Nicolai Hartmann's Determinational Pluralism in the Context of Compatibilist and Libertarian Assumptions

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to present Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy of freedom in the context of selected assumptions in the dispute between compatibilism and incompatibilism. Hartmann’s concept of freedom is based on his ontological theory of stratified reality. The multitude of strata of reality constitutes an ontological field for the category of determination, which affects the subject on many levels. An ontology of freedom rooted in the concept of determination could suggest that there cannot be any place for free will in such a structure. Hartmann, however, argues for the possibility of reconciling free will with numerous forms of determination, but above all for the necessity of the existence of relations between them for the possibility of the existence of free will. According to him, we can speak of free will only when at least two types of determination overlap. Such a view is defined as a concept of determinational pluralism.

As Hartmann emphasises, deterministic monism can be a real threat to free will as much as indeterministic randomness, so he criticises ontological assumptions of indeterminism as unable to justify either negative or positive freedom. On the other hand, even the closeness of Hartmann’s deterministic ontology to the assumptions of compatibilists also prevents Hartmann from being unequivocally classified as a compatibilist. Considering this, I will try to show that Hartmann’s complex concept of freedom exceeds both classical positions and their assumptions and proposes an ontological and axiological argumentation for the subject’s autonomy. But not without some antinomies.