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Determinism

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Synonyms

Fatalism; Pre-determinism

Definition

Determinism is a metaphysical view on which every event or state of affairs results inevitably and necessarily from the chain of antecedent events unfolding under the laws of nature.

Introduction

In metaphysics, determinism holds that every state of the world is fixed by the chain of antecedent events that develop necessarily and inevitably in accordance with the laws of nature.

For example, we assume that today’s weather was determined or fixed by a chain of events in the past that unfolded in accordance with universal laws. Determinism is often tacitly assumed in the behavioral and social sciