---------------------------------

Tom asked:

Is there an existentialist reply to determinism? If so, what is it?

============

Existentialism does not so much argue against determinism as presuppose freedom, mainly because
Existentialism deals with the uniquely human world, the importance of human lives in a human world,
this is a different world from the one described by science.

For the existentialist, freedom is a necessary feature of human life, that is we are people, human
beings because we are free. Without our freedom we would be no different from trees and dogs.

You may think that this, in a sense, is just side stepping the issue: the natural world (dogs and trees,
etc) is determined, we are part of the natural world, so what distinguishes us from dogs and trees?
How do we know that we are not caused to think that we are free?

When faced with these questions the existentialist has to emphasise a part of his philosophy that we
have so far ignored. Existentialism grew out of a philosophy of phenomenology, a method that
analyses the appearance of phenomenon, that way objects, events seem to us. Now much of
existentialism retains this approach. Sartre for instance subtitled his great work Being and
Nothingness "An essay in phenomenological ontology".

Sartre argued that what exists is the world (containing physical objects) and consciousness,
constituted by its ability to negate or distance itself from everything else. For phenomenology as well
as existentialism, consciousness just like a table can be analyzed as a phenomenal object. We can
ask questions about what it is like to be conscious. Now whether or not consciousness is the outcome
of brain processes it does not appear to me that way. The phenomenology of consciousness is
substantially different from any scientific account (note that this means that the scientific account
does not undermine or take explanatory precedence over the phenomenology).

Similarly with freedom. Getting back to the troubling question: How doe we know that we are not
caused to think that we are free when in actual fact we are not? Again the existentialist can appeal to
the phenomenology of freedom: whether or not my thinking is determined it does not strike me this
way, rather it appears that I can think whatever I want. Much of what the existentialists are concerned
with is the fact of human life that we approach the world as people having to make choices about
what to do. We have this attitude whether we are determined or not. For the existentialist it does not
matter about the metaphysical arguments about determinism. What matters is that we live as ifwe
were free because this is how it seemsto us regardless of any scientific account about cause and
effect.

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield