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The Refutation of Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Augustine Shutte
Augustine Shutte
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
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Extract

In his Christian Theology and Natural Science, E. L. Mascall refers to a criticism by Elizabeth Anscombe of C. S. Lewis's well-known argument against determinism that appears in his Miracles. Both Lewis's argument and Anscombe's response appeared originally as papers delivered in the 40s to the Oxford Socratic Club. A certain historical interest attaches to that exchange in that Lewis seems to have been ‘deeply disturbed’ by it.2 I think he need not have been. But, more importantly, the sequence of Lewis's article followed by Anscombe's reply and then Mascall's comments on both, provides a suggestive presentation and examination of a certain kind of argument against determinism. Essentially it is a negative rebuttal of a retortive kind, such as Aristotle uses against the sceptic in the Metaphysics. But its treatment by these three writers indicates a metaphysical insight that could possibly furnish a positive refutation of any kind of radical determinism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 59 , Issue 230 , October 1984 , pp. 481 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1984

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References

1 Lewis, C. S., Miracles (London: Bles, 1947), 23–31.Google Scholar

2 Green, R. L. and W., Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, 1974), 228.Google Scholar

3 Miracles, 27.

4 Op. cit. 26.

5 Loc. cit.

6 Op. cit. 27.

7 Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘A Reply to Mr C. S. Lewis's Argument that “Naturalism is Self-Refuting” ’, Socratic Digest No. 4 (1948), 11.Google Scholar

8 Op. cit. 12.

9 Mascall, E. L., Christian Theology and Natural Science (London: Longmans, 1957). 215.Google Scholar

10 Loc. cit.

11 Op. cit. 216.

12 B., Lonergan, ‘Metaphysics as Horizon’, Collection (New York: Herder, 1967), 207.Google Scholar

13 Op. cit. 208.