About this episode

This episode explores the implications of causal determinism and its philosophical challenges through historical and scientific lenses.

If every event has a cause, then perhaps your next thought was written into the universe long before you were born. Topics Discussed * The American, French, and Latin American Revolutions as products of the Enlightenment * Moderate vs. Radical Enlightenment thinkers * Three explanations for historical change * How the rise of the social sciences transformed explanations of human behavior * Laplace's Demon and the idea of causal determinism * The distinction between causal determinism and hard determinism * Earlier forms of determinism * The emergence of social physics * Historical and philosophical objections to hard determinism * Scientific challenges from non-Euclidean geometry and quantum mechanics * Why indeterminism does not automatically establish free will

People in this episode

Host: R. C. M. García

Topics covered

• causal determinism
• Enlightenment
• historical change
• social sciences
• determinism
• indeterminism
• free will

Keywords

• causal determinism
• hard determinism
• Enlightenment
• social sciences
• historical change
• indeterminism
• free will

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Enlightenment, social physics, non-Euclidean geometry, quantum mechanics

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