Kant used statistical regularity to reconcile free will with a lawful history

Evidence

Even Kant got carried away by the possibilities that statistical calculation afforded; he incorporated the lawful order it allowed him to discern into his teleological view of history. On the one hand, he posited the existence of free will. On the other, he restricted it. Kant affirmed that phenomena of free will – that is, human actions – are determined by general laws of nature, like every other natural fact. If one considers the play of freedom in human will ‘on a large scale’, lawfulness may be discerned. As unruly as the conduct of individual subjects seems to be, a ‘steady progression though slow development of … original predispositions’ is recognizable at the level of the species. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 167

Categorization

• XREF: Kant’s ‘guiding thread’ of history is a statistical hidden-hand - comparable to Adam Smith’s invisible hand and the trust-literature’s invisible-hand mechanisms in my notes on spontaneous order. — connects to: Pentland frames free will as a low-frequency statistical deviation from predictable social patterns — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1406

Broader Connections

• Pentland frames free will as a low-frequency statistical deviation from predictable social patterns #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1406