By: Dr. Adnan Bouzan

I. Introduction: The Dialectic of Freedom and Determinism

At the heart of human existence lies a problem that echoes across time, marked by complexity and depth: the dialectic of freedom and determinism. From birth, the human being finds himself surrounded by a world charged with natural and social laws, bound within historical and cultural conditions that shape his capacities and possibilities. At the same time, he experiences a constant sense of his ability to choose, to take initiative, and to pursue self-realization and self-determination. These tensions—between what is imposed upon him and what he can shape through his consciousness and will—form the core of the human meaning of life, making freedom and determinism an endless axis of philosophical questioning.

Determinism, on one side, represents the dimension that confines man within the chain of causes and effects, whether natural laws governing matter, time, and space, or social and cultural laws guiding behavior and limiting choices. It is the force that makes the world appear like a pre-written play, where characters move along fixed paths and events unfold through an inescapable sequence of necessities. From this perspective, man often seems a limited being, subject to the will of the universe and its conditions, unable to break his chains or transcend the routine of daily life.

On the other side, freedom shatters this sense of absolute fatalism, announcing humanity’s capacity to transcend constraints, to innovate and take initiative, to make decisions that change the course of life and transform the world. Freedom is the lived experience of human consciousness that grants the individual a sense of responsibility, opening his life to infinite possibilities, where he is not merely a passive subject of necessity but an active agent of creativity and change.

The dialectic of freedom and determinism is not a purely theoretical inquiry but a lived, daily struggle in the human condition—an inner conflict with oneself, and a confrontation with material and social reality. It condenses the tension between what is necessary and what is possible, between individual and collective destiny, between human nature and human consciousness. In this context, man acquires a deeper philosophical dimension, recognizing the need for analysis, reflection, and understanding, as he tries to grasp the limits of his freedom in the face of necessity, and the domains of determinism he can either challenge or adapt to.

Thus, exploring the dialectic of freedom and determinism becomes a gateway to understanding human nature itself: a being oscillating between constraint and choice, between alienation and liberation, between what is imposed and what he strives to shape through awareness. This study does not aim merely to trace abstract philosophical notions, but to uncover the deep dynamics of human existence—how the individual can live consciously and responsibly within an interwoven network of necessities and possibilities, and find meaning in life despite surrounding existential challenges.

This inquiry begins from a paradox that seems as obvious as it is unsettling: we live in a world governed by law and causal regularity, and yet we hold ourselves and others accountable for actions we assume could have been otherwise. Reconciling these two truths—the order of the world and human responsibility—places us in the very heart of a ceaseless dialectic: the dialectic of freedom and determinism. This is not a matter of speculative luxury, for its consequences permeate our daily choices and the most sensitive of our institutions: morality, law, education, and politics. If freedom is understood as an absolute possibility that ignores cosmic and social order, its discourse becomes dreamy rhetoric powerless to act. If determinism is seen as an all-encompassing fate that leaves no room for choice, moral meaning dissolves and responsibility disintegrates. Between these two extremes arises the horizon of our inquiry: how to understand freedom not as the negation of necessity, but as a specifically human mode of awareness of necessity and of acting within it.

This work proceeds from a guiding thesis: freedom is not the absence of constraints but the ability to transform them; determinism is not a deadlock but a condition of possibility that redraws the limits of the possible when grasped and interpreted. Every human act—from moral decision to artistic creation—passes through layers of formation: neurobiology and bodily dispositions, the experiences of childhood, memory and emotion, the language in which we think and speak, the institutions that organize resources and regulate exchanges. Yet these layers do not cancel agency; rather, when we become conscious of them, they assist us in managing and reorganizing our motives. From here the study articulates a practical conception of freedom: an acquired freedom, shaped by learning, discipline, imagination, and institutions—not a metaphysical freedom suspended in the void.

To avoid remaining within abstraction, three key domains will be engaged where the problem is most acute today:

1. Science and the Explanation of Behavior: Advances in neuroscience, computational biology, and artificial intelligence expand causal models, tempting us to reduce decision-making to neural or algorithmic mechanisms. Yet this very expansion reveals the complexity of the “causal chain” and its multiple levels, such that biological explanation need not negate normative levels of analysis but rather condition their refinement.

2. Social and Political Structures: Global markets, bureaucratic states, digital platforms, and algorithms redraw the maps of attention, desire, and preference. The pressing question emerges: do we really choose, or are choices made for us? And how do we distinguish between silent coercion (structural shaping) and explicit coercion?

3. Ethics and Law: Courts, systems of punishment, and policies of deterrence oblige us to assign degrees of responsibility, taking into account social and psychological conditions without abolishing the principle of accountability. This domain is the testing ground for the “workability” of any theory of freedom and determinism.

On this basis, the introduction proposes a methodological path that safeguards balance between explanation and evaluation. It will employ:
(a) conceptual analysis to clarify the terms freedom, will, necessity, and responsibility, and to trace their overlaps and distinctions;
(b) a historical-dialectical reading of major positions, not as a chronological survey but as a laboratory for concept formation from ancient Greece to contemporary debates;
(c) a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach to lived experience of decision-making: how intentions are formed, how motives are reinterpreted, what “I can” means in the actor’s awareness;
(d) structural-social analysis testing the impact of language, power, and institutions in shaping the space of choice;
(e) critical engagement with findings of contemporary science without collapsing into reductionism that nullifies normative meaning.

The research questions are posed as follows:

• What criteria make an act a “free choice” rather than a mechanical response? Is the absence of external coercion sufficient, or is a positive condition required—relating to the agent’s capacity for reasoning and justification?

• How do we distinguish between constitutive constraints (which ground possibility, such as linguistic law or institutional norms) and disabling constraints (which cancel possibility or distort will)?

• To what extent can natural and social necessities be transformed into resources for empowerment through knowledge, organization, and education?

• What impact does this dialectical understanding have on our conceptions of moral responsibility, criminal justice, educational policy, and public freedoms?

These are not mere procedural questions; they define the position of the theory defended here: a critical compatibilism that sees reconciliation between causal regularity and moral agency as possible under two conditions:

1. Abandoning the image of “single cause” in favor of multi-level causal networks, where human action emerges from interaction between internal motives and institutional-historical contexts.

2. Redefining freedom as a practical competence: the capacity to respond to reasons in a way that reflects the agent’s mental and value-based identity, rather than blind submission to immediate impulses.

Here emerges the function of “awareness of necessity”: not passive recognition of constraints, but the ability to integrate them into a self-project through discipline, planning, and reinterpretation of situations. The self does not liberate itself by denying reality but by naming, organizing, and acting upon it. In this sense, language, interpretation, and institutions become instruments of liberation: reconfiguring what seems like constraint into new rules of the game. Imagination—understood as the capacity to see latent possibilities within the present—is not an escape from determinism but an expansion of its practical horizons.

Yet this balance is not without dilemmas. Every compatibilist theory risks the suspicion of justification: is this “freedom” merely a polite name for conformity? Conscious of this risk, the study will include explicit critique of the complicities between philosophical discourse and existing systems: when social necessity is naturalized into a “second nature” that immunizes injustice, and when the concept of “responsibility” is deployed to obscure inequalities of condition. Thus, no talk of freedom is possible without a normative-transformative horizon: without explicit judgment upon institutions, and without public policies that expand freedom through equitable education, legal guarantees, equal opportunities, and the reduction of hidden coercions exercised by algorithms, advertising, and market structures.

The study also proposes a reconfiguration of the classic distinction between “negative” and “positive” freedom. Negative freedom (absence of coercion) is necessary but insufficient for moral and creative agency. Positive freedom is not a slogan of self-sufficiency, but a socially distributed capacity requiring resources, knowledge, and institutions. Hence the study advances a third concept: institutional freedom, freedom embodied in rules and procedures (law, judiciary, education, media) that minimize the effects of chance and structural inequality on action, granting individuals effective rather than merely formal capacity to choose.

The significance of this research is twofold:

• Theoretically: It seeks to disentangle the confusions accumulated in the history of the debate, offering a synthesis that does justice to the explanatory truth of determinism without erasing the meaning of action, and honors the normative demand of freedom without ignoring the conditions of the world.

• Practically: It provides operative criteria for ethics, law, educational and cultural policy, where the viability of any conception of freedom and determinism is put to the test.

The limits of this research must also be acknowledged. It does not promise to resolve the “final metaphysics” of free will, nor does it reduce behavior to a single neural or social equation. Its aim is narrower and more ambitious at once: to articulate a practical model that aids rigorous thought and prudent action—a model that views freedom as the rationalization of motives, the management of constraints, and the expansion of the possible; and views determinism as a framework of order, not a closed fate.

With this introduction, the roadmap of the study is set: precise conceptual definitions, productive historical reading, analysis of forms and limits of determinism, construction of a concept of freedom as practical competence and normative value, followed by study of the dialectical structure that transforms opposition into complementarity, before moving to applications in ethics, law, education, and art. The goal is that the reader emerges from this journey not only “more convinced,” but more capable of action: seeing in constraints not walls but maps, in necessity not destiny but material for orientation, and in freedom an art of creating possibilities within a necessary world.

Freedom, in this sense, is neither arbitrary choice nor separation from reality, but the art of adapting to necessity and transforming it into new possibilities. It is the capacity to perceive constraints, then use awareness of them as a tool of innovation and change—so that every human act becomes a composite moment of determinism and choice, neither imprisoned by the one nor deceived by the other.

II. The Conceptual Framework

No serious philosophical inquiry into freedom and determinism in human existence can gain its strength and originality unless it is built upon a clear conceptual framework. Such a framework defines the fundamental terms, clarifies the relationships between them, and spares the reader from ambiguous or contradictory uses of meaning. Philosophy does not operate in a vacuum; it moves within a network of concepts that shape its structure of thought and guide its interpretive horizon. In this sense, the conceptual framework is not merely a technical prelude but a foundational moment that sets the premises and direction of the research.

The duality of freedom and determinism is not a pair of casual notions but deeply rooted concepts in the history of thought, each carrying diverse meanings through the ages: freedom as the ability to choose without coercion, or freedom as awareness of necessity; determinism as strict submission to causal laws, or determinism as the network of conditions that constitute human existence and social meaning. Thus, the framework here does more than define terms—it highlights the inner tension between them and explores how they might be rearticulated within an integrated dialectical vision.

Accordingly, this section will address:

1. Defining freedom in its multiple dimensions: negative (absence of coercion), positive (the agent’s capacity for reason and decision), and socio-institutional (freedom grounded in structures and norms).

2. Clarifying determinism and its natural, psychological, social, and historical dimensions, distinguishing between necessity that constitutes existence and necessity that becomes disabling constraint.

3. Explicating the dialectical relationship between the two concepts and how determinism may shift from being freedom’s opposite to its very condition of possibility.

4. Mapping the interrelated notions: will, responsibility, necessity, choice, consciousness, and agency.

Thus, the conceptual framework becomes the reference structure upon which subsequent theoretical analysis and philosophical debate will be built, enabling us to understand freedom and determinism not as fixed opposing categories but as dynamic movements that reshape the meaning of human existence itself.

1. Defining Freedom

The concept of freedom is one of the most complex and debated in philosophy, embodying multiple overlapping levels of meaning—from the individual’s inner awareness of the capacity to act, to the political and legal frameworks that permit or restrict such action. Because freedom is not a single, simple notion, philosophers have sought to analyze it in distinct formulations that illuminate its various dimensions. Among the most influential is Isaiah Berlin’s famous distinction between negative freedom and positive freedom, which has become a reference point for all subsequent debates.

a. Negative Freedom
Negative freedom is freedom understood as the absence of obstacles or external interference. To be free in the negative sense means to be able to do what one wishes without being prevented or constrained by an external authority. In this view, freedom is measured by the extent of the "space" left to the individual to decide actions independently, without coercion.

• Examples: Choosing one’s profession without state intervention, expressing one’s opinion without censorship, moving without restrictions.

• Value: Its importance lies in protecting the individual from tyranny or group domination, forming the cornerstone of the idea of "individual rights" in political liberalism.

• Limits: Yet it remains incomplete if taken alone: the absence of coercion does not guarantee the individual’s actual capacity to realize choices (e.g., poverty or ignorance may render choices ineffective even if no one prevents them).

b. Positive Freedom
In contrast, positive freedom refers to the actual ability to be one’s own master and author of one’s decisions—to exercise choice from rational, conscious will rather than mere impulses or external dictates. It is freedom as self-mastery: "freedom to," not merely "freedom from."

• Examples: Acquiring education to think critically, choosing according to convictions rather than social pressures, practicing a profession that fits one’s abilities after preparation.

• Value: Its significance lies in emphasizing enabling conditions—internal (reason, will, awareness) and external (education, social justice, opportunity)—that make choice real and effective.

• Limits: This view, however, risks paternalism: it may be used to justify external guardianship in the name of "liberating the individual from ignorance," thus turning into domination under the guise of freedom.

c. Freedom as Self-Choice vs. Freedom as Liberation from Constraint
This tension can be reformulated in another duality:

• Freedom as self-choice: the ability to decide based on one’s own convictions and inner values, making action an expression of authentic selfhood rather than external pressures. Here the idea of independence and authenticity is central.

• Freedom as liberation from coercion: emancipation from external constraints imposed by political authority, social pressure, or economic domination. Here the emphasis is on creating a safe external space that safeguards choice.

Taken together, freedom emerges not as a one-dimensional concept but as a dialectic between inner and outer conditions: requiring removal of coercion so that choice is not an illusion, and the cultivation of self-capacity so that choice is not mere blind reaction. True freedom is thus a composite: not reducible to "absence of prohibition," nor to "pure inner will," but a relation between self and environment, between rational autonomy and external conditions that neither suppress nor dictate choice.

2. Defining Determinism

If freedom represents the horizon of possibility in human action, determinism represents its other face: necessity and causal interconnection that constrain freedom and subject individuals to networks of laws and conditions. Determinism is therefore not just a technical term but one of the most controversial philosophical issues since antiquity, raising the fundamental question: is man master of his actions, or ruled by forces beyond his will?

