Editing Determinism (section)

=== Causal ===
Causal determinism, sometimes synonymous with [[historical determinism]] (a sort of [[path dependence]]), is "the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature."<ref name="SEPcausaldeterminism">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Hoefer|first=Carl|title=Causal Determinism|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|edition=Winter 2009|date=2008|editor=Edward N. Zalta|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/determinism-causal/}}</ref> However, it is a broad enough term to consider that:<ref name="SEPmoralresponsibility">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Eshleman|first=Andrew|editor=Edward N. Zalta|title=Moral Responsibility|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|edition=Winter 2009|date= 2009|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/moral-responsibility/}}</ref><blockquote>...One's deliberations, choices, and actions will often be necessary links in the causal chain that brings something about. In other words, even though our deliberations, choices, and actions are themselves determined like everything else, it is still the case, according to causal determinism, that the occurrence or existence of yet other things depends upon our deliberating, choosing and acting in a certain way.</blockquote>Causal determinism proposes that there is an unbroken chain of prior occurrences stretching back to the origin of the universe. The relation between events and the origin of the universe may not be specified. Causal determinists believe that there is nothing in the universe that has no cause or is [[causa sui|self-caused]].

Causal determinism has also been considered more generally as the idea that everything that happens or exists is caused by antecedent conditions.<ref name="stanfordincompatibilismarguments"/> In the case of nomological determinism, these conditions are considered events also, implying that the future is determined completely by preceding events—a combination of prior states of the universe and the laws of nature.<ref name="SEPcausaldeterminism" /> These conditions can also be considered metaphysical in origin (such as in the case of theological determinism).<ref name="SEPmoralresponsibility" />[[File:Bled (9664110474).jpg|thumb|right|140px|Many philosophical theories of determinism frame themselves with the idea that reality follows a sort of predetermined path.]]

==== {{Anchor|Nomological determinism}}Nomological ====
Nomological determinism is the most common form of causal determinism and is generally synonymous with physical determinism.{{cn|date=May 2025}} This is the notion that the past and the present dictate the future entirely and necessarily by rigid natural laws and that every occurrence inevitably results from prior events. Nomological determinism is sometimes illustrated by the [[thought experiment]] of [[Laplace's demon]].  [[Laplace]] posited that an omniscient observer, knowing with infinite precision all the positions and velocities of every particle in the universe, could predict the future entirely.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Robert C. Solomon |title=The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy |author2=Kathleen M. Higgins |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2009 |isbn=978-0495595151 |edition=8th |page=232 |chapter=Free will and determinism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ekh2AKqXdqgC&pg=PA232}}</ref> [[Ernest Nagel]] viewed determinism in terms of a [[configuration space (physics)|physical state]], declaring a theory to be deterministic if it predicts a state at other times uniquely from values at one given time.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ernest Nagel |title=The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation |publisher=Hackett |year=1999 |isbn=978-0915144716 |edition=2nd |pages=285–292 |chapter=§V: Alternative descriptions of physical state |quote=A theory is deterministic if, and only if, given its state variables for some initial period, the theory logically determines a unique set of values for those variables for any other period. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u6EycHgRfkQC&pg=PA285}}</ref>

==== Necessitarianism ====
[[Necessitarianism]] is a [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]] principle that denies all mere possibility and maintains that there is only one possible way for the world to exist. [[Leucippus]] claimed there are no uncaused events and that everything occurs for a reason and by necessity.<ref>Leucippus, Fragment 569 – from Fr. 2 Actius I, 25, 4.</ref>