this thing called self-determinism and pan-determinism. We have found that there is something stands as a barrier between the ability of a person to be self-determined and the condition he is in, and that is willingness to be controlled. As long as a person will resist control, then everything that comes along which threatens to control him can do so; and thus you have aberration. And until he has a total tolerance of control, he cannot be self-determined or pan-determined.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Self, Interesting, Long

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• For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes, environmental problems do constrain human societies, but the societies' responses also make a difference.

  Jared Diamond

  Differences, Environmental, Making A Difference

  Jared Diamond (2011). “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition”, p.308, Penguin

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• It is ironic that a movement that made its reputation championing the irrelevance of biological differences when those differences were to most women's disadvantage immediately returned to biological determinism when those differences were to the most women's advantage.

  Warren Farrell

  Irrelevance, Differences, Ironic

  "Father and Child Reunion". Book by Warren Farrell, 2001.

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• The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them. And one can debate long and profitably on the rule of Nobody, which is what the political form known as bureau-cracy truly is….we have become very much accustomed by modern psychology and sociology, not to speak of modern bureaucracy, to explaining away the responsibility of the doer for his deed in terms of this or that kind of determinism.

  Hannah Arendt

  Responsibility, Men, Essence

  "The Origins of Totalitarianism". Book by Hannah Arendt, progressive.org. 1951.

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• A guidance counselor who has made a fetish of security, or who has unwittingly surrendered his thinking to economic determinism, may steer a youth away from his dream of becoming a poet, an artist, a musician or any other of thousands of things, because it offers no security, it does not pay well, there are no vacancies, it has no "future".

  Henry Wriston

  Music, Education, Dream

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• Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions.

  Eric Chaisson

  Events, Essentials, Development

  Eric Chaisson, Lola Judith Chaisson (2007). “Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos”, p.212, Columbia University Press

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• Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue. A false front of exclusively economic determinism is so habitual to Americans in discussing public questions that one must speak in the language of compound interest to get a hearing.

  Aldo Leopold

  Land, Rivers, Issues

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.315, Library of America

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• Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.

  Peter Padfield

  Philosophy, Struggle, Past

  Peter Padfield (2000). “Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World”, Overlook Books

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• Whatever open-border libertarians think about immigration law, once the immigration scofflaw steals, trespasses, or vandalizes private property, said alien is guilty of crimes. To say, moreover, that the state's laws made masses of men and women commit such crimes is to voice the philosophy of determinism, not individualism.

  Ilana Mercer

  Philosophy, Men, Thinking

  "That Spot Of Bother On The Border". www.wnd.com. May 04, 2007.

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• The spirit of Christmas lives with us. We are the protectors of the real tradition of Christmas-peace on Earth and Goodwill to all. We are the hope of Man-the only hope. Mankind's salvation lies within our hands. With our tech and ability we can create here on Earth a real heaven where men can be free. In our hands lies the power to restore to Man his determinism and all that he finds good in himself-his honesty, his integrity, and the thrill of being of real help to others. A very Merry Christmas to you all and a bright friendly new year.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  New Year, Honesty, Real

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• The more we know about our universe, the more difficult it becomes to believe in determinism.

  Ilya Prigogine

  Believe, Difficult, Knows

  Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers (1997). “The End of Certainty”, p.155, Simon and Schuster

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• Choice is the keynote of self-determinism. To determine anything, you must have the choice to determine. Choice to determine means that you must have the power of decision. Decision and time have a lot in common. When we have clean, clear decision, we have clean, clear time. And when we have indecision, there is an unclarity about time.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Mean, Self, Choices

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• The wise man looks back into the past, and does not grieve over what is far off, nor rejoice over what is near; for he knows that time is without end.

  Laozi

  Wise, Past, Men

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• Our characteristic response to the mutilated statue, the bronze dug up from the earth, is revealing. It is not that we prefer time-worn bas-reliefs, or rusted statuettes as such, nor is it the vestiges of death that grip us in them, but those of life. Mutilation is the scar left by the struggle with Time, and a reminder of it - Time which is as much a part of ancient works of art as the material they are made of, and thrusts up through the fissures, from a dark underworld, where all is at once chaos and determinism.

  Andre Malraux

  Art, Struggle, Dark

  "The Voices of Silence". Book by Andre Malraux, Doubleday, Part IV, Chapter VII, 1953.

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• Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.

  Claude Bernard

  Would Be, Exception

  "Leçons de Pathologie Expérimentale". Book by Claude Bernard, 1872.

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• Abandoned by philosophy, politics, and sociology, historical determinism continues to hold out in formalist art criticism.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Philosophy, Historical

  "Art on the Edge: Creators and Situations". Book by Harold Rosenberg. Chapter: "Olitski, Kelly, Hamilton: Dogma and Talent", p. 62, 1975.

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• Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be ... We inhabit a world of human differences and predilections, but the extrapolation of these facts to theories of rigid limits is ideology.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Essence, Differences

  Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.36, W. W. Norton & Company

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