The Problem of Free Will: Modern Solutions
Modern thinkers have solved the problem of free will by questioning the authority of science, acknowledging the boundaries of freedom and arguing for the transcendental importance of choice.
——By ElieJesner
Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages were concerned with reconciling the contradictions between human free will and God's will and the prophets.
Modern Jewish thinkers, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with the challenges posed by the natural and social sciences to free will.
Physics and ethics are different treatises
Regarding Hermann Cohen (1842 - 1918), his scientific model of mechanical causality asserts that every event in the material world must have a cause. But it is puzzling when mechanical causality is juxtaposed with the idea of human choice.
Following Kant, Cohen solved this problem by questioning the importance of the status of mechanical causality to the physicist's worldview. He proposed that mechanical causality was nothing more than a methodological hypothesis of physicists, a descriptive tool for explaining natural phenomena.
One of the useful aspects of causality is to describe the interaction of billiard balls or atomic particles. But we need different tools to describe human activity, especially those with ethical overtones. According to Cohen, ethical thought has its own set of methodologies, primarily the idea that humans can make choices.
Therefore, the ethical system of thought is significantly different from the system of thought for the study of natural science. According to Cohen, the framework of science and the framework of ethics illustrate very different aspects of the human experience, respectively.
Joseph Soloutko (1903-1992) followed Cohen in many ways, continuing to advance the discourse of free will in this direction. But, based on new scientific discoveries, he was able to further weaken the all-knowing foundations of physics. Soloutko points to the discontinuities between biology, chemistry, and physics, challenging the authority of the physicist and his theory of mechanical causation.
Perhaps more importantly, modern quantum physics reveals that what is actually happening at the subatomic level is not a mechanistic theory in the traditional sense. Without the presumption of simple causality, as free-decision-making individuals, a major obstacle to our conception of self is removed.
A choice is required, but the choice is not a guarantee
The exploration of the question of free will did not convince other thinkers. While acknowledging our limitations on our knowledge of physics, they argue that progress in cognitive science is impossible to observe the progress of intelligence other than mechanistic systems.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) was one such thinker, a Jewish philosopher and spiritualist. Leibowitz argues that Jewish law expresses the belief that human beings' ability to choose is far more powerless than is often assumed. Humanity needs a challenging idol and instruction to avoid falling into a blind pursuit of psychological and material needs. The Jews challenged humanity with laws and rules because it required the people to make a choice, but it did not guarantee that the choice would serve its intended purpose.
Free will doesn't exist, but it's a good thing
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) made a similar discussion and further developed it. Although he did not discuss it as often as the "Jewish thinkers" themselves, the latest academic research has traced the components of Jewish doctrine in Wittgenstein's thought. In addition, Wittgenstein described himself as a Jewish thinker and was deeply aware of his Jewish ancestry and the Jewish character in his thinking.
Wittgenstein's answer to the question of free will lies in a fundamental reanalysis of the self (a person's enduring characteristic), the will (the constituent elements of the worldly actions that affect man), and the relationship between the world.
We tend to think that the ego does not belong to the material world, that it possesses and controls the will. Wittgenstein sought to show that we should think of ourselves as merely part of the workings of the world. In fact, the will to be responsible for ourselves, our lives and actions, is linked to the world. We don't have or control our actions, they just happen by chance. In this sense, without free will, there is no question about free will, because there is no exact self that needs to be restrained.
Freedom is a possibility
Abraham Joshua Hirschl's (1907-1972) discussion of freedom can be seen as building on Wittgenstein's model, making more concessions to our needs. Hayes Hill is also against the self, but from an ethical point of view, not from a philosophical point of view.
Hays hill argues that modern humans have come to see themselves as a symbiosis of mechanical and biological processes. According to this view, liberating and redeeming oneself requires changing one's self-perception and then turning one's eyes to some higher, more humane goal.
For Hays Hill, freedom is not a scientific fact, just a possibility exists, something we may be able to do, a new dimension of our life experience.
Freedom is a challenge
Mordecai Kaplan (1881 - 1983) resisted the anti-scientific interpretation of free will and refused to explain freedom in ways related to jewish struggle.
Traditionally, freedom has been understood as a human capacity that we humans must take advantage of. Kaplan redefined freedom and suggested that freedom is a challenge to self-restraint. He argues that human beings survive in a state of tension between positive self-actualization and negative descent into self-worship. Freedom challenges us to cross this dangerous rope and to stop a climate of conceited pride or excessive self-sufficiency. This restraint produces a sense of freedom that is more important than any scientific question of causality.
The necessity of choice
Martin Buber's (1878-1965) existentialist philosophy emphasizes the importance of individual human choice as the most important element of our life experience. While he is aware of the tendency to set conditions for action, he believes that when we reflect on the choices we make, we will soon make these more important and meaningful.
In other words, he knows why the issue of free will came into focus. For a predetermined life, we can shirk our responsibilities and pretend not to be able to make a choice. But once we correct our perceptions and emphasize the possibilities before us, we lose the reason for their persistence by not choosing their ideas. The issue of free will has not been given a foothold because we are confronted with terrible rules of choice and the potential for change.
The question of freedom is a subject of eternity
Modern Jewish thinkers have contributed from different perspectives, but the question of free will has never given philosophers pause. Maybe it's not only necessary, but worth having. If we are to live our lives correctly and responsibly, freedom is what we must always strive for, remember, and act on.