Freedom of Indifference: Its Metaphysical Credentials According to Crusius

• 作者: Sonja Schierbaum
• 来源期刊: 复旦人文社会科学论丛:英文版
• 学科: 社会科学
• 关键词: FREEDOM of INDIFFERENCE Voluntarism Hypothetical NECESSITY Crusius LEIBNIZ
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（3）
• 页码范围: 385-405
• 页数: 21页
• 分类号: C

摘要

In the history of philosophy, voluntarists-that is, philosophers committed to some version of the freedom of indifference-have worried about its metaphysical credentials, but only a few, at least to my knowledge, have attempted to argue for more than its mere existence. Freedom of indifference is the option to choose between opposites in a given situation. In this paper, I present the ambitious attempt of the German pre-Kantian philosopher Christian August Crusius (1715-1775) to argue for the claim that we have freedom of indifference as a matter of hypothetical necessity. The point is that, in his view, there can be no actual world without freedom of indifference. This is not a logical but a metaphysical truth. I argue that a possible (motivational) reason for CrusiusJs choice to tread this slippery path is that he attempts to bestow some metaphysical dignity on the freedom of indifference. As a consequence, this metaphysical value of freedom of indifference shapes the relation between the divine and free, rational agents in a way that is completely different from a rationalist’s conception such as Leibniz’s. In this paper, I give a plausible interpretation of a metaphysical argument that has been neglected in the relevant literature.