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asr comments on Explanations for Less Wrong articles that you didn't understand - Less Wrong Discussion

18 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 31 March 2014 11:19AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 31 March 2014 10:55:15PM 0 points [-]

That's really interesting, thanks for posting it. It's an obscure sort of notion, but I agree it's got some family resemblance to idea of free will. I guess I was thinking mostly of the absence of the idea of free will from Greek philosophy.

Comment author: asr 01 April 2014 02:59:22AM 0 points [-]

I guess I was thinking mostly of the absence of the idea of free will from Greek philosophy.

I took a course on ancient and medieval ethics as an undergraduate. We spent a lot of time on free will, talking about Stoic versus Epicurean views, and then how they show up in Cicero and in Thomas. My impression (as a non-expert) is that Aristotle doesn't have a term that equates to "free will", but that other Greek writers very much do.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 April 2014 02:08:37PM 0 points [-]

You're right, of course, that many of those philosophers wrote in Greek. I suppose I was thinking of them as hellenistic or latin, and thinking of Greek philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, and their contemporaries. But I was speaking imprecisely.