Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/107



[ABBREVIATIONS. — ''Am. J. Ps. = American Journal of Psychology; Ar. f. G. Ph. = Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie; Int. J. E. = International Journal of Ethics; Phil. Jahr. = Philosophisches Jahrbuch; Phil. Mon. = Philosophische Monatshefte; Phil. Stud. = Philosophische Studien; Rev. Ph. = Revue Philosophique; R. I. d. Fil. = Rivista Italiana di Filosofia; V. f. w. Ph. = Vierteljahrschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie; Z. f. Ph. = Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik; Z. f. Ps. u. Phys. d. Sinn. = Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane''. Other titles are self-explanatory.]

It is a primary condition of liberty that the subject may control the decisions of the will, and consequently be a cause. One can say, then, that liberty is essentially a problem of causality. Liberty must be defined in terms of causality, even if it is. only possible to define it negatively, as an exception to the causal order, or as a higher principle than causality. These definitions however contradict the essential principle of all thought and of science, and do not lead to the concept of liberty, but to pure indetermination. The idea of liberty implies a causality of an intellectual order. The true definition of liberty is the maximum of independence possible for a will which determines itself under the idea of a conscious end in accordance with the idea of its own independence. The problem is, then, to know to just what extent the self is cause. We have to ask (1) what has been the genesis of the idea of liberty, and (2) what are its effects. The author claims to have proved in previous writings the existence of a feeling of liberty which is present to consciousness as a concrete feeling of power. The illusory idea of a freedom of indifference arises, however, from the fact that our actions are determined by psychical states which are not entirely accessible to clear consciousness; that is, the determining factor is our psychical nature itself, of which we cannot render a complete account. We imagine, then, not only that the choice is the result of our power (which is quite true), but that this power itself is ambiguous, something not at all implied in our inner experience. The power of choosing is in reality the power of being determined by a judgment or feeling of preference. To choose arbitrarily, without such a judgment, is to refrain from choosing Rh