The Dilemma Of Determinism Summary

In the essay “The Dilemma Of Determinism,” James states that “first when we make theories about the world and discuss them with one another, we do is in order to attain a conception of things which shall give us a subjective satisfaction; and second, if there be two conceptions and the one seems to us, on the whole, more rational than other, we are entitled to suppose that the more rational one is the truer of the two.” The author also stated that people who do not agree with his statement would find the rest of what he has to say a little difficult to understand. He defended his statement by saying that he believes all the magnificent achievements of mathematical and physical science which where; the doctrines of evolution, uniformity of law,
our indomitable desire to cast the world into a more rational shape in our minds than the shape that is thrown there by the crude order of our experience. He stated that, the world has shown itself, to a great extent, plastic to this demand of ours for rationality and how much farther it will show itself plastic no one can say.
But, our only means of finding out is to try and the author feels as free to try conceptions of moral as of mechanical or of logical rationality. The author also talked about the principle of causality which is simply a demand that the sequence of events shall someday manifest a deeper kind of belonging of one thing with another than mere arbitrary juxtaposition which now phenomenally appears? It is as much an altar to an unknown god as the one that Saint Paul found at Athens. All of our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods. James also stated that uniformity is as much so as is freewill and if anyone pretends that while freedom and variety are, in the first instance, subjective demands, necessity and uniformity are something altogether different and James does not see how a debate can be made at all with
that.
James provides a context that helps interpret the original quotation, the first paragraph on page 181.
He gave an analogy of two men before a chessboard, one a novice and the other an expert. The expert intends to beat the novice, but he cannot foresee what any one actual move of his adversary maybe. He know however all the possible moves of the latter; and he know how to meet each of them in advance by a move of his own which leads in the direction of victory. The victory unfailingly arrives, after no matter how devious a course, in the one predestined form of check-mates to the novice’s king. James helps to explain the context by saying, the novice stands for us free agents, and the experts for the infinite mind in which the universe lies. Suppose the latter to be thinking out his universe before he actually creates it, suppose he says, I will lead things to a certain end, but I will not now decide on all the steps before hand. At various points, ambiguous possibilities shall be left open, either of which at a given instant may become actual. But whichever branch of these bifurcations become real, he knows what he shall do at the next bifurcation to keep things from drifting away from the final results he intended. What he does here is selecting or choosing the option that gives him subjective satisfaction or seems more rational than the
other. Another context given by James is on the third paragraph of page 170, where he talks about practically taking up subjectivism in a sincere and radical manner and follow its consequences, we meet with some that make us pause. Let a subjectivism begin in never so sever and intellectual a way, it is forced by the law of its nature to develop another side of itself and ends with corrupt curiosity. Once dismiss the notion that certain duties are good in themselves, and we are here to do them, no matter how we feel about them; once consecrate the opposite notion that out performances and our violations of duty are for a common purpose, the attainment of subjective knowledge and feeling and that the deepening of these is the chief end of our lives All through history we find how subjectivism, as soon as it has a free career, exhausts itself in every sort of spiritual, moral and practical license. Its optimism turns to an ethical indifference, which is infallibly brings dissolution in its train. Subjectivism seems like a more rational scheme. But my question can determinism or indeterminism be used to prove scientific theories?