Free Will Versus Determinism: A Historical Review

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the history of the free will versus determinism debate, focusing in particular on: (i) views from the birth of modern science in the 17th century, wherein it was believed that all things obeyed natural laws, which provided a deterministic view of the world; (ii) the beliefs from before that time, that objects had natural states that they wanted to be in the world, pursued via hidden forces; (iii) Newton’s introduction of mathematical laws which could explain the motion of objects; (iv) the application of these laws of attraction and repulsion to living things, starting with animals; (v) the controversial nature of introducing this deterministic view to human behaviour; (vi) René Descartes’ distinction between the body and the mind, creating the concept of dualism; (vii) distinguishing the rational mind from instincts, a theory that doesn’t hold up in modern psychological research.

About the lecturer

Dr Metodi Siromahov is a lecturer in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London. Dr Siromahov’s research interests are in historical controversies and debates within social psychology, and the application of these to understanding political ideologies. Dr Siromahov’s recent publications include 'Beliefs in national continuity are related to essentialist thinking and to perceptions of the nation as a family' (2020) and 'Mapping visual spatial prototypes: Multiple reference frames shape visual memory' (2020).