In essence, determinism means that every phenomenon, action, or state is the inevitable result of preceding causes, such that things could not be otherwise. Existence is seen as a web of interconnection, leaving no room for absolute chance or escape from causality. Yet its meaning shifts depending on context, requiring distinctions among its main forms:

a. Natural (Physical) Determinism
This view holds that the universe is governed by strict, fixed laws, and every movement or change follows precise causal relations. Rooted in classical Newtonian physics, it pictured the cosmos as a vast machine running according to exceptionless laws.

• Essence: Nature is a system of necessities; every event is explainable by a prior cause. If initial conditions are fully known, the future can be predicted.

• Philosophical Example: Laplace’s famous idea that a supreme intelligence knowing all atomic positions could foresee all past and future events.

• Critique: Modern physics (relativity, quantum mechanics) disrupted this picture, introducing probability and indeterminacy, making natural determinism appear less rigid.

b. Psychological and Social Determinism
Determinism takes deeper form when applied to human beings—not only as physical bodies but as psychological and social beings.

1. Psychological determinism: Human actions and thoughts are not entirely free but shaped by unconscious drives, basic instincts, or early psychological structures. Example: Freud’s psychoanalysis, where unconscious forces largely determine decisions, binding apparent freedom.

2. Social determinism: Humans are products of their environments, with social, cultural, and economic structures shaping life paths and choices. Example: Marxist theory linking superstructures (law, politics, thought) to economic base, or Durkheim’s sociology emphasizing the coercive force of social facts.

c. Metaphysical Determinism
On the deepest level, determinism appears as the vision of existence itself governed by absolute necessity.

• Religious and philosophical forms: All events are preordained by divine will or cosmic order. Fate or destiny is depicted as transcending individual freedom, making each event part of an eternal plan.

• Rationalist philosophy: Spinoza, for instance, saw the universe as expression of one substance (God or Nature), where everything happens by logical necessity; freedom is awareness of necessity.

• Existential implications: This may lead either to fatalistic submission or to a new form of freedom—freedom through understanding one’s place in the cosmic order.

Summary:
Determinism is multilayered: in nature, a physical law; in psyche, an inner dynamic; in society, a structural network; in metaphysics, destiny or cosmic order. Its unifying feature is the claim that humans act within necessity, not an empty space of absolute freedom. Hence arises the dialectic: does determinism cancel will, or is it the very condition that makes action meaningful and bounded?

3. Distinguishing Related Terms: Will, Choice, Fate, Compulsion

In discussing freedom and determinism, we quickly encounter overlapping terms that cause conceptual confusion—will, choice, fate, and compulsion. These are not synonyms but distinct notions highlighting different aspects of human relation to action and necessity. Clarifying them is crucial for philosophical precision.

a. Will

• Meaning: The inner power that drives a person toward an action; the subjective dimension of human action, linking consciousness and deed.

• Philosophical views: For Descartes, will is boundless capacity; for Schopenhauer, it is the blind essence of all being; for Kant, rational will guided by the moral law.

• Definition: Not mere desire but an organized inner force manifest in conscious or unconscious acts.

b. Choice

• Meaning: The act arising from will—the ability to weigh possibilities and decide on one.

• Relation: Will directs; choice actualizes.

• Existentialist view: For Sartre, choice is the core of freedom: “Man is condemned to be free” since even refusal to decide is itself a decision.

c. Fate

• Meaning: The metaphysical or religious idea that all events are preordained by divine will or cosmic necessity.

• Religious dimension: In Abrahamic traditions, fate is God’s foreknowledge or decree.

• Philosophical dimension: Stoic fate as universal harmony; Spinoza’s logical necessity.

• Tension: Raises the perennial problem—if all is fated, where is human freedom?

d. Compulsion (Deterministic Fatalism)

• Meaning: The claim that humans are wholly devoid of will, their actions imposed by external or internal forces.

• Difference from fate: Fate may coexist with participation, whereas compulsion denies any autonomy, reducing man to an instrument.

• Historical note: In Islamic thought, "Jabriyya" upheld compulsion (humans forced in actions) versus "Qadariyya" affirming freedom and responsibility.

Comparative Summary:

• Will: inner driving force (subjective).

• Choice: translation of will into concrete act (practical).

• Fate: cosmic or divine framework (metaphysical).

• Compulsion: strict negation of will/choice (absolute determinism).

Together, these notions sketch the terrain of human action: will and choice reflect inner agency; fate and compulsion reflect outer frameworks. The paradox: man constantly lives between them—asserting agency within a world bounded by necessity.

Conclusion

Distinguishing will, choice, fate, and compulsion reveals that the freedom-determinism debate is not mere semantics but a struggle over the image of the human being: agent of destiny, or subject of necessity? The complexity of human existence lies in oscillation between inner will striving for sovereignty and external forces—cosmic, social, metaphysical—that constrain. Philosophy’s task is not to deny one side but to illuminate their dialectical relationship.

Thus, any serious inquiry into freedom and determinism must begin with this conceptual clarification, for it enables us to grasp the true complexity of human existence: an existence suspended between self-driven will and conditioning necessity.

Third: The Historical Dimension of the Debate

The dialectic of freedom and determinism is not merely a contemporary issue; it is among the oldest questions that have confronted philosophical and theological thought since its very inception. Each historical era reformulated the question in its own way, in accordance with its particular vision of the world, of humanity, and of humanity’s place in the cosmos. Thus, tracing the historical dimension of this debate is not a mere chronological survey, but rather an intellectual journey that reveals how human beings have redefined their self-understanding in relation to shifts in knowledge and cultural frameworks.

In ancient Greek philosophy, the discussion began with the question of cosmic necessity: does nature proceed according to inescapable deterministic laws, or does the human being retain a sphere for the exercise of freedom? The Stoics expressed a rigorous determinism, while Aristotle opened a space for real possibilities that made human action part of a network of multiple causes.

Later, medieval religious thought added a new metaphysical dimension: the issue of divine decree (qadāʾ wa-qadar) and its relation to human responsibility. Here, major theological and philosophical schools took shape: some argued that the human being is completely “compelled” in their actions, while others affirmed human “capacity” and free choice—an attempt to reconcile divine justice with human freedom.

In the modern era, with the rise of natural science and rationalist philosophy, the question re-emerged in new guise: do the mechanical laws of nature leave room for human freedom? With Spinoza, Leibniz, and Descartes, the debate took on a strictly rational form, while with Kant and Hegel it shifted toward grounding freedom in reason, spirit, and history.

In contemporary philosophy, the debate exploded within new contexts: existentialism made freedom an inescapable burden, psychoanalysis uncovered the constraints of the unconscious, Marxist thought linked freedom to liberation from social and economic conditions, while modern physics unsettled the strictness of natural determinism.

Thus, the historical dimension shows us that freedom and determinism have never been posed as separate issues, but as interdependent poles within the question of human existence. What has changed over time was not the essence of the question, but the modes of expressing it and the strategies for attempting its resolution.

Accordingly, one can say that the debate between freedom and determinism has always reflected humanity’s self-image in each epoch. When the cosmos was understood as a system of gods or mysterious natural forces, the question appeared in religious-metaphysical form; when the cosmos came to be read in the language of scientific laws, the debate took on a rational-mechanistic character; and with the emergence of self-consciousness and existential awareness, it became an existential and ethical problem. This historical unfolding not only reveals the richness of the issue but also shows that it remains an open question—one that renews itself with every epistemic and civilizational transformation.

1. Greek Philosophy

• Socrates and Plato: Freedom as knowledge of truth and the good.

• Aristotle: The notion of voluntary choice and practical reason.

The issue of freedom and determinism did not arise in a vacuum; it took shape within a Greek horizon that saw the cosmos as an ordered kosmos governed by nomos (laws) and logos (reason/order), where human action was measured against the standards of virtue, justice, and its fitness for the polis. Before Socrates, the ethical question was intertwined with the myth of fate (moira) and anankē (necessity), where impersonal forces pulled the human being, and events were explained through a mixture of chance, cunning, and divine awe.

With Socrates, then Plato and Aristotle, the debate moved from the field of myth into rational inquiry that redefined freedom as a matter of knowledge, intention, and rational deliberation, and recast determinism as a natural and moral order to be understood rather than blindly submitted to. Within this horizon, two foundational ideas took shape:

1. Freedom as the rule of the rational self over its impulses, through knowledge of truth and the good.

2. Responsibility as the condition for virtue, praise, and blame, tied to the notions of voluntary choice and prudent deliberation.

First: Socrates and Plato — Freedom as Knowledge of Truth and the Good

1) Socrates: Virtue as Knowledge, Ignorance as the Root of Disorder
Socrates advances what is known as moral rationalism: “No one chooses evil knowingly”—evil is the fruit of ignorance of what is truly good. In this sense, freedom is grounded in enlightenment: to know the good with a living, demonstrative knowledge that enables me to act upon it.

• The dialogical method (elenchus): Socrates does not provide ready-made answers; through dialogue, he reveals contradictions in the interlocutor’s positions, liberating them from the illusion of knowledge. Liberation from illusion is the first step toward a freedom of sound action.

• Self-mastery (enkrateia) and the denial of inner compulsion: When one acts against what one sees as good, this—in the Socratic view—is not due to an evil will, but to a deficiency in understanding or a mistaken conception of benefits. Thus, weakness of will (akrasia) is reinterpreted as a cognitive shortcoming, not as a dualism between a rational will and a conquering passion.

• The civic foundation: Freedom is not an isolated individual emancipation, but a civic competence exercised in the public sphere of discussion, where truth is tested and responsibility for speech and action is established.

Limits and Problems:
The Socratic conception is often accused of dissolving the will entirely into knowledge: is it enough to know in order to be free? Ethical experience seems more complex: it involves habituation, emotion, and social structures. These limits would later be addressed by Plato, and especially by Aristotle.

2) Plato: Freedom as Harmony under the Rule of Reason and Knowledge of “the Good”
Plato develops the conception from “virtue as knowledge” into a tripartite structure of the soul: rational, spirited, and appetitive. Freedom here is harmony, maintained when the rational part takes the lead according to knowledge of the Forms, above all the Idea of the Good.

• Knowledge and Freedom:

  • In the Allegory of the Cave, freedom is a turning of the gaze from the shadows of opinion to the light of truth; liberation is primarily an intellectual-pedagogical (paideia) act rather than a mere removal of external constraints.

  • Knowledge of the Good is not information, but insight that organizes all desires, so that the will becomes a “choice of the true” rather than a following of passions.

• The Politics of Freedom:

  • In the Republic, the just political order mirrors the structure of the soul; a citizen’s freedom is realized through participation in a rational system governed by philosophers. Here, freedom shifts from a mere individual right to a function within a just whole.

  • “Rule of reason” does not necessarily mean oppressive tutelage; it means that political decision should be founded on knowledge of the common good, not on fluctuating opinion.

• Necessity and Freedom (Anankē and Nous) in the Timaeus:
  Plato distinguishes necessity as blind material constraint from reason, which “persuades” necessity and organizes it. Necessity is not the negation of freedom, but matter to be shaped by reason. In the Myth of Er, responsibility is confirmed through the souls’ choosing of their lives before birth: fate sets the framework, but choice seals the path.

Limits and Problems:
Plato’s vision is criticized for its elitism (reserving the highest freedom for philosophers) and for legitimizing paternalism by making reason the ruler. Yet its strength lies in presenting freedom as the creation of inner harmony and as an educational process, not a moment of sheer release.

Second: Aristotle — Voluntary Choice and Practical Reason (phronēsis)

If Socrates and Plato framed freedom in terms of knowledge and the order of soul and city, Aristotle brings the analysis down to the mechanisms of action: when is my act worthy of praise or blame? What makes an action truly “mine”? Here, conceptual tools are articulated that remain normative to this day.

1. The Voluntary and the Involuntary: The Criterion of Responsibility
   In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes:

• Voluntary (hekousion): action arising from the agent with awareness of the circumstances and without external compulsion, such that the initiative is theirs and imputable to them.

• Involuntary (akousion): action resulting from coercion (an external force moving the body against the agent’s intention) or from ignorance of particulars (not knowing who, what, when, how…).

• Mixed actions: e.g., jettisoning cargo to save a ship; coercive in one respect, chosen in another. Aristotle allows degrees of voluntariness, opening the way to a realistic understanding of responsibility.

2. “Choice” (prohairesis): The Core of Moral Action
   Aristotle differentiates:

• Desire (orexis): general inclination.

• Wish (boulēsis): orientation toward an end conceived as good.

• Deliberation (bouleusis): examination of possible means to attain the end.

• Choice (prohairesis): a rational decision concerning the means after deliberation.

Thus, choice is not spontaneous impulse; it is the outcome of rational reflection, and therefore the sharpest criterion of responsibility: “We are praised or blamed for what is by our choice.”

3. Practical Reason (phronēsis) and the Practical Syllogism
   It is not enough to know principles; one must know how to apply them to particulars.

• Phronēsis is the capacity to discern what ought to be done “here and now,” in light of the ethical goal (virtue) and the real circumstances.

• The practical syllogism: from a major ethical premise (“Health ought to be preserved”) and a minor factual premise (“This food is harmful now”), an action follows (“I abstain”). Freedom here is the competence to respond to reasons in a way that expresses the agent’s moral identity.

4. “What Is Up to Us” (eph’ hēmin): The Sphere of Power and Responsibility
   Aristotle establishes the principle of “what depends on us”: the origin of action must lie within, not in external coercion. But he adds a crucial complication: moral character is acquired through habituation (hexis). We are responsible for our actions, and thereby for shaping our dispositions through practice; over time, actions become easier or harder according to the habits we have entrenched. Thus, Aristotle blends freedom with long-term causality: we are not blank slates at each moment, but through education we fashion ourselves into agents capable of good action.

5. Chance, Fortune, and Necessity: A Space within Causality
   Aristotle does not reduce the world to mechanical determinism; he accepts chance (automaton) and fortune (tychē) within a broader teleological causality. Still, the criterion of responsibility holds wherever deliberation is possible and choice is available. Freedom is not the negation of causality, but rational agency within it.

