Kris asked:

I don't understand determinism. I know that it is basically that we are all predetermined but I don't
understand the rest.

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Determinism is the doctrine that we could not have chosen to do other that what we did. As Daniel
Dennett has pointed out, to understand this, we have to understand what it means to say that 'we
could have done otherwise'. In his view (a view often called soft determinism), this phrase must mean
'we would have done otherwise if we had wanted to' — but this also implies that we would have done
exactly the same if we had had just the same wants. His book 'Elbow Room' deals with this question,
and is quite easy to read (as is most of his stuff).

Determinism has been commented on before on these pages — do a search on the PhiloSophos
knowledge base to find more.

Tim Sprod

Determinism makes the ideological point that our actions and thought are determined by some
universal basis. This universal basis can be language (Bakhtin talks about linguistic determinism),
class ideology (Marx talks about determinism of class-consciousness), will (Nietzsche said that
everything is determined by will), writing (Derrida says that everything is writing) and so on.

For example, according to linguistic determinism: if one's native language is English one thinks with
the help of language as well as one thinks in this language. Language belongs to one as well as one
belongs to language. Everything we say in English is contained in the English language. That is why
the writer just expresses the structures which are contained in the language to which he belongs.

Language is the tool of thinking, according to Wittgenstein. But it is not a tool like a hammer. So, one
can lose one's hammer and yet hit the nail without a hammer. But one can think nothing without
language. Really language is the way of thinking. If one's native language is English, you think as
Englishman, you have the logic and world outlook of English culture.

Every language, in my mind, creates its own would outlook, its own culture therefore its own thinking.
For example, what colour do you associate with happiness? It might be pink or yellow, perhaps? But
for the Chinese, black is the symbol of happiness and laughter. Another example, with what do you
associate the flower chrysanthemum? For the Japanese, the chrysanthemum is the symbol of death
as well as symbol of Emperor.

So, there is linguistic determinism: we can think nothing without language. Everything we think
belongs to our world outlook (this is ideological determinism too) and to native language (this is
linguistic determinism). Every word we think, say or write belongs to our native language, therefore
our thinking, saying and writing is determined by our language.

The basis of determinism, in my mind, is the human aspiration to understand the underlying nature of
the person. Freud says that a subsection of the person is sexual appetite, therefore he creates the
determinism of sexuality. The basis of the person (Ego) is his mind is Id, which embraces all sexual
wants and instincts. I think that the philosopher creates determinism to understand and to describe
the nature of the human person and to build his own system of philosophical ideology.

Dmitry Olshansky