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THE MAN WHO PROVED THAT FREE WILL EXISTS: A Guide To William James

Sisyphus 55 | September 5, 2025



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SOURCES

https://medium.com/@afshad/on-james-the-dilemma-of-determinism-d60404b34659
https://iep.utm.edu/james-o/#H2
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/books/william-james-varieties-of-religious-experience.html

“The Will to Believe” by William James

Written by Sisyphus 55

Comments

This post currently has 39 comments.

  1. @alwaysgreatusa223

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    You don't need some pragmatic reason to believe in free-will because you are already aware of it inside yourself. It is not something that needs to be proven either by philosophy or science, because it is a fundamental fact about you — just like your existence is a fundamental fact about you.

  2. @alwaysgreatusa223

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    The false belief of many defenders of sciencism is that you can only know things you can prove scientifically to be true. Science always starts with 'evidence' or 'data' which it then uses in reasoning to form hypothesis and theories, then it employs experimentation, analysis, and further observation to confirm, reject or modify its hypothesis, theories, and paradigms. But how can you ever prove the 'evidence' or 'data' from which you began ? Surely you do not want to say these pieces of evidence and bits of data are unknown until they are scientifically proven to be true — that would be a vicious circle ! So, that just goes to show that some things are known prior to be proven true. Moreover, strictly speaking, there is really no such thing as 'proof' in science to begin with because, no matter how well established a scientific theory is, it always remains (in principle) tentative, and so open to being modified or rejected in the future — indeed, this sometimes happens, not only to scientific theories, but scientific paradigms as well (see Thomas Kuhn).

  14. @nameless-yd6ko

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    THE MAN WHO PROVED THAT FREE WILL EXISTS
    = HOAX!
    No matter how long this vid is, one cannot 'prove' that 'free-will/choice' exists other than as a vain immature belief. Science and philosophy both concur in free-wills impossibility.
    As do I.
    The above 'proof' claim is a HOAX!

  21. @saintsword23

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    Schopenhauer proved free will does not exist. Since your actions are determined by your motivations and desires, and you don't choose those, you don't have free will. And even if you do choose your current motivations, you didn't choose your motivation for choosing your current motivations. And so on ad infinitum. 5 minutes of meditation proves you do not control your mind; it controls you.

    I'm greatly simplifying of course, but that's the crux.

    William James didn't prove anything. His argument is basically, "I feel better believing indeterminism so that's what I believe." All he did was signal that he's unwilling to give up his notions around purpose in order to come to the truth. And what's funny about this is that this is exactly the sort of thing a Schopenhauerian would expect to see: the will unconsciously rank orders desires according to the context and chooses the actions and beliefs that are expected to create the outcome the desire wants. In this case, James wants to feel purpose more than he wants the truth, so he chooses a belief that helps him feel purpose.

  26. @elijahs7374

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    If freewill existed so many professions that rely on statistics and probability would be in trouble. Marketing wouldn't work, sociological studies would be pointless, and economics would be pointless to study. The proof against free will is overwhelming given that all of these professions appear to have some level of predictive power, and show strong correlative tendencies. The universe appears to obey cause and effect and the progress of human understanding has been the process of accepting piece by piece that we are just a small part of the universe without particular significance or extraplanar favor. We appear to obey cause and effect, its just that any sufficiently complex science appears as magic until understood.

  31. @derfliv206

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    Sounds like he was a pragmatically motivated compatibalist.

    I can definitely see where he is coming from, but I don't agree that incompatibalism leads us to viewing the world as lacking in meaning and purpose.

    I think most incompatibalistst would agree that disbelieving free will is not something you can keep up for very long, you simply can't maintain that state of mind, nor do I see it as being very practical to do so in daily life.

    But I do think it is a very useful tool in understanding human behavior and just works better when analyzing human psychology.

    I believe we can both assign a reasonable amount of blame on people for their actions to deter bad behavior, while still not having to close lines of inquiry by arbitrarily injecting free will and thus placing a disproportionate amount of blame on the individual.

    Its easier, and it's usually what we would rather do, but I believe that study into mental health and crime and punishment points strongly towards it being largely ineffective.

  37. @darrenengels9584

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    William James applied the practicality of utilitarianism to the philosophical realm. While pragmatism may have some benefits toward alleviating mental angst, it brings one no closer to the truth. James apparently espoused a skill that I'm incapable of, which is to adopt a belief simply because of its existential convenience. Perhaps my desire for my philosophical convictions to be true is just too great a demand.

  39. @joshuabisson8888

    September 5, 2025 at 3:41 am

    If free will existed there would be no anxiety depression hatred.Just perfect human beings.Pain and fear wouldn’t be necessary.This is just 1% of the completely obvious and Elementary fact it does not.Unless you created yourself completely and choose every particle that ultimately decides everything you are think and feel. Your choices are not made by anything you control.That is as stupid as a pro basketball player taking credit he is 7 feet tall and athletic.You are nothing more then an observer of the universe with no more free will then an oak tree or sunflower.

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