There are two mistakes people can make about their circumstances. The first is blaming circumstances for things that are actually under their control, and the second is denying the ways in which circumstances limit what they are capable of. I have written in past blog posts about freedom and free will. I generally follow the…
Tag: free will
Existential nihilism and despair in three songs and three philosophers
What is moving will be still What is gathered will disperse What has been built up will collapse Andrew Bird, “Tin Foil” (Fingerlings 3, 2006) These lyrics are an adapted quote from Lama Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Impermanence (aniccā in Pali) is an important idea in many forms of Buddhism. It…
Free will, personal responsibility, and fault
I want to outline my view of these topics. First, I’ll address some major mainstream positions. Most people believe in free will; within academic philosophy, the modern free will debate is characterized as compatibilism vs. incompatibilism. The “compatibility” in question is between free will and determinism. Technically, neither of these views necessitates certain beliefs about…
