Progressing Through Our Ability to ThinkToday, in the age of mass communications, social media and wearable technological devices, are we the sole creators of our own thoughts and actions, or are we produced by society and others? According to John Hospers, there are always factors that push us to act in a certain way, whether internal or external, even if we always think that it is the result of our own will. William James, on the other hand, a staunch anti-determinist, suggests that human beings are not determined by prior causes that eliminate their possible actions, but rather can, in certain situations, make free choices. In this article, I will compare the relevance of Hospers and James' arguments to the notion between determinism and free will and to the ability of humans to think independently. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe argument about free will is very complex and diverse. There are many sides to the debate, but it all comes down to just three major moves. The first side of the argument comes from Hospers and his idea that actions and choices arise primarily from the early parental environment and have little or no connection to what an individual chooses to do. The opposite side of the argument comes from James, where he argues that knowledge and free will are an agency of humans and that they have the ability to control consequences and their choices. The third and most relevant argument, or what we call the golden mean, is that we are determined and yet free will is always possible. According to Compatibilism by Craig Ross, by saying that we are both free but also determined, we leave a lot of room for improvement. He assures us that we must choose between these two opposing opinions. Based on his observation, there is either freedom or determinism. Examining Hospers and his observations of hundreds of psychiatric case documentations, he asserts that the subconscious environment that comes from past, predetermined experience forces actions to shape and shapes character forever. One of his most influential works, not his subject, is What Means This Freedom, where Hospers clearly offers examples that prove his points about determinism. An example he uses states that “. . . The mother reproaches her daughter for choosing the wrong men as husband candidates; but although the girl thinks she chooses freely and spends considerable time "deciding" between them, the identification with her sick father, resulting from the Oedipal fantasies of early childhood, prevents her from caring for anyone other than men. sick, twenty or thirty. years older than her. Blaming her isn't the point; she can’t help it, and she can’t change it” (Hospers). This example proves that choices are determined in every possible way by past experiences and the environment in which a person grew up. For example, if the sick father factor did not come into play, then the decision for the daughter might have been different, and her subsequent actions might have taken a completely different approach. Hospers also asserts that “countless criminal acts are thought through in great detail; Yet as participants (unwittingly) enact early childhood fantasies, fears, and defenses, they have no conscious control over their comings and goings” (Hospers). Then, the debate on society and its role plays a major rolein this discussion, but the main point that determinists are trying to prove is that every action, voluntary or involuntary, is predetermined and based on our past. This is called “behind the scenes” action. When the notion of determinism came to the forefront of ideologies of existence, there was a backlash called libertarianism. The most understood definition of libertarianism would be the use of liberty as a fundamental principle of life. What would follow as the second branch of this broad ideology would be indeterminism, and as the title indicates, it is an ideology against the notion of determinism. One of the greatest proponents of indeterminism was William James, a 20th-century American philosopher. Its simplified ideology asserts that humans' willingness to choose is an active part of their lives, not a life full of wild chance. “I think yesterday was a crisis in my life. I've finished the first part of Renouvier's Second Essays and don't see why his definition of free will – "the maintaining of a thought because I choose to do so when I could have other thoughts" – should be the definition of an illusion. In any case, I assume for the moment – ​​until next year – that this is not an illusion. My first act of free will will be to believe in free will. (Perry, p. 323). Rather, it is the idea that humans can choose. He wants to convey the idea that the things around us or for example our lives and our actions are not predefined and mechanical as identified by Hospers and David Hume. According to James, all parties have free and confident play with each other, so one does not determine what the other will be. “Indeterminism therefore denies that the world is an uninterrupted and inflexible unity of fact” (Conference). When it comes to explaining this theory, the answers come down to a very specific number of selective responses. An example used by James to illustrate his point is that of a man walking home from work: before the fact, neither the determinist nor the indeterminist can predict the path he will take to get home. In hindsight, even though the determinist will assert the necessity of the chosen path, the indeterminist will claim that the path was freely chosen. James says that so far there is no advantage to either side of the argument. The reason is that, he argues about the nature of action, there is a certain freedom available to an individual that neither party can predict as to how it will unfold. He chose the indeterminism camp because he believed that determinism, although logically defensible, is pragmatically unacceptable. The overall message that James wants to convey is that of freedom and the ability to think and make choices is the result of each person's free will. What would an indeterminist think of determinism today? An indeterminist will argue that with determinism we cannot decide freely or even solemnly, nor think without any other restrictions. Everything he says is predestined to happen, and everything is dictated to us. His view asserts that we are free and that although external pressures and changes may want to affect us, we are the only indicators of choice. So the question now is what would a determinist say? The first statement he will make is that every choice we make is an illusion of choice and that we have no free will. The first supporting medium he would use would be biological reasoning. Since we are created by our genes, our biology and our environment, everything is far beyond our control. When someone tries to change certain situations, their decisionswill be based on its already inherent characteristics. If our choices and decisions are based on our reason, then since reason is the product of our character and our character is part of our environment, then it is predetermined. An example of this would be when someone gets to the point of “choosing” “putting together” the pieces that will ultimately make up their identity. Take religion for example: factors like family and society will be the determined factors. The counterargument would have been that the decision to follow or reject the norms was free and not determined since the decision to choose a religion could have been either rejected or observed. The explanation is that yes, the choice of religion could have not been observed, but there is no demonstration about this, each decision has its own course and we cannot base the facts on alternatives, because the alternatives are illusions. This specific deterministic conclusion attempts to prove that since we cannot tell what would otherwise have happened from an action, then we cannot distinguish between hard and soft determinism, and the ability to freely choose . By examining both sides of the argument, we can see the contradiction they possess about each other. When the argument bases its support on the influence of environment and education and every decision is motivated by certain facts, the counterargument asserts that this persuasion is determined by us in which direction we would be persuaded. This is what most will call a "self-talking agent" who is free to choose and determine his own decisions and how they will persuade him. But now the question is, what is freedom? or choice? The definitions are clear for indeterminists and unclear for determinists. For example, how can someone determine that they are free, but they cannot explain in detail what freedom is? And why would anyone continue to seek further explanations, when freedom is the ability to freely make our own choices. Now that we have looked at the different configurations of indeterminism and determinism, it would be wise and entirely practical to use an actual explanation of a current life event. Let’s take our education in this world as an example. From a very young age, we are influenced by independent external factors. These include our standards, the language we are introduced to, media and technology. These factors, combined with the biological agents we also receive, such as our DNA, our genes, our environment and our biology, constitute who we are and the characteristics we must acquire and use. For example, we are biologically determined about our appearance, without our decision or thought. We receive character traits and sometimes talents, brain configurations from our parents, and later, even our own character and our own perspective on life come from them. Sometimes we even receive diseases and harmful traits that also affect our existence. As we go through this completely unquestionable information backed by all science and our environment, we see that there is a predetermined factor that affects our lives. The question is to what extent and in what way these predetermined factors influence our lives. affect our free will to make decisions and how they shape our human consciousness. The other side of things is all the external factors that we are used to learning from the first day in this world. From a very young age, we.