Limits and Problems:
Aristotle is criticized for underestimating structural obstacles (poverty, oppression, systemic ignorance) that narrow the sphere of “what is up to us.” Nevertheless, his tools—voluntary/involuntary, choice, phronēsis—remain the language of law and ethics in distinguishing excuse from culpability to this day.

Synthetic Conclusion: From “The Good Liberates” to “Choice Obligates”
In classical Greece, two complementary circles crystallized:

• In Socrates and Plato, freedom is the fruit of knowledge that orders the soul, ties it to truth and the good, and extends into politics as justice and harmony.

• In Aristotle, freedom is a daily practice measured by the agent’s capacity for deliberation and voluntary choice according to practical reason that reads and rightly assesses particulars.

With this legacy, the question moved from the myth of fate to the conceptual grounding of freedom and responsibility: freedom became a rational-ethical competence that can be learned and cultivated, while determinism became an intelligible order rather than a curse that annihilates meaning. This is the foundation on which later ages—religious and modern—would build their different images of humanity between necessity and possibility.

2. Classical Islamic Philosophy

• The Muʿtazilites: Freedom and choice.

• The Ashʿarites: Acquisition (kasb) and determinism.

When Muslims entered the stage of theoretical construction after the conquests and expansion, Islamic culture became a dense arena where the questions of scripture (Qurʾān and Sunna), the experience of the community (justice, authority, responsibility), the tools of reason (logic and dialectic), and the sciences of nature and humanity transmitted through translation all intersected. Within this field, ʿilm al-kalām (theology) and philosophy emerged as two modes—different in rhythm—of inaugurating a rational language to clarify “how God is as He has described Himself” without nullifying His attributes or likening Him to creation, and to clarify “how the human being is responsible” in a world that proclaims God’s absolute unity and all-encompassing power and will.

The question of freedom and determinism was neither extraneous nor superfluous; it arose from Qurʾānic passages that simultaneously affirm God’s prior knowledge and universal will—“And God created you and what you do”—while also placing obligation, promise, and threat upon humankind—“Let whoever wills believe, and let whoever wills disbelieve.” From early political and social experience (the fitna, questions of rule and justice) emerged the first designations: the Qadariyya, who stressed choice, and the Jabriyya, who affirmed the universality of divine decree. Later, two great systems were formulated within kalām: the Muʿtazilites—who made “justice and unity” the poles of their worldview, seeing freedom as a condition of divine justice—and the Ashʿarites—who made “divine power and will” the key to interpreting all existence, seeing in kasb a way to preserve obligation without compromising divine unity. Between these two approaches, a rich classical Islamic philosophy took shape, marrying exaltation and evaluation: exalting God in the fullness of His attributes, and evaluating human acts through the scales of responsibility and recompense.

What follows is a deeper reading of this dialectic in its two major systems, with attention to the metaphysical starting points, the ethical-legal implications, the conception of causality, and how from all this emerges a specific concept of freedom and determinism.

I. The Muʿtazilites — Freedom and Choice as Conditions of Justice

1. Foundational Principles: Justice, Unity, and Rational Good and Evil
The Muʿtazilites established “justice” (ʿadl) and “unity” (tawḥīd) as two supreme principles:

• Unity meant a strict transcendence of God above being attributed with injustice or evil, and a transcendence above anthropomorphism or corporealization.

• Justice required that no one be punished for what he could not prevent, that God not impose the impossible, and that the beneficent be rewarded while the wrongdoer is punished.

To safeguard these principles, they adopted the doctrine of rational good and evil: reason has the capacity to perceive moral values a priori (e.g., injustice is inherently evil, truthfulness inherently good). Thus, an act does not become good merely because the Lawgiver commands it; rather, divine command corresponds to what is already good in itself. In this scheme, human choice is indispensable: for how could divine justice be conceived if the servant lacked the power to act otherwise?

2. Creation of Acts and Power Prior to Action
Against the Jabriyya, the Muʿtazilites argued that human acts are of their own acquisition and creation—in the sense that they are the true agents producing them in the world—while still affirming that God is the creator of essences, decrees, capacities, and laws. They distinguished between power (capacity) and action, holding that power precedes the act and accompanies it continually: the servant possesses genuine ability before acting, and by this the obligation is valid and praise or blame becomes meaningful. If power exists only simultaneous with the act (as other schools claimed), then the capacity for the contrary is null, and the ground for blame or reward collapses.

3. Causality, Generation, and Responsibility for Consequences
They developed the concept of tawallud (generation): a person may perform a direct act from which indirect effects are generated (e.g., one who pushes another, causing him to fall and break). The Muʿtazilites held the agent responsible for these generated consequences, so long as they are preceded by his voluntary act. This widened the scope of responsibility ethically and legally, and affirmed the efficacy of natural and social causes within God’s universal will (without denying created causality).

4. Divine Foreknowledge and the Problem of Evil
They affirmed God’s prior knowledge of all that will be, but denied that this entails determinism: God’s knowledge discloses, it does not compel; His will does not attach to sin with approval or love. Hence their principle of luṭf / aṣlaḥ (“grace/what is most beneficial”): it is incumbent—according to justice—that God do for His servants what is best for their religion, by enabling the means conducive to obedience. Critics charged them with “obligating God,” to which they replied that this is not coercion of His power but an affirmation of His wisdom and justice—the “obligation” here being normative, not coercive.

5. Ethical and Political Implications
This vision leads to:

• A responsible obligation that forbids excusing oneself with destiny: “I am not compelled; I am accountable for what I have acquired.”

• Judicial justice attentive to intent, ability, and circumstances, holding the agent liable for generated consequences.

• Reformist ethics: since God does what is best, the world is open to human reform—through education, knowledge, and just governance.

Criticism: Opponents accused them of diminishing divine sovereignty and introducing into existence agents independent of God. The Muʿtazilites responded that the servant’s agency is created by God as empowerment, yet genuine enough to preserve justice. They were also challenged on rational good and evil: can reason always discern values without revelation? They replied that revelation completes reason’s perception without abolishing it.

II. The Ashʿarites — Kasb and Determinism Between Exaltation and Obligation

1. Premises: Unity as Universal Will and Power
The Ashʿarites took the proclamation of unity to its utmost: “There is no effective cause in existence except God.” This later became the school’s slogan. Everything in the world—substances and accidents—is created by God and continually renewed; the human being is the locus where acts occur, not their independent creator. In this way, they safeguarded the universality of God’s will (what God wills comes to be, what He does not will does not), and the universality of His power (no incapacity, no rival in His dominion).

2. The Theory of Kasb (Acquisition): Acts Created by God, Attributed to the Servant
To preserve obligation and responsibility while affirming divine creation of all acts, they devised the doctrine of kasb:

• Roughly defined: Kasb is that God creates the act at the moment when the servant’s capacity and will are conjoined with it, so that the act is attributed to the servant as “acquired” and to God as “created.” The capacity and will that arise in the servant—both created by God—relate to the act, making the servant its immediate performer (but not its independent originator). On this basis, accountability is built.

• Power accompanies the act, not preceding it: genuine capacity in Ashʿarite doctrine is simultaneous with the act, not prior to it; otherwise one would have to admit “the suspension of God’s power” or posit an independent creator. The possibility of contraries in the future is a legal/linguistic concept, not a philosophical causal one.

3. Causality and Custom: The Doctrine of “Concomitance” or “Habits”
In their cosmology, they adopted atomism and accidents: the world is composed of indivisible atoms and accidents continually re-created moment by moment. Causes have no intrinsic efficacy; rather, God’s custom is that causes are conjoined with effects (fire with burning, the knife with cutting). God may break the custom (miracles, saintly wonders). Thus, no argument for necessary causality in nature competes with divine power.

• Effect on freedom: Denying “natural necessity” does not mean denying cosmic order; it makes human action an acquired event within a theater of perpetual creation.

4. Good and Evil: Legal, Not Rational
In contrast with the Muʿtazilites, the Ashʿarites held that good and evil are legal in origin: what the Lawgiver deems good is good, and what He deems evil is evil—not arbitrarily, but because God’s will is the ultimate reference, and reason is guided by revelation, not judge over it. Thus they interpreted the verse “God does not burden a soul beyond its capacity” as referring to simultaneous capacity, making obligation rational even without prior ability as the Muʿtazilites required.

5. Divine Justice and the Problem of Evil
Evil, for the Ashʿarites, is created by God in a general sense, but not loved nor commanded by Him; the servant is accountable for his choice that accompanies the act created in him. God’s creation of evil does not imply injustice; injustice, in their definition, is to dispose of another’s property, which is inconceivable regarding God. Justice is thus understood divinely, not by pre-established human standards.

6. Ethical and Political Implications

• Exaltation of divine unity and constant dependence: the servant is never independent from his Creator, nurturing trust and awe.

• Preservation of obligation: through kasb, acts are attributed to the servant and subject to reward and punishment.

• Flexible causality: acknowledgment of customs allows for divine interruption and reinforces intellectual humility before the divine will.

Criticism: The Ashʿarites were accused of being disguised determinists: if God creates all acts, what real meaning does human choice have? They answered that determinism is the negation of choice and intent, whereas they affirm choice and acquisition, though not independent creation. They were also faulted for undermining causality in a way that weakens the sciences; their defenders replied that they denied intrinsic necessity, not observed regularity, and that the concept of “habits” supports the experimental method rather than deifying nature.

A Synthetic Comparison: From “Justice First” to “Unity First”

The profound difference between the two schools can be simplified into two logics:

1. The Logic of Moral Consideration (Muʿtazilites):

• Begins with justice as an a priori rational principle.

• Defines freedom as a prior capacity for action that enables the possibility of alternatives, making the human being the true originator of his acts within a world created by God.

• Causality is acknowledged in the world, and responsibility for results extends to indirect outcomes.

• Evil is attributed to human action, while God’s foreknowledge does not entail compulsion.

2. The Logic of Metaphysical Exaltation (Ashʿarites):

• Begins with the universality of divine will and power: nothing exists except by God’s creation.

• Defines freedom as choice and acquisition (kasb) with concurrent capacity; creation belongs to God alone.

• Natural causality is custom, not necessity: it unfolds by God’s will and may be suspended by divine intervention.

• Evil is created but not intended legally or morally, and injustice is impossible for God by definition.

In this sense, kasb may be seen as a form of compatibilism: an attempt to reconcile the absolute determinism of divine creation with a notional sphere of human responsibility. By contrast, the Muʿtazilite view is closer to liberating human moral agency within the general framework of God’s creation, ensuring a justice intelligible to reason.

Impact of the Dispute on Law, Ethics, and Spirituality

1. In Law and Jurisprudence:

• For the Muʿtazilites, greater weight is given to intent, ability, and circumstances, with the agent held responsible even for indirect consequences.

• For the Ashʿarites, emphasis is placed on the presence of choice as the ground of obligation, with coercion and ignorance often seen as exempting factors—while natural causality is not treated as independently binding.

2. In Practical Ethics:

• The Muʿtazilite view elevates ethical reasoning and the reform of social and political conditions (since what is best must be pursued).

• The Ashʿarite view elevates reliance on God (tawakkul) and vigilance, warning against pride in one’s capacity, for the servant never departs from the Creator’s dominion.

3. In Spirituality:
   Both perspectives enrich Sufism with a dual nourishment:

• Ashʿarite: humility and release from self-conceit.

• Muʿtazilite: responsibility and the striving of the soul.

Mutual Objections and Possibilities of Synthesis

• Muʿtazilite objection: Kasb does not explain how the servant deserves blame for an act created by another.

  • Ashʿarite reply: Deserving blame hinges on choice and direct performance, not on the act of creation itself. “Compulsion” means denying choice, not denying creation.

• Ashʿarite objection: Attributing creation of acts to humans posits a partner in origination, undermining divine omnipotence.

  • Muʿtazilite reply: Human agency is itself created and empowered by God; it does not entail ontological independence, thus no partnership or rivalry.

From a contemporary philosophical standpoint, this can be seen as a dispute over the definition of freedom:

• Is it a metaphysical ability for real alternatives that precedes the act? (Muʿtazilite)

• Or is it a practical capacity for choice and responsiveness to reasons that accompanies the act? (Ashʿarite)

Conclusion: A Productive Dialectic, Not a Nullifying Conflict

This history cannot be reduced to “reason versus revelation” or “freedom versus predestination.” The Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites built conceptual frameworks still capable of enriching contemporary debates: between ethics that struggle to expand the real space of choice (through education, justice, and institutions) and a metaphysics that reminds humanity of its limits before the Absolute.

If the aim of inquiry is to uncover a fertile dialectic between freedom and determinism, these two systems teach us that the path lies neither in absolving responsibility through delegation, nor in absolutizing human will, but in a synthesis: freedom as a human project within God’s encompassing creation—responsibility that strives, humility that submits, and reason that reflects.

3. Modern and Contemporary Thought

• Descartes and Kant: Free will as the foundation of ethics.
• Spinoza and Hume: Determinism and rationalism.
• Sartre and Camus: Existential freedom and confronting the absurd.

When philosophy transitioned from the Middle Ages to modernity, the debate on freedom and determinism was not a mere continuation of earlier discussions. Rather, it underwent a radical transformation in the epistemic framework that housed it. In Greek philosophy, the human being was seen as a rational creature striving for the good within a rational cosmic order. In Islamic philosophy, the human being was understood as God’s vicegerent on earth, with freedom and destiny defined within a metaphysical and theological horizon. In modernity, however, the perspective shifted under the impact of three major events:

1. The Scientific Revolution (from Copernicus to Newton): The world came to be understood as a mechanistic system governed by strict causal laws, raising the sharp question: if the universe is rigidly law-governed, does genuine human freedom still remain possible?

2. The rise of individualism: The human being was no longer merely part of a cosmic or theological order but began to be understood as an independent subject possessing an inherent right to self-determination. Freedom thus shifted from being a metaphysical issue to becoming a political and ethical matter concerning rights, will, and the social contract.

3. Modern existential and epistemic crises: With the rise of critical philosophy (Kant), dialectical thought (Hegel, Marx), existentialism (Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus), psychoanalysis (Freud), and sociology (Durkheim, Weber), the debate expanded beyond the question “Is man free?” to include “How is freedom exercised within the constraints of psychological, social, and economic determinisms?”

