The Illusion of Free Will: “The System of Nature” by Paul Holbach Essay

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Paul Holbach is a famous French philosopher and writer. “The System of Nature” is the most renowned book of the writer, which deals with materialism. “The illusion of free will” is part of this book and reveals the philosopher’s ideas about the origin of human will. According to Paul Holbach, human freedom and choice are only a way of performing specific actions and the ability to accept all the consequences of one’s actions correctly.

Holbach’s first argument is that life is no longer our direct choice. According to the writer, birth and living one’s own life is the first and foremost indicator that the will is not inherent in a person. Holbach claims that life and all further human existence fulfill various requirements. For the philosopher, nature is the basis of control: “Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant” (Holbach 438). In this way, life is a direct indicator of human unfreedom.

Even though a person can change it at any moment of his life, these changes will not depend on the person’s wishes. Just as a person is always directly dependent on society, the desires that arise will depend on the environment. Holbach emphasizes that the changes a person tries to implement in his life are just impulses that drive us (439). Most often, the individual’s freedom depends on other objects that affect this person at such a moment.

The emergence of an idea in a person is not the will and freedom of a person. Holbach denies that the emergence of different ideas is a directly independent factor. The emergence of opinions or thoughts is a synthesis of the environment and analysis of people around (Holbach 441). In this way, the ideas that arise in an individual do not depend on the person himself but on everything that is currently in a person’s life.

Human will is only a conditional fact that people use. It is only a set of actions of society and the environment in which they are located. It is worth saying that there is an illusion of freedom, which depends on many factors in society. It is only necessary to understand and be able to use these ideas correctly.

Work Cited

Holbach, Baron. “The illusion of free will.” from The System of Nature (1770): 176-181.

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