Deterministic philosophy consoles those unsettled by inexplicable refusal

Evidence

At one point the lawyer is so unsettled by Bartleby’s ongoing refusals that he feels compelled to read Jonathan Edwards’s Freedom of the Will and Joseph Priestley’s The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, both treatises on the possibility of free will. The former holds that man has the free will to pursue what is good, but what is good is foreordained by God (this might remind us of Frazier’s description of “freedom” from Walden Two); the latter claims that all of our decisions follow from predetermined dispositions, in a somewhat mechanistic fashion (another good description of Walden Two). In other words, everything happens for a reason, and people can’t help the way they act. “Under those circumstances,” says the lawyer, “those books induced a salutary feeling.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 260

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the two classic free-will-doubt positions via their historical sources, orienting the reader for what Bartleby’s refusal does to both.
• XREF: connects to: Epistemic ignorance is actively produced by a refusal to notice — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1529; Philosophy’s task is resisting the status quo’s suggestive compulsion; The rigidity of thought-determinations constitutes their resistance to the passage of time — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1027 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Epistemic ignorance is actively produced by a refusal to notice — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1529; Philosophy’s task is resisting the status quo’s suggestive compulsion; The rigidity of thought-determinations constitutes their resistance to the passage of time — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1027 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Reflection offers an undetermined future against fear’s strict determinism #complicates (0.76)
• The rigidity of thought-determinations constitutes their resistance to the passage of time #complicates (0.70) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1027