In this sense, the debate on freedom and determinism in modern and contemporary thought became more entangled and multidimensional:

• Metaphysically: With Kant and Hegel, where the task was to reconcile freedom with reason, or will with historical necessity.

• Politically and ethically: With Rousseau, Mill, and Berlin, where freedom became the foundation of political legitimacy and human rights.

• Existentially: With Sartre and Camus, where freedom was understood as an existential burden inseparable from the human confrontation with absurdity and nothingness.

• Scientifically and psychologically: With Freud’s unconscious and Marx’s and Durkheim’s social determinisms, the question was reformulated around the limits of individual will within deeper structures.

Thus, modern and contemporary thought shifted the problem of freedom and determinism from a metaphysical-theological frame to an anthropological, historical, and social one. The question was no longer simply whether man is free, but how he perceives and exercises his freedom within a complex world torn between scientific necessities, social structures, economic pressures, and open existential possibilities.

Descartes and Kant: Free Will as the Foundation of Ethics

When modern philosophy moves from questions of being and knowledge to the question of ethics, it discovers that the center of gravity is not “What exists?” nor even “What do I know?” but rather “How do I commit to what ought to be?” At this threshold, free will appears as the hinge that links reason to action: knowing the good is insufficient unless the self can legislate for itself and commit to what it recognizes. In this horizon arise two distinct yet neighboring projects: Descartes, who ties freedom to clarity of reason and sovereignty over the self; and Kant, who equates freedom with self-legislation (autonomy) and transforms it into the condition of possibility for morality as such. Both proceed from modern rationalism, yet they grant will and its relation to the good different structures.

I. Descartes — Freedom as Sovereignty of the Rational Self and Moral Sufficiency

1. Architecture of the soul: finite intellect, infinite will
   Descartes distinguishes between understanding and will: understanding is finite, limited to what is clearly perceived, whereas will is infinite in its capacity to affirm or deny, to accept or reject, to advance or withhold. Human dignity thus arises not from how much one knows, but from the ability to choose even when clarity is lacking. This disproportion—an infinite will with a finite intellect—is at once the site of peril and of virtue.

2. Origin of error and practical ethics: when will outruns reason
   Error, for Descartes, is the misuse of freedom: the will extends judgment beyond the clear and distinct, affirming or denying without sufficient grounds. The remedy is both ethical and epistemic: suspend judgment in cases of doubt, and restrain the will to follow reason’s lead. A core virtue emerges here: firmness or resolve—the commitment to act on what appears good enough, without dissipating will in sterile hesitation.

3. Freedom of indifference vs. freedom of attraction to the clear
   Descartes distinguishes:

• Freedom of indifference: the ability to choose this or that in the absence of a compelling reason. This is the lowest grade of freedom, reflecting lack of knowledge rather than greatness.

• Full freedom: the more clarity and distinctness the intellect achieves, the more the will is drawn to truth and goodness without compulsion. The act remains free because it proceeds from the self, not external constraint. Thus knowledge liberates rather than constrains.

4. God as ontological guarantee
   Human freedom does not compete with God’s sovereignty. God creates us, bestows freedom, and establishes a rationally ordered world. Freedom is a divine gift, and exercising it manifests our perfection. Conscience thus expresses alignment with the rational order of creation, not a futile clash with blind fate.

5. From “provisional morality” to “generosity of spirit”
   In the Discourse on Method, Descartes offers a provisional morality: obey the laws of one’s country, be firm in resolution, master oneself rather than fortune, and change desires rather than the order of the world. These maxims are not mere compliance but a training in inner sovereignty. In Passions of the Soul, the ethical picture culminates in the virtue of generosity: the lucid self-estimation that recognizes our true good lies in the right use of will. The generous person does not boast, knowing dignity rests not on fortune but on free rational choice.

6. Cartesian synthesis: ethics of self-sovereignty
   Descartes’ ethics rests on:

• Freedom as the ability to act according to what reason perceives.

• Responsibility as restraining will within the bounds of understanding.

• Dignity as generosity of spirit: value measured not by outcomes but by the quality of choice.

Freedom thus becomes an educative faculty, strengthened by knowledge, exercised in reflection and control of passion, yielding firmness and serenity.

II. Kant — Freedom as “Self-Legislation” and A Priori Condition of Morality

1. Starting point: the good will as the only unconditional good
   Kant begins with a radical claim: nothing is good without qualification except the good will. Talents, intelligence, happiness—all may become evil if not guided by a will that respects the moral law. Morality is thus grounded not in results or inclinations but in the form of duty.

2. From negative to positive freedom
   Kant defines freedom in two senses:

• Negative: independence from natural determinism and inclinations.

• Positive: autonomy—the will as self-legislator, giving itself the law it must follow. True freedom is acting not according to desire, but according to reason’s law.

3. The moral law and the categorical imperative
   The moral law is embodied in the categorical imperative:

• Formula of universality: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become universal law.”

• Formula of humanity: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.”

• Formula of the kingdom of ends: act as if you were a lawgiving member in a community of rational beings.

The law is not imposed externally but arises from reason itself. Obedience to it is freedom, not coercion; it is respect (Achtung) reason has for itself.

4. Reconciling freedom with determinism
   Kant maintains determinism in the phenomenal realm (the world of appearances), but posits freedom in the noumenal realm (the self as rational agent). We belong to both:

• As phenomena, our actions are causally determined.

• As noumenal beings, we originate actions freely.

Freedom cannot be proven theoretically but is a necessary postulate of practical reason: without freedom, duty would be meaningless. The “fact of reason”—the presence of the moral law within us—is our practical proof of freedom.

5. Moral motivation and virtue
   Morality lies not in inclination but in respect for the law. Virtue is the strength of will to prioritize duty over contrary inclinations. Happiness is not the measure of morality, though Kant envisions an ultimate harmony (the highest good) between virtue and happiness.

6. Dignity, accountability, and responsibility
   Because the person is autonomous, he is an end in himself. Here lies dignity: what has no price. Human rights and moral responsibility flow from this autonomy. We are accountable because we are free; our rights are grounded in our rational self-legislation, not granted as favors.

III. Convergences and Divergences — From Rational Sovereignty to Rational Legislation

Convergences:

• Both ground ethics in reason.

• Both link responsibility to freedom.

• Both universalize morality: Descartes through clarity and non-contradiction, Kant through the categorical imperative.

Divergences:

• Ontology of freedom: Descartes roots it in the expansive sovereignty of will under divine guarantee; Kant in autonomous self-legislation, independent of empirical goods.

• Relation to knowledge: Descartes ties freedom’s perfection to increasing knowledge; Kant insists morality depends not on knowledge but on the motive of duty.

• Moral motivation: Descartes prizes generosity and firmness of spirit; Kant insists only respect for the law grants moral worth.

• Determinism: Descartes resolves it theologically—God creates rational order and guarantees our freedom; Kant resolves it epistemically—determinism governs appearances, freedom governs the noumenal self.

IV. Parallel Objections and Integrative Insights

1. Does Descartes’ rationalism lead to elitism?
   Cartesian reply: virtue is not the privilege of geometers but rests on each person’s ability to act according to what is sufficiently clear, suspending judgment when uncertain.

2. Is Kantian ethics too dry, leaving no room for inclination?
   Kant’s clarification: inclinations are not excluded, but they cannot ground morality. They may align with duty, but moral worth derives from respect, not desire.

3. Can freedom be reconciled with determinism?
   Descartes offers a theological-rational reconciliation; Kant offers a practical-epistemic one: we must act as free, because the moral law obliges us.

Conclusion: From “Right Use of Will” to “Self-Legislating Autonomy”

Descartes redefined ethics as the wise governance of will under the light of reason, transforming freedom from whim into inner sovereignty that yields serenity and generosity. Kant recast ethics as a purely normative structure: freedom is not just the ability to act, but reason’s right to legislate for itself, grounding dignity, duty, and universality.

Between Cartesian sovereignty and Kantian autonomy, the modern ethical project emerges: man is responsible because he is free, and free because he is rational—not because fortune favors him, nor because nature releases him, but because within him lies a source of obligation irreducible to inclination and unborrowed from the outside. Here the deeper meaning of ethics is established: for the will to say yes to what reason commands, and to fashion from that yes a life worthy of respect.

• Spinoza and Hume: Determinism and Rationality

If freedom in Descartes and Kant is founded on the will and practical reason, Spinoza and Hume reformulate the question at its root: is freedom the capacity of the will to initiate action by itself, or merely an illusion born of our ignorance of causes? Could determinism itself be a path toward a deeper understanding of freedom rather than its negation?

Spinoza and Hume both belong to a decisive moment in modern thought: each confronts the theological tendency that attributes to humans unlimited power, and instead proposes a rationalist/empiricist vision in which nature and the mind are parts of an inescapable causal order. Yet neither succumbs to pessimism; both attempt to redefine freedom in harmony with necessity: for Spinoza, as awareness of causality; for Hume, as the concord between necessity and human nature.

I. Spinoza — Freedom as Understanding Necessity

1. The cosmic order and the one substance
   In Spinoza’s philosophy, there exists only one substance: God/Nature (Deus sive Natura). Everything that exists is but an expression of its attributes and eternal laws. The world is not ruled by chance or arbitrary will, but unfolds through strict necessity.

2. The illusion of free will
   Humans imagine they are free only because they are ignorant of the true causes behind their actions. We are conscious of our actions but not of their causes. Just as a stone, if conscious, might believe it falls because it wills to fall, so too do humans believe they choose freely, while in truth they are driven by natural and psychological causes.

3. Freedom as awareness of necessity
   Spinoza does not deny freedom altogether; he redefines it. To be free is to understand the cause that determines you. Ignorance of causes makes us slaves to passions, while rational understanding of nature and the mind transforms us into rational agents. Freedom is not detachment from necessity, but deep awareness of it. When we recognize that all things arise from the divine/natural order, we reconcile ourselves with necessity and attain a state of beatitudo—intellectual love of God.

4. Rational ethics and the “free man”
   Spinoza defines the “free man” as one who lives under the guidance of reason, overcoming destructive passions (envy, anger, fear…) by transforming them into clear and distinct ideas. Freedom is inseparable from virtue: to live rationally is to live virtuously, in harmony with nature rather than in the illusion of separation from it.

II. Hume — Determinism as a Condition for Moral and Practical Life

1. Causality and habit
   For Hume, the empiricist, our notion of causality does not rest on perceiving a necessary connection in reality but on mental habit formed by repeated conjunctions of events. Yet human life is impossible without belief in necessity—it is the very condition for practical knowledge.

2. The illusion of absolute freedom
   Hume rejects the idea of absolute freedom, which supposes the will can act outside the chain of causes. Every human action is the natural result of prior motives, character, and circumstances. If an act arose from sheer randomness, it would not be human action at all but chaos.

3. Freedom as “acting according to the will”
   Hume defines freedom in empirical terms: it is not the absence of causality, but the capacity to act as one wills, so long as no external constraints intervene. If I wish to walk and I do so, I am free. If I am bound in chains or coerced, my freedom is denied. Freedom, then, is harmony between action and will, not independence from causes.

4. Compatibilism: necessity as the ground of responsibility
   For Hume, moral responsibility requires determinism rather than negating it. We do not blame someone for an action unless we believe it expresses their character and prior choices. If the act were random, praise and blame would be meaningless. Responsibility is secured by necessity, not abolished by it.

5. Emotion as the basis of morality
   Unlike Spinoza, who places reason at the core of freedom, Hume situates morality in the passions. Reason alone is “the slave of the passions”; it guides means but does not set ends. Human freedom consists in acting from our motives and dispositions, recognizing that our psychological nature itself belongs to the causal order.

III. Comparative Synthesis

1. Concept of freedom

• Spinoza: freedom = awareness of necessity, realized through reason.

• Hume: freedom = alignment of action with will, realized in harmony between motives and circumstances.

2. View of causality

• Spinoza: causality is absolute and metaphysical, grounded in eternal substance.

• Hume: causality is psychological habit, a mental expectation necessary for human life.

3. Ethics and virtue

• Spinoza: virtue is rational; freedom = living by reason.

• Hume: virtue is sentimental; morality arises from feeling and social sympathy.

4. Reconciling freedom and necessity

• Spinoza: reconciliation through rational knowledge and acceptance.

• Hume: reconciliation through practical compatibilism—necessity and freedom coexist in human action.

Conclusion: Freedom as Rational Insight or Harmony with Nature

For Spinoza, the highest freedom lies in recognizing oneself as part of the cosmic order, achieving intellectual serenity that transcends the passions. For Hume, freedom means acting according to one’s will and dispositions within the causal fabric of life.

Thus both deny absolute freedom, yet they diverge on where freedom resides: Spinoza places it in rational contemplation, Hume in everyday experience shaped by sentiment. Both remind us that freedom is not an escape from nature, but the way we understand necessity—or live in concord with its laws.

Fourth: Types of Determinism and Their Limits

1. Natural determinism: the laws of physics and biology.

2. Psychological determinism: the influence of instincts and early experiences.

3. Social and political determinism: social and cultural structures.

4. Contemporary critiques of absolute determinism: quantum physics, chaos theory.

When we pose the question of freedom against determinism, we often imagine a zero-sum opposition: either rigid laws that leave no room for choice, or absolute freedom that escapes all systems. This imagination flattens the picture. In truth, the world—and the human being within it—operates through interwoven layers of causation: physical, biological, psychological, and social. Each layer constrains and enables the others at once; limits restrict and allow, narrowing from one angle while offering “maneuvering space” from another.

Determinism, then, is not a blind wall, but a structure of constraints: some hard and intractable, some flexible and malleable, some even generative of “opportunities” when understood properly (as with laws that enable prediction and action). Likewise, freedom is not an escape from order, but the ability to work with order: to read constraints practically and reconfigure them—through self-discipline, social institutions, and knowledge of nature.

From this perspective, we will consider four major determinist frameworks—natural, psychological, social/political, and contemporary critiques of absolute determinism—asking of each: Where is the constraint strongest? Where does it loosen? And how does a space for human action open within it?

1) Natural Determinism: Laws of Physics and Biology

a) Physics: from Laplace’s Demon to the limits of prediction
Early modernity imagined the universe as a mechanical machine: if an intellect knew every particle’s position and velocity, along with the laws, it could predict the future and recover the past. This is the classical determinist model. Its strength lies in providing practical reliance on nature’s regularity (building bridges, launching spacecraft, treating disease…). Yet it carries a strong metaphysical assumption: that every event is the strict product of a calculable chain of causes.

Its limits:

• Even within classical physics, crises of prediction appear: many-body systems, friction, complexity… we may know the laws but the computations become practically impossible or errors explode (see later: chaos).

• Natural laws provide constraints and frameworks of possibility more than a “fully scripted fate”; they permit wide ranges of states within conservation limits of energy, momentum, etc.

b) Biology: genes, the brain, and the intuition of determinism
“Common sense” tends to reduce behavior to ruling genes or “the brain deciding before us.” Scientifically, heredity, evolution, and neuroanatomy supply crucial factors: predispositions, developmental pathways, and physiological limits (working memory, processing speed, basic emotions…).

Its limits:

• Gene–environment interaction: genes are potentials activated by environments and contexts; the same code can yield different phenotypes depending on nutrition, stress, learning… (“a single gene for a behavior” is an oversimplification).

• Neural plasticity: the brain is shaped by learning, experience, and training; habits reshape pathways, therapy and education reorganize drives and attention.

• Multi-level causation: what occurs at the molecular level is necessary but insufficient to explain intentions and decisions; emergent phenomena at the person-level—such as reasoning and planning—regulate the lower levels (downward causation).

Practical conclusion:
Natural determinism sets a floor and ceiling: no one can jump beyond physiological limits or live without sleep, but within that frame one can enhance performance, expand skills, and reshape habits—a crucial difference between a “closed fate” and “constructible limits.”

2) Psychological Determinism: Instincts and Early Experience

a) Instincts and emotional structures
Humans carry affective equipment: fear, anger, disgust, reward-seeking. These are not external shackles but survival engines. Yet they can become constraints when they hijack attention and decision-making (as with addiction to quick rewards, or aversive biases).

b) Early experience and “internal models”
Childhood weaves templates of expectation about self, others, and the world. Secure attachment expands exploration, while trauma and deprivation may constrict the “window of tolerance,” tinting the future with the colors of the past. Perceptual and behavioral habits also crystallize here.

c) The mind as a prediction machine
In contemporary cognitive science, the mind is a prediction engine that minimizes error between what it expects and what it perceives. Efficient, yes—but this makes us prone to confirmation bias and mental shortcuts. Much of behavior runs on autopilot (habits), as this conserves energy.

Limits and opportunities for liberation:

• Meta-cognitive awareness: noticing how we think weakens bias and allows strategy change.

• Relearning: exposure, cognitive restructuring, attention training, meditation, habit control techniques—these alter “prediction weights” and response pathways.

• Narrative meaning: constructing a new self-story—not cosmetic, but a reorganization of memory, attention, and purpose—reshapes motivation and expands real alternatives.

Psychological conclusion:
Psychological determinism is powerful because it sits close to the steering wheel: habits, inclinations, memories. Yet it is not a locked cage. It is a default steering that can be recalibrated through training and supportive context, making freedom here a cultivated skill.

3) Social and Political Determinism: Social and Cultural Structures

a) Structure and agency
Society provides the rules of the game: language, values, laws, distribution of resources, access to education and work, systems of power and surveillance. In Bourdieu’s terms, we acquire habitus (embodied dispositions to the social field); in Foucault’s terms, power/knowledge systems seep into our bodies and habits. Political economy shows how ownership and technology shape spaces of possibility.

b) Mechanisms of social constraint

• Institutions: defining what is possible or legitimate.

• Classes and networks: access to opportunities and information.

• Discourse and symbols: conferring value and prestige (cultural hegemony).

• Algorithms and platforms today: shaping attention and desire, consumption patterns, and visibility.

c) Where does freedom begin here?

• Capabilities (Sen, Nussbaum): freedom is not mere non-interference but actual capacity to be and to do—having the means and conditions.

• Structures are malleable: rules can be reformed (law, policy, institutions), resources redistributed, symbols reinterpreted.

• Collective agency: many social constraints cannot be broken individually; freedom here is cooperative—unions, rights movements, public education, welfare policies.

Social conclusion:
Social determinism is strong because it “chooses for us” through incentives and structures. Yet these are political limits par excellence: redesignable. Individual freedom expands insofar as our shared institutions expand.

4) Contemporary Critiques of Absolute Determinism: Quantum Physics and Chaos Theory

a) Quantum mechanics: structural uncertainty, not “ready-made freedom”
At the micro-level, physics describes probability distributions, not exact trajectories. The uncertainty principle is not accidental ignorance but structural: certain pairs (position/momentum) cannot both be known with perfect precision. This shakes strict determinism, but does not grant free will: physical randomness is not rational decision.

Cautious lessons:

• Quantum mechanics undermines absolute determinism, but does not directly establish human freedom.

• At macro scales, decoherence stabilizes behavior into approximate deterministic/statistical regularities—restoring usable “classicality” for everyday life.

b) Chaos theory: sensitivity to initial conditions within a deterministic system
Chaos is not the denial of determinism; chaotic systems are deterministic but extremely sensitive to initial conditions—tiny differences amplify quickly (weather is the classic case). The result: practical limits of prediction even with known laws.

Cautious lessons:
“Difficult prediction” ≠ “metaphysical freedom.” Yet it teaches that a deterministic world may still be computationally intractable, opening a case for resilience policies rather than total control.

c) Complexity, emergence, and multi-level determination
Complexity science shows how dense interactions yield new patterns irreducible to parts (flocks, markets, brains). Here arises the idea of enabling constraints: simple rules producing behavioral richness, with higher-level causes organizing the lower (chess rules do not predetermine every game, but shape the space of possibilities).

Scientific-philosophical conclusion:
With quantum, chaos, and complexity, the “omniscient demon” model collapses. We retain reliable regularities, but embedded in a world that is not fully decidable—epistemically and practically—across multiple levels. This weakens absolute determinism without proving unconditional freedom.

Final Synthesis: How Does “Freedom” Work Within These Determinisms?

1. Nature gives hard limits (body, energy, nerves) but allows constructive spaces (education, training, technology).

2. Mind imposes biases and habits but can be reprogrammed through reflection, therapy, discipline, and supportive contexts.

3. Society enforces rules and incentives but permits rule-change through collective action, institutions, and rights.

4. Science does not offer free will on a platter of randomness, but it demolishes certainty in absolute determinism and affirms limits of prediction—inviting models of practical freedom: freedom as the capacity to respond to reasons and to redesign constraints themselves.

Seen this way, freedom is not the negation of causality but the art of working within it:

• At the individual level: building habits, expanding awareness, regulating drives, learning skills, shaping personal environments to draw near to the desirable and away from the harmful.

• At the collective level: designing institutions that reduce structural coercion, expand people’s actual capabilities, distribute risks, and ensure opportunities for learning and dignity.

• At the epistemic level: humility before uncertainty, and reliance on strategies of resilience (redundancy, slack, feedback) rather than the dream of total control.

The larger conclusion:
Determinisms exist and are multiple; some rigid, some flexible, some generative of opportunities. Our freedom is not what remains after deducting them, but how we transform constraints into possibilities. Freedom is a constructive project: knowing what binds us, and making of it what liberates us.

Thus the question shifts from “Are we free or determined?” to “How do we become free—individually and collectively—from within what determines us?”

We may add: freedom is only intelligible relative to determinism. Without laws and limits, freedom would lose meaning or value, collapsing into a void without direction. Constraints give human action its ethical and cognitive weight: one is tested only when colliding with limits that demand creativity, resistance, and adaptation.

Hence, freedom is not the negation of determinism but an ongoing dialogue with it: the more we understand the layers of causation and their workings, the more capable we become of turning them from blind fate into instruments of responsible, conscious action.

Determinism does not abolish freedom—it redefines it. It shows that man is not an absolute master of the world, but neither is he its blind slave. Within every natural, psychological, or social system he encounters, he finds a space of openness, where he can choose how to respond to what is imposed. Awareness of determinisms does not lead necessarily to resignation; it may become a source of deeper liberation, making the human being more aware of his responsibility to transform what is “necessary” into what is “possible,” and what is “constraint” into what is “impetus” for growth and innovation.

Fifth: Freedom as Possibility

1. Existential freedom: in Kierkegaard and Sartre.

2. Conditional freedom: historical and social circumstances.

3. Moral freedom: responsibility, duty, conscience.

4. Creative freedom: transcending reality through imagination and art.

When we define freedom as possibility rather than as possession, we shift the place of the question: we no longer ask what freedom we “possess,” as if it were an objective measurable thing, but rather what possibilities open up to us, and what we are actually able to do within a network of natural, psychological, and social constraints. The language of possibility is modal (contrasted with necessity and impossibility), not merely calculative; it concerns a field determined on one side by laws, and expanded on the other by knowledge, habit, institutions, and imagination.

This semantic transformation rescues us from a false dualism: determinism does not abolish possibility, but frames it; constraint is not the negation of freedom but its initiating condition. Constraints create “pathways,” and those who read pathways well can invent new slopes for action. In this sense, freedom is either a constructive project—training the self, designing institutions, investing imagination—or it becomes an empty slogan. What follows are four complementary dimensions of freedom as possibility: existential, conditional, moral, and creative.

1) Existential freedom: Kierkegaard and Sartre

a) Kierkegaard: anxiety as the dizziness of possibility, the leap as realization
For Kierkegaard, freedom is not a “technical capacity” but a subjective experience of openness to the possible. He calls anxiety (Angest) the “dizziness of freedom”: when man gazes into the abyss of possibilities, he becomes dizzy because nothing outside himself decides for him. Anxiety is not a sickness but a sign that we are not bound by blind causality; it is the moment of awareness that we can become what we are not yet.

But possibility alone does not grant life; whoever remains imprisoned in possibility sinks into despair: either despair of “being oneself” (dissolving into social roles), or despair of “not being oneself” (refusing commitment). The remedy is the leap: an existential decision that transforms possibility into real commitment. Thus the individual moves from the aesthetic stage (pleasure and open alternatives), to the ethical (duty and responsibility), and perhaps to the religious (commitment beyond rational proof without abolishing reason).

Kierkegaard’s summary: freedom is not measured by the number of options, but by the ability to take a stand that creates the self amid the seduction of possibilities.

b) Sartre: “existence precedes essence” and freedom as project
Sartre radicalizes the issue: man first exists without a predetermined essence, then makes himself through a project he chooses. Freedom is not an added attribute, but the very structure of human being: “condemned to be free,” meaning there is no escape from choice—even fleeing from it is a choice. Yet freedom does not unfold in a vacuum; there is facticity: body, class, history… These do not erase freedom but define it as a transcendence of givens from within them.

Here appears the notion of bad faith: appealing to givens in order to deny freedom (“that’s just how I am”), or claiming a purely formal freedom that denies reality. Authenticity is to acknowledge one’s condition and still transcend it through action.

Sartre’s summary: freedom is a possibility that makes meaning, nourished by decisions; it is not only “what do I want?” but “what kind of human being shall I be through whom the world is constituted?”

c) Existential convergence
Kierkegaard and Sartre converge in that freedom is openness to possibility, not possession of a given; but they differ in metaphysical ground: the first anchors it in the individual’s relation to the Absolute (the leap and commitment), while the second loads it with purely human meaning (a project without transcendent reference). In both, freedom is realized in committed action, not in infinite optioning.

2) Conditional freedom: historical and social circumstances

a) From “non-restriction” to “effective capacity”
The crucial difference between slogan and practice is that “freedom” is not only absence of legal restraint, but the presence of practical capacity. You may formally be allowed to vote or to study, but without education, health, or income, permission turns into hollow possibility. Here emerges the capabilities approach: freedom means having the means of action that make possibility real.

b) Layers of conditioning

• Material/technical: food, housing, health, digital infrastructure—conditions of possibility for learning, work, expression.

• Institutional/legal: rule of law, separation of powers, guarantees of expression and association, anti-discrimination policies.

• Symbolic/cultural: meanings, values, stereotypes that define “who deserves what.”

• Temporal/historical: institutional legacy and path dependence that narrow or expand choice.

c) How does the margin of action expand?

• Education and skills: turning possibility into tested ability.

• Equalizing policies: risk-sharing (insurance, unemployment benefits), and expanding access (grants, infrastructure), lowering the “cost of error” and enabling experimentation.

• Participatory institutions: unions, civic associations, public platforms—transforming individual strength into collective agency.

• Fair technology: accountable algorithms that increase opportunities instead of reproducing bias.

d) Conclusion
Here, freedom is a politics of possibility: designing environments that enable people to have a project. It is conditional in the sense that it is historically and socially made, measured by the realizable options it grants, not by slogans.

3) Moral freedom: responsibility, duty, conscience

a) From capacity to desert
To be “morally free” it is not enough to have alternatives; one must be addressed by duty and able to respond. Three approaches converge here:

• Deontological: the moral law demanding universality and respect (dignity, non-exploitation).

• Consequentialist: evaluating the effects of action on others’ welfare, avoiding unnecessary harm.

• Virtue ethics: forming character that balances principle with practical wisdom (phronesis).

b) Layers of responsibility

• Intention and will: what we actually meant.

• Available knowledge: what could reasonably have been foreseen.

• Power and control: what was within our reach to change.

• Moral luck: outcomes beyond our control that still draw judgment (reminding us of humility and fairness in blame).

c) Conscience: inner voice or public dialogue?
Conscience is not a mere inner whisper; it is a dialogue between the self, general principles, and concrete human faces. It is shaped by experience, education, and public accountability. Hence freedom of conscience does not mean individual infallibility, but openness to justification, apology, and correction—freedom inseparable from accountability.

d) Conflict and tragedy
We sometimes face conflicts of duties (truth-telling that harms, mercy that breaks a rule). Here practical wisdom operates: ordering priorities, seeking the “least harm,” recognizing that some decisions leave moral residue (legitimate regret). Moral freedom does not promise a contradiction-free world, but trains us to bear consequences.

4) Creative freedom: transcending reality through imagination and art

a) Imagination as laboratory of possibilities
Imagination is not an escape from reality but its laboratory: through stories, images, and music we create possible worlds where we test values, relations, and new forms of life. Thus art expands the field of possibility: redistributing attention, altering what is seen, heard, and felt as possible.

b) Emergence from constraint: generative limitations
Creativity does not flourish in a void; constraints—metrical form, musical scales, genre rules, limited budgets—become engines of generation. He who knows the rule can play with it. Creative freedom is the skill of engaging constraints, not abolishing them.

c) Art as act of resistance
When political or social freedom is narrow, art becomes an alternative space of speech and action: renaming reality, exposing the silenced, forming new communities of sense. Symbolic reshaping sometimes precedes and prepares institutional change.

d) Practical imagination
Imagination feeds design, science, politics: innovative governance, human-centered technology, new curricula… all rely on the ability to envision alternatives and test them. Creative freedom here is the translation of imagination into tools and institutions.

Synthetic Conclusion: The politics of possibility and the cultivation of freedom

Freedom as possibility emerges at the crossroads of four streams:

1. Existentially: to bear the dizziness of possibility and transform it into commitment that creates the self.

2. Socially: to build conditions of effective agency through just institutions, resources, and meaning.

3. Morally: to accept accountability and cultivate practical wisdom for conflicts and regret.

4. Creatively: to expand horizons of the possible through arts and imaginations that produce new practices and tools.

In this view, freedom is not what remains after subtracting constraints, but the art of turning constraints into resources, and the science of expanding the field of possibility step by step: through knowledge that maps pathways, habits that stabilize choices, institutions that lower the cost of experimentation, and imagination that anticipates the world in its coming forms.

If determinism is the destiny of existence, then possibility is the destiny of man: to invent from necessity a path, and from the path a meaning.

Freedom as possibility cannot be completed within a single framework; it requires existential, moral, social, and creative interplay together. It is, on the one hand, the human’s authentic confrontation with anxiety and possibility; on the other, it is historically built through conditions and structures; it is morally tested in the field of responsibility and duty; and it finds in imagination and art its capacity to move beyond the familiar toward the possible. In this sense, freedom is not given ready-made, but continually fashioned as a human project open to the future.

VI. The Dialectic of Freedom and Determinism

1. The Human Between Necessity and Possibility: A Hegelian Perspective

2. Determinism as a Condition of Freedom: The Possibility of Conscious Action Within the Framework of Laws

3. Permanent Tension: How the Conflict Between Them Drives the Development of Thought and Ethics

4. Philosophical Reconciliation: Toward an Integrative Vision

Since the dawn of human thought, questions have never ceased about the position of man between what is imposed upon him and what he chooses of his own will. Are we governed by rigid laws—natural or metaphysical—from which there is no escape? Or are we truly free, capable of shaping our own selves and inventing our destinies despite all constraints? This dilemma is not merely a theoretical debate; it is the very nerve of human experience itself, manifest in every act we perform, every decision we take, every feeling of responsibility or helplessness.

The dialectic of freedom and determinism can only be understood as an ongoing interaction between necessity and choice—between what reality imposes as constraints and what we ourselves create as possibilities. Freedom appears only within a framework of necessity, and determinism is perceived only when it is confronted by refusal or resistance. The relationship between them is not one of absolute negation, but a dialectical one: each presupposes the other and derives its meaning through it.

Philosophical readings of this dialectic have varied across the ages: the Greeks linked freedom to cosmic reason, Islamic theology situated it between God’s justice and will, while modern philosophy combined rationalism and existentialism to show how freedom takes shape within the limits of necessity. Yet the question remains open: can determinism, as comprehensive necessity, be reconciled with freedom as the condition of human dignity?

Thus, the discussion of the dialectic of freedom and determinism is not an attempt to separate them, but a search for how human meaning arises from within this very tension—how man can transform the boundaries of existence into a horizon of creativity and responsibility.

1. The Human Between Necessity and Possibility: A Hegelian Perspective

When the relationship of man to necessity and possibility is posed directly—as if necessity were a solid wall and possibility an open window—we are faced with a flattened dualism that does justice neither to the complexity of reality nor to the dynamism of the self. In the Hegelian horizon, the question shifts from “Am I free or determined?” to a historical–logical question: How does possibility arise from the very heart of necessity through the mediation of negation and determination? How does man become free, not by escaping the network of causes, but to the extent that he understands this network and makes it a self-determination?

For Hegel, necessity is not merely external compulsion, nor possibility a set of floating chances; both are moments within one process—the process of actuality (Wirklichkeit), which emerges through the determinations of being and essence and culminates in concept (Begriff). Within this process, the human self—conceived as spirit (Geist)—moves from blind dependence on nature and custom to self-consciousness embodied in institutions and ethical life. Thus, freedom becomes “the truth of necessity,” not its negation. Hence the famous Hegelian (and later Engelsian) dictum: freedom is the recognition of necessity. Once necessity is understood, assimilated, and reworked in action, it becomes the capacity for self-determination.

We can reconstruct this perspective in four movements:

1. The logic of possibility, necessity, and actuality.

2. The passage of the self from dependence to recognition and labor.

3. The realization of freedom in ethical life and institutions.

4. History as the progress of the consciousness of freedom—while contingency and negativity remain indispensable.

2. Determinism as a Condition of Freedom: Conscious Action Within the Framework of Laws

At first glance, determinism and freedom may appear sworn enemies. Yet closer philosophical analysis reveals a deeper paradox: determinism is not only a limit on freedom, but its essential condition. Free action does not arise in an absolute void or in lawless chaos; it arises in an ordered world that the self can understand, infer consequences within, and plan its projects upon.

1. Laws as the Framework of Consciousness and Will
   Natural, psychological, and social laws give human actions intelligibility and predictability. Without them, no responsibility, planning, or accountability could exist.

2. Determinism and Causal Awareness
   Conscious action presupposes causal understanding: knowing that fire burns, truth fosters trust, and injustice breeds resistance. Far from canceling freedom, such knowledge enables it.

3. From Necessity to Self-Determination
   To grasp laws is to internalize them, turning compulsion into knowledge and tool. The doctor, the engineer, the thinker—all illustrate how necessity becomes material for freedom.

4. Freedom as Action Within the System, Not Outside It
   True freedom is not rupture with laws but movement within their horizon. It is choice among possibilities structured by natural, social, and ethical necessity.

5. The Creative Paradox
   Thus, freedom and determinism are not mutually annihilating opposites but complementary moments: without determinism, no rational action or responsibility; without freedom, determinism is blind fate.

3. Permanent Tension: How Their Conflict Drives the Development of Thought and Ethics

This dialectical tension has been the subterranean engine of philosophy and morality throughout history.

• In Thought: Greek philosophy sought to reconcile cosmic reason with human inquiry; medieval theology negotiated between divine will and human justice; modernity wrestled with the clash of individual autonomy and scientific determinism. Each great intellectual leap has been a response to the question: how to understand freedom in a world of necessity?

• In Ethics: Absolute freedom would dissolve responsibility; absolute determinism would render it meaningless. Moral life emerges precisely between these extremes—Kant’s duty assumes constrained freedom, Aristotle’s virtue cultivates desire within natural and social limits.

• In Human Existence: Daily life dramatizes this tension. We long to transcend constraints yet must live within them. This paradox drives creativity in philosophy, art, religion, and politics. Declarations of rights, revolutions, and scientific breakthroughs alike are attempts to reconfigure the relationship between imposed necessities and human possibilities.

Thus, the tension is not a curse but a fertile horizon—an inexhaustible source of questioning and renewal.

4. Philosophical Reconciliation: Toward an Integrative Vision

Modern and contemporary thought increasingly seeks not to abolish the tension but to reconcile freedom and determinism in an integrative vision.

1. Freedom as the Awareness of Necessity (Spinoza – Hegel)
   For Spinoza, freedom lies in understanding necessity: living in harmony with the causal order rather than enslaved by ignorance. For Hegel, freedom is realized when necessity is grasped as the expression of spirit itself; history is the unfolding of this reconciliation.

2. Man as Conditioned Yet Open
   The human being is neither absolutely free nor absolutely determined: he is conditioned by natural, psychological, and social laws, yet open to redefining these conditions through understanding and creativity.

3. Freedom as Self-Determined Necessity
   In this view, necessity provides the framework; freedom provides the capacity to transform it into new possibilities. Consciousness is the site of mediation: the more we understand necessity, the greater our power to act freely within it.

 Conclusion:
The dialectic of freedom and determinism is not a zero-sum battle but a creative tension. Freedom emerges not outside necessity but through it; determinism ceases to be blind fate when reworked by freedom. Man is not crushed between the two poles but lives as their mediation itself: each deeper recognition of necessity expands his possibilities, and each realized possibility reshapes necessity.

In this lies the dignity of the human: the capacity to turn constraint into resource, cause into means, necessity into freedom.

VII. The Practical Dimensions of the Dialectic

1. Ethics and Responsibility: The impact of belief in freedom or determinism on moral accountability.

2. Law and Justice: Individual responsibility before the law in light of this dialectic.

3. Education and Critical Thinking: Raising individuals with a dual awareness of freedom and constraints.

4. Art and Literature: Creative freedom in the face of artistic and social limitations.

If the philosophical debate between freedom and determinism has long preoccupied minds at the theoretical level, it finds its most sensitive and tangible reflection in the practical domain of everyday human life. Freedom and determinism are not merely metaphysical concepts or abstract controversies that orbit in speculative thought; they are active forces in shaping individual behavior, building social systems, framing laws, and guiding moral and political action. The question of freedom and determinism is thus not about theoretical entities but, in its essence, about how we live, how we choose, and how we build our shared world.

Man does not live as consciousness isolated from reality, but as a being conditioned by nature, society, and history—yet one who continues to experience himself as free, capable of action and change. This paradox, when reflected in the practical realm, generates complex issues: Should criminal responsibility hold even when behavior results from psychological or social pressures? How can punishment or reward be justified if man is, to some degree, determined? Is political freedom an absolute natural right, or is it conditioned by economic and security necessities?

In this sense, the dialectic between freedom and determinism becomes a reference framework for understanding and analyzing the practical phenomena that occupy human beings: from childrearing to legislation, from building morality to defending social justice. It is the dialectic that hides behind every discussion of justice, duty, right, authority, and creativity, for it determines man’s position between being a creature governed by circumstances and a being capable of transcending them.

Accordingly, the study of the practical dimensions of the dialectic is not a mere application of abstract philosophy but its natural extension, where grand questions turn into concrete practices that shape the paths of individuals and societies. Hence the necessity of examining specific fields—individual ethics, law, politics, and education—as arenas in which this dialectic manifests in its most urgent and realistic forms.

Thus, the practical dimensions of the dialectic between freedom and determinism do not represent a projection of theory onto reality; rather, they reveal how this struggle is embodied in our daily lives—in every personal choice, every social relationship, every political or legal stance. It is the moment where philosophical thought is tested on the ground, transforming from metaphysical speculation into a criterion for responsibility, justice, and human dignity.

1. Ethics and Responsibility: The Impact of Belief in Freedom or Determinism on Moral Accountability

When we speak of “moral responsibility,” we are not merely describing a psychological fact but establishing a normative relationship between agent, act, and community: a relation of attribution, blame, praise, correction, or punishment. This relation presupposes an idea of human capacity: Could the agent have acted otherwise? Did he understand what he was doing? Was he in control at the moment of action? Here, the question of freedom and determinism infiltrates the heart of accountability: belief in strong freedom makes blame and praise matters of desert, while belief in strict determinism shifts the language from “desert” to “explanation,” “management,” and “harm prevention.” Most theories of responsibility—whether compatibilist or incompatibilist—are shaped within this tension, and their practical implications are felt in law, politics, and everyday morality.

First: Unpacking Responsibility—Levels and Conditions

Responsibility has layers that must be distinguished before considering metaphysical commitments:

1. Attributability: The act is attributable to the agent as an expression of his self (intentions, values, character), not a mere mechanical movement.

2. Answerability: The agent can be asked to justify or excuse the act; he is a rational being who grasps reasons and outcomes.

3. Accountability: The act incurs organized social responses—blame, censure, punishment, compensation, reform.

These layers generally rest on three conditions:

• Control/Capacity: A reasonable degree of control over action (distinguishing compulsion, coercion, necessity, diminished control).

• Knowledge/Reasoning: Awareness of relevant facts and values, and the ability to reasonably foresee consequences.

• Reasonable Alternatives: Not “metaphysical possibilities,” but practical alternatives within reach.

Responsibility, therefore, is not binary but a spectrum.

Second: The Impact of Belief in “Strong Freedom”

When freedom is understood as an original power to initiate or as the “ability to do otherwise” even under identical conditions, accountability assumes a retributive cast:

• Blame and praise as desert: Punishment and reward are seen as deserved responses, not merely utilitarian tools.

• Centrality of intention: Since choice is free, intent carries weight (distinguishing, e.g., murder from manslaughter).

• Moral empowerment of citizenship: Emphasis on responsibility strengthens concepts of dignity and autonomy, encouraging initiative and ownership of consequences.

• Risk of harshness: If taken without sensitivity to circumstances, this view may lead to severity, overlooking structural factors like poverty or trauma.

Result: Belief in strong freedom energizes personal responsibility but requires corrective safeguards to avoid blind punitive excess.

Third: The Impact of Belief in “Strict Determinism”

If determinism is adopted comprehensively—covering nature, psyche, and society—the language of accountability shifts:

• From desert to management: Punishment is justified for preventive or corrective purposes (deterrence, rehabilitation, protection), not as deserved retribution.

• Expansion of empathy and excuses: Greater focus on causal explanations (disorders, coercive conditions) promotes rehabilitative and restorative justice.

• Risk of moral paralysis: If determinism becomes an all-encompassing narrative, norms may weaken and expectations collapse, producing apathy or fatalism.

Result: Belief in strict determinism fosters compassion but threatens accountability unless balanced by the principle that causal explanation does not erase evaluation.

Fourth: Compatibilist Middle Grounds

Between strong freedom and strict determinism lies a wide compatibilist spectrum: responsibility does not require metaphysical independence from causality but rational control within it.

• Reactive attitudes: Responsibility is justified through human responses like resentment and gratitude, which presuppose mutual recognition.

• Reasons-responsiveness: Agents are responsible insofar as they recognize and respond to reasons across possible scenarios.

• Collapse of strict alternatives: Responsibility holds even without metaphysical alternatives, provided the act reflects the self through a rational, non-coerced pathway.

Thus, compatibilism preserves accountability while absorbing scientific explanations.

Fifth: Moral Luck and Gradations

The notion of moral luck complicates accountability: similar intentions may lead to different results by chance (two reckless drivers, only one causes death). This requires:

• Distinguishing intent from outcome.

• Graded responsibility: negligence < recklessness < intent.

• Allowances for excusing conditions (youth, severe mental illness, coercion).

Sixth: Models of Accountability and Punishment

Different metaphysical commitments produce distinct models:

1. Retributivism: Punishment as deserved response to free choice (strong freedom).

2. Consequentialism: Punishment as tool for deterrence, reform, or protection (determinist leanings).

3. Restorative justice: Repairing relations and reintegrating offenders (bridging freedom and determinism).

4. Hybrid models: Proportionate retribution with rehabilitative measures.

Seventh: Practical Synthesis

The balance can be summarized as “responsibility without absolutism, mercy without exoneration.” Accountability should be gradual, context-sensitive, reform-oriented, and grounded in dignity—for both victim and offender.

Conclusion: Moral responsibility emerges as an intermediate structure between freedom and determinism: it does not assume absolute freedom, nor blind necessity, but rather a human agent accountable insofar as he knows, controls, and responds to reasons—within a community that also works to expand the conditions of freedom.

2. Law and Justice: Individual Responsibility Before the Law in Light of the Dialectic

Philosophy weaves concepts, but law is their social laboratory. Here the dialectic of freedom and determinism is translated into rules of attribution, blame, punishment, and compensation. Man is not judged in a vacuum but within a world conditioned by natural, psychological, and social laws, yet still addressed as an agent capable of responding. Thus, modern law rests on an institutional form of compatibilism: it neither demands absolute metaphysical freedom nor accepts determinism as abolishing responsibility. Instead, it requires a practical ability to respond to reasons within reasonable conditions of knowledge and control.

• Actus Reus & Mens Rea: The law distinguishes the material act from the mental state (intent, recklessness, negligence). Responsibility scales with control and knowledge.

• Excuses & Justifications: The law recognizes determinants that limit responsibility (insanity, duress, mistake) or render acts lawful (self-defense, necessity).

• Legal Luck: Different outcomes from similar recklessness raise fairness challenges; modern systems emphasize the risk created rather than sheer outcome.

• Models of Punishment: Retributive, consequentialist, and restorative models reflect differing weight on freedom and determinism; a balanced system combines desert, prevention, and reintegration.

• Procedural Safeguards: Presumption of innocence, due process, impartial judges—these institutionalize recognition of human cognitive and social limitations.

• Structural Fairness: Beyond formal equality, law must address systemic inequalities (poverty, discrimination) to avoid reproducing them in court.

• Corporate and Group Responsibility: Acknowledging harm that arises from institutional design, not merely individual malice.

• Science in Court: Neuroscience and genetics can inform mitigation or treatment but should not erase normative evaluation.

• Law as Policy for Expanding Real Freedom: Investments in education, health, and social justice reduce the pressures of necessity, increasing meaningful choice.

Synthetic Principle: We hold man accountable for what he can do, and we build conditions that enable him to do more.

Thus, law ceases to be either a hammer of punishment in the name of “choice,” or a sponge that absorbs all responsibility in the name of “circumstance.” It becomes an institutional engineering of freedom: turning necessity into pathways for conscious action, and conscious action into commitments to justice.

4. Art and Literature: Creative Freedom in the Face of Artistic and Social Constraints

Art and literature represent the most immediate field for confronting the dialectic of freedom and determinism. They allow the individual to test his potential beyond the limits of immediate reality, reshaping the world in imagined or symbolic form. Art is not a mere luxury or pastime; it is an existential experience that reveals humanity’s capacity to transcend natural, psychological, and social necessities, transforming constraints into productive elements within the creative process.

First: Artistic Constraints

Even within freedom of expression, the artist is bound by internal and artistic limitations:

1. Language and Style: Words, images, and artistic forms do not grant absolute freedom; they compel specific choices from among limited expressive possibilities.

2. Artistic Rules and Techniques: Poetry, painting, music, and cinema all require engagement with established conventions, making creativity a journey within a bounded space.

3. Personal Practice: Talent alone is insufficient; the artist is subject to his own technical and cognitive capacities, recognizing that inner necessities (such as sensory limits or learning abilities) shape the reach of his vision.

Thus, constraints become integral to the very structure of creativity, pushing the artist toward innovative solutions within finite possibilities.

Second: Social and Political Constraints

Art is never produced in a social vacuum; it is always shaped by norms, values, traditions, and laws:

1. Moral and Religious Norms: These may define what is permissible or forbidden within a given context.

2. Economic and Political Conditions: Censorship, funding, popular culture, and power relations set boundaries for artistic production.

3. Audience Expectations: The public exerts a form of informal censorship, requiring the artist to balance expressive freedom with accessibility and influence.

In facing these necessities, art becomes an act of conscious resistance, transforming restrictions into opportunities for symbolic experimentation and innovation.

Third: Creative Freedom as an Existential Practice

Freedom in art assumes a deeply existential dimension, realized in the individual’s lived experience and direct engagement with reality:

1. Art as Conscious Choice: Every creative act entails ongoing decisions—from selecting themes to employing techniques—in order to shape a unique artistic experience.

2. Art as Psychological Liberation: Through the expression of emotions and imagination, individuals free themselves from internal constraints, whether memories, traumas, or repressed desires.

3. Art as Meaning-Making: Creativity enables reinterpretation of reality and the infusion of meaning into events and phenomena, turning external constraints into tools for conveying human or philosophical messages.

Fourth: Examples of Transcendence

• Poetry and Theater: Through symbolism and metaphor, poets and playwrights articulate socially complex or forbidden ideas.

• Visual Arts: Painting and sculpture portray reality in ways that both mimic and surpass it.

• Experimental Literature: By constructing virtual worlds, writers explore freedom, determinism, and choice in non-realistic contexts, yet illuminate essential human truths.

Fifth: Art as a Field for Experiencing Integrated Freedom

Art renders freedom palpable, since the artist encounters:

• Subjective Freedom: The capacity to express inner selfhood without direct guardianship.

• Conditional Freedom: The ability to engage creatively with artistic and social constraints.

• Moral and Creative Responsibility: The duty to interact with society and audience, bearing the consequences of artistic expression on ethical and communal levels.

Conclusion: The Dialectic of Art and Freedom

Art and literature provide a vivid model of the dialectic between freedom and determinism: no absolute freedom, no absolute constraint, but a dynamic interplay. Constraints—whether artistic or social—do not negate creativity; they form the environment within which real freedom crystallizes. Art thus becomes a space for experiencing human possibility, exploring the capacity to transform limitations into instruments of renewal and meaning.

VIII. Critique of Extreme Doctrines

1. Critique of Absolute Determinism: The negation of human will and action.

2. Critique of Absolute Freedom: Chaos, the absence of standards, and the denial of objective reality.

In the search for a dialectic of freedom and determinism, one cannot overlook the emergence of extreme doctrines that lean either toward an exaggerated affirmation of absolute freedom, or toward a rigid insistence on total determinism. However attractive these doctrines may appear in theory, they often fail to capture the complexity of human existence. They ignore the interweaving of possibility and necessity, as well as the psychological, social, and cultural factors that shape human action.

Critiquing these doctrines is not merely an act of rejection, but a critical philosophical practice aimed at dismantling absolute generalizations and examining the implicit assumptions on which they rest. The purpose is to show that freedom cannot flourish in an absolute void, and that determinism becomes meaningful only when absorbed within the context of conscious action. In this sense, the critique of extreme doctrines becomes a necessary condition for reconstructing a balanced understanding of freedom and determinism, and for establishing a realistic philosophical vision capable of guiding both the individual and society.

1. Critique of Absolute Determinism: The Negation of Human Will and Action

Absolute determinism presents itself in various forms: natural determinism, which views the universe as an unbroken chain of causes and effects without room for chance or choice; psychological determinism, which assumes that human behavior is wholly governed by instincts and early experiences; and social determinism, which considers human beings strict products of surrounding economic, political, and cultural structures. On paper, such doctrines may appear logical: if every phenomenon results from what precedes it, why speak of free choice or independent will?

Yet deeper philosophical reflection reveals a fundamental paradox: absolute determinism, in all its forms, cancels human action as a meaningful event and empties experience and consciousness of their content. Every statement or decision becomes a necessary outcome of prior causes, leaving no room for moral, political, or intellectual responsibility, and erasing the boundary between deliberate and spontaneous, conscious and unconscious action.

a. The Ethical Nullification of Human Action
Absolute determinism renders every behavior predetermined, making moral accountability impossible:

1. Absence of individual responsibility: If the human being is merely a machine governed by circumstances and instincts, he cannot be blamed for wrongdoing or praised for virtue.

2. Emptying ethics of meaning: Values and principles become formalities, since every moral choice is predetermined by upbringing or psychological makeup rather than conscious will.

3. Undermining justice: Law and ethics become nothing more than the management of outcomes, rather than guides for human action, raising the risk of reducing society to a cold predictive system where humans are judged like numbers in a pre-set equation.

Thus, absolute determinism, however precise in theory, fails to encompass the human being as a conscious and willing agent, and negates freedom as a precondition for responsible action.

b. The Existential Nullification of Consciousness and Choice
Beyond its ethical consequences, absolute determinism negates self-awareness and personal agency:

1. Action becomes a scene without an agent: Every conscious experience, every thought, every moment of decision is reduced to a chain of external causes.

2. Erosion of the concept of choice: Even if one believes he chooses, the act is ultimately traced back to necessity; the feeling of freedom becomes a mere illusion.

3. Loss of meaning in life: If everything we do is predetermined, then striving for change, progress, or self-renewal becomes pointless, and existential values—courage, hope, resistance against injustice or suffering—lose their grounding.

In this sense, absolute determinism threatens the core of human experience, reducing every voluntary act to mechanical repetition, and every aspiration to a reflection of prior circumstances.

c. The Philosophical Critique of Absolute Determinism
Philosophers have pointed to its inherent limitations:

1. Aristotle and Hume: While recognizing natural necessities, they affirmed voluntary choice as what gives action its meaning.

2. Sartre and Kierkegaard: Both rejected absolute determinism, insisting that human beings remain free in the existential experience, even within real constraints, and that the awareness of freedom is precisely what grounds responsibility and individuality.

3. Contemporary critique: Modern science, including quantum physics and chaos theory, indicates the presence of probabilities and variations even within systems that seem deterministic, leaving room for conscious will and individual decision.

d. Determinism and the Dialectic with Freedom
Absolute determinism can be seen as the opposite pole of absolute freedom:

• If every act is predetermined, freedom dissolves into illusion—yet the very awareness of this dissolution may provoke intellectual and practical resistance.

• Contemporary philosophy emphasizes that freedom mediates determinism: humans exercise choice within the bounds of causes, turning necessity into a framework that enables conscious and responsible action.

Thus, the critique of absolute determinism shows that freedom does not mean rejecting causality altogether, but rather discerning possibility within necessity. Human action is complete only when conscious and chosen within what is possible.

Conclusion (Determinism):
The dialectic of critiquing absolute determinism can be summed up in one central idea: every absolute determinism cancels the human being as an agent and a conscious self, whereas transcending determinism opens space for freedom, creativity, and responsibility. Despite its logical appeal, absolute determinism fails to endow human action, morality, and existence with meaning, while acknowledging limits paves the way for conscious, responsible, and creative freedom.

2. Critique of Absolute Freedom: Chaos, Absence of Standards, and Denial of Objective Reality

Absolute freedom presents itself in philosophical discourse as a seductive idea: the human being can do anything, choose any path, liberate himself from all natural, social, or moral constraints. In theory, this vision seems to embody ultimate human dignity and rebellion against oppression. But upon closer philosophical scrutiny, it collapses into abstraction, overlooking objective reality and the necessary constraints that shape existence.

The critique of absolute freedom is not an attempt to diminish humanity’s role in shaping itself, but rather to uncover the practical and philosophical dangers of abolishing limits and standards, thereby turning choice into chaos without framework.

a. Chaos as the Consequence of Absolute Freedom
When practiced without boundaries or principles, absolute freedom leads to disorder both within the individual and in society:

1. Loss of direction and purpose: If everything is permissible, human steps dissipate without order or aim, producing a constant sense of disorientation.

2. Clash of wills: A society that imposes absolute freedom on all inevitably generates endless conflict, as individual interests collide without regulation, reducing social interaction to perpetual chaos.

3. Erosion of responsibility: With absolute freedom, the link between choice and consequence disappears, undermining moral accountability.

b. The Absence of Ethical and Intellectual Standards
Absolute freedom strips human action of evaluative frameworks:

1. Abolition of the distinction between right and wrong: Without constraints, there is no basis for judging decisions or actions, and everything becomes relative and unaccountable.

2. Undermining social values: Cultural and moral principles that frame communal life collapse, creating a value vacuum that paralyzes coexistence.

3. Weakening personal development: A person practicing absolute freedom without standards lacks mechanisms for self-criticism and learning, remaining trapped in momentary whims.

c. Denial of Objective Reality
At its extreme, absolute freedom disregards natural and social necessities:

1. Natural constraints: The body, time, space, and energy, which set the boundaries of action.

2. Social and political necessities: Laws, economic limits, and cultural norms that cannot be ignored without generating permanent conflict with reality.

3. Psychological necessities: Instincts, emotions, and dispositions, which form part of human nature and cannot be entirely overcome by will.

Thus, absolute freedom becomes a denial of reality itself, tearing apart the relationship between human beings and their environment, and between the individual and his own self.

d. The Philosophical Critique of Absolute Freedom
Philosophers have pointed to its intrinsic flaws:

1. Plato and Aristotle: Both emphasized that true freedom requires reason and wisdom, and that freedom without structure leads to recklessness and disorder.

2. Descartes and Kant: Both argued that free will requires moral conscience and rational law to guide it; otherwise it becomes a meaningless force.

3. Sartre and Kierkegaard: Despite affirming existential freedom, both tied it to responsibility, noting that freedom without conscience or awareness of limits results in psychological and existential fragmentation.

e. Conscious Freedom versus Absolute Freedom
The critique can be summarized as follows:

1. Absolute freedom: Ignores limits, creating moral, intellectual, and existential chaos.

2. Conscious freedom: Practices choice within the boundaries of necessity and reality, transforming constraints into frameworks that allow human beings to realize their full potential without losing accountability.

Conclusion (Freedom):
Absolute freedom, despite its theoretical allure and existential appeal, is nothing more than an illusion that undermines human meaning itself. By abolishing every limit and overturning every necessity, it becomes a negation of existence itself: for humans cannot live, think, or create outside of time and space, apart from their bodies, detached from society, culture, or natural laws. It is a freedom that attempts to rise above reality, only to collide with it and fall into a dark existential void, where distinctions between good and evil, truth and falsehood, possibility and impossibility vanish.

The greatest danger of absolute freedom, then, does not lie in transcending constraints but in abolishing the need for standards. When every choice is permissible without limit or responsibility, human action becomes aimless movement, ruled by chance or whim, stripped of value and meaning. Absolute freedom is thus closer to a disguised form of chaos, reducing humanity to blind will severed from reason, conscience, and reality.

Yet philosophical critique shows that true freedom is not measured by the absence of constraints, but by the capacity to recognize and transform them into possibilities. Natural, social, and psychological laws are not shackles that paralyze the will, but frameworks that enable it to take shape—just as a road exists only by its boundaries, and a word is a word only through its letters and limits. Here, freedom reveals itself as adaptability, as creativity in the face of necessity, as a conscious will that acknowledges limits in order to expand its horizon.

Thus, authentic freedom is not blind, absolute freedom, but conscious, responsible, and creative freedom. A freedom grounded in recognition of the other, of time, of society, and of nature—and in transforming these necessities into opportunities for human action. It is a freedom that neither dissolves into chaos nor collapses into determinism, but stands in that living middle ground where humans can shape their destiny within the conditions of their existence.

In this sense, rejecting absolute freedom is not a restriction of humanity, but rather the liberation of freedom from its illusions, returning it to its deepest truth: to be responsible action within the world, not an illusion that hovers above it. Only such freedom grants meaning, ensuring that humanity remains an authentic agent, not a lost shadow in a boundless void.

Ninth: Toward a Balanced Philosophical Vision

1. Relative freedom: awareness of constraints and expansion of possibilities.

2. The human as an agent within conditions: combining awareness of necessity with the drive for transcendence.

3. Freedom as a process: not a fixed state, but an ongoing dialectical trajectory.

Throughout this inquiry, one theme has recurred: we stand before a pressing and self-evident duality—freedom on the one hand, and determinism on the other. Both concepts are real and supported by compelling evidence: freedom appears in the lived experience of choice, responsibility, and self-creation, while determinism surrounds us in the laws of nature, psychological formations, and social structures. What much of philosophical, political, and educational discourse lacks is a vision that values both sides together and treats them not as mere opposites but as intertwined forces.

Extreme positions tend to oversimplify reality: either proclaiming freedom as absolute and thus denying concrete givens, or proclaiming determinism as absolute and thereby undermining the very meaning of action and responsibility. Both impoverish human agency: the first leads to chaos and lost normativity, the second to psychological or class-based resignation. Condemnation or defense alone is insufficient; what is needed is a conceptual and practical framework that addresses the tension and enables the human being to act as an agent within a conditioned world.

The balanced vision proposed here rests on three pillars: (1) relative freedom—awareness of constraints and the possibility of expanding capacities, (2) the human as an agent within conditions—combining awareness of necessity with striving for transcendence, and (3) freedom as a continuous process—a dialectical trajectory, not a static state. These are not merely theoretical claims but interpretive and practical tools for educating individuals, shaping policies, and practicing art and science.

1) Relative Freedom: Awareness of Constraints and Expansion of Possibilities

A. Interpretive Definition
Relative freedom conceives freedom neither as an absolute value nor as annulled by the necessities of reality, but as the scope of effectiveness and choice available to the individual within a network of constraints. The term “relative” here does not mean ethical relativism or a relinquishing of responsibility, but rather a methodological recognition that freedoms vary depending on biological, psychological, social, and historical circumstances. Relative freedom thus measures the gap of possibility: the difference between what can actually be done and what is desired or imagined.

B. Philosophical Justification
The roots of this conception span a diverse philosophical heritage: from Aristotle’s acknowledgment of “multiple causes” that secure room for choice, to Kant’s grounding of morality in freedom, to Spinoza’s notion of freedom as awareness of necessity, and on to contemporary political philosophy’s “capabilities” approach, which holds that true freedom is measured by access to resources and actual enablement. Relative freedom absorbs these insights: constraints are real, real action requires conditions, and the agent’s awareness of these conditions broadens their field of action.

C. Ethical and Political Implications
Relative freedom shifts debate from zero-sum equations to systematic policies:

• Ethically: it holds the agent responsible for what is within their power and calls for rational efforts to enhance capabilities.

• Politically: it shows that public freedom requires institutions that expand people’s capacities (education, health, housing, justice), not merely prohibitive legal texts.

• Judicially: it fosters a balanced penal system that considers actual responsibility, investing in reform rather than exclusion when feasible.

D. Tools for Expanding Possibilities
How does relative freedom work in practice? Through integrated policies:

1. Critical education that teaches thinking, not rote memorization.

2. Health and psychological policies addressing trauma and disability.

3. Social safety nets that reduce the cost of error and allow for experimentation.

4. Just laws that hold accountable without stripping dignity.

5. A political culture encouraging participation and recognition.

E. Possible Objections and Brief Reply

• Objection: Relative freedom merely justifies social control (“we decide who deserves freedom”).

• Reply: Relative freedom demands expanding opportunities for justice, not restricting them; indeed, it exposes structural inequalities that require redress.

2) The Human as an Agent within Conditions: Combining Awareness of Necessity and Striving for Transcendence

A. The Problematic Situation and Conceptual Formula
This principle emphasizes that the human being is neither an “empty vessel” filled by external determinations, nor a “pure spirit” unbound by laws. One is limited by bodily situation and history, yet acts through awareness, future-oriented imagination, and the capacity to intervene in one’s contexts. To say the human is an “agent within conditions” means that awareness of necessity does not annul the drive to transcend but shapes it. Transcendence is not escape, but creative action that uses conditions to forge new possibilities.

B. Philosophical Supports

• Hegel taught that free action manifests through awareness of necessity—“freedom is the consciousness of necessity.”

• Kant showed that the self, as moral legislator, acts within the laws of nature but is free insofar as it gives itself a practical law.

• Sartre highlighted that choice and action constitute the self.

Together, these traditions establish a composite view: being limited does not mean submitting to constraints; recognizing necessity does not mean surrendering to it.

C. Practical Implications of Awareness and Transcendence

1. Awareness of turning points: an intelligent agent understands historical or technical context before acting.

2. Resistance-building action: transcendence is resistance through reform, invention, and cultural transformation, not mere negation.

3. Technological ethics: acting within conditions requires practical wisdom (phronesis) beyond rigid rationalism.

D. Applied Examples

• The political activist who uses state legal mechanisms to defend the oppressed—transcending by means of understanding.

• The doctor in a resource-limited environment who designs treatment protocols tailored to local realities rather than copying urban models.

E. Risks and Safeguards
The danger is excessive caution, turning transcendence into justification for preserving injustice. The safeguard is a culture of constant accountability, ensuring that reformist strategies do not mask complacency but declare their ambitions and assess their impacts.

3) Freedom as a Process: Not a Fixed State but an Ongoing Dialectic

A. Emphasis on the Dynamic Dimension
The common error is to treat freedom as a “state” one either possesses or lacks. The alternative view sees it as a process—temporal unfolding shaped by capability-building, institutional practice, and cultural transformation. Freedom is not a single moment but accumulations: learning, practice, failure and correction, the rise of new identities, and setbacks.

B. Theoretical Construction of Processual Universality
The process can be broken into interlinked elements:

1. Structural groundwork: resources and arrangements enabling practice.

2. Individual experience: daily practices that cultivate competence and capacity.

3. Institutions and systems: laws and practices that regulate and project action over the long term.

4. Cultural interpretation: narratives and identities that give actions meaning and depth.

These elements operate dialectically: change in one affects the rest, and the whole process oscillates between achievements and regressions.

C. Why Freedom as a Trajectory Matters Philosophically and Practically

1. It moves us beyond the success/failure binary: instead of asking “Does freedom exist?” we ask “How is it sustained and expanded?”

2. It prioritizes education and institutional reform, since the process depends on accumulation.

3. It grounds flexible policies: interventions are time-sensitive, adjustable, and evaluated by human-centered metrics.

D. Methods of Cultivating Freedom as Process

• “Experiential learning” programs combining technical training with ethical reflection.

• Institutional mechanisms for governance review and adaptability.

• Cultures that embrace error as a means of growth (“fail-forward” cultures).

E. Obstacles and Countermeasures
Regression is possible: short-term policies, institutional failure, or exploitation of free spaces by authoritarian forces. Countering this requires transparency measures, civic participation, and judicial safeguards.

Integrative Synthesis: How These Points Weave a Practical Balanced Vision

1. First principle—Recognition of limits: begin with precise understanding of biological, psychological, social, and historical conditions. This dispels illusions of absolute power without extinguishing aspiration.

2. Second principle—Expansion of possibilities: freedom is a collective responsibility; state and society must expand individuals’ capacities for choice through resources and policies.

3. Third principle—Freedom as an ongoing process: freedom requires time to crystallize; it demands cumulative policies and constant review.

4. Fourth principle—Education and conscience: equip individuals with critical awareness and skills to engage constraints and turn them into opportunities.

5. Fifth principle—Institutional justice: laws that grade responsibility and accountability, with ongoing evaluation of resource distribution mechanisms.

Conclusion: From Theoretical Intersections to a Practical Project of Liberation

The balanced philosophical vision outlined here is not a magical solution to the eternal debate between freedom and determinism, but a practical methodological framework: it acknowledges constraints without surrendering to them, demands empowerment without abandoning accountability, and conceives freedom as a long process built through education, policy, and cultural innovation.

This vision places the human being at the heart of history—not as a wild force transcending the world, nor as crushed under necessity, but as an agent who reads conditions, tests them, alters them, and creates new possibilities—through collective ethical patience and rational perseverance. It is a call for a political-educational-cultural project that claims something both simple and profound: to make reality a foundation for freedom rather than its cage, and to make freedom a project of reshaping reality toward a more humane humanity.

Tenth: Conclusion

As we reach the conclusion of this study, we realize that the subject of freedom is not merely a theoretical philosophical issue set on the table of metaphysical reflection; at its core, it is the human being’s perennial question about the self—about one’s position between the world and fate, between the possible and the necessary, between action and waiting. Through the preceding sections, we have sought multiple paths: from freedom as an existential individual possibility, to its dialectic with determinism, to its practical implications in ethics, law, art, and education, culminating in the critique of extreme positions and the construction of a balanced vision. What becomes evident is that freedom cannot be resolved by a single decree, nor reduced to a rigid definition; rather, it is an open dialectical horizon that expands alongside human consciousness and historical transformations.

At its deepest level, freedom is neither a “final gift” nor a “transcendent essence” descending from the heavens, nor is it an illusion to be discarded, as proponents of absolute determinism claim. It is a dual movement: awareness of constraints and their utilization, openness to possibilities and their expansion. It is a fabric woven from the tension between necessity and possibility, from moments of collapse and moments of rising, from consciousness that reads the laws of nature and society, and from a will daring enough to reshape them. Here it becomes clear that freedom is not merely the ability to choose among alternatives, but the capacity to create new alternatives, to reshape the very horizon of action itself.

We have seen that every extreme conception—whether absolute determinism, which negates human will, or absolute freedom, which dissolves reality and opens the door to chaos—is a form of disguised nihilism: the former reduces humans to silent machines, the latter splinters them into beings without measure. What allows us to escape these deadly dichotomies is acknowledging that freedom is relative in its conditions, creative in its action, and historical in its trajectory. It is only through process that freedom is truly lived: in education that nurtures critical thinking, in law that balances justice and mercy, in art that expands imagination, and in ethics that reconnects humans to their conscience.

In this sense, freedom is not merely a right, nor merely a duty, but a human project—one that requires the courage to confront necessity, patience to build institutions, and creativity to envision the future. The ongoing dialectic with determinism is not an obstacle to freedom but a condition for its emergence: without constraint, liberation would have no meaning, and without structure, there would be no space for purposeful action. Hence, freedom is not the opposite of determinism but a creative assimilation of it—a transformation of necessity into possibility, a consciousness that makes laws instruments of action rather than walls of prohibition.

Ultimately, the study’s trajectory can be summarized in a central idea: humans are free because they transcend, yet they do not transcend from emptiness; they transcend from conditions, from constraints, from history, from body and time. The more conscious they are of these conditions, the greater their possibilities. Freedom is not extraction from the world, but deep immersion within it and the reshaping of its relationships. In this sense, freedom is not only an individual promise but also a collective responsibility: the responsibility to construct a world that allows humans to be agents, accountable, and creative, rather than mere guided entities or drifting specters.

This conclusion does not close the question—it deepens it: freedom is not a solved problem but a matter of process. It remains the deepest measure of humaneness, the mark that distinguishes a person from being merely a cog in a machine or a wandering particle in the void. It is the never-ending challenge: to live in a world of necessities, and despite that, to create new possibilities for life, meaning, and humanity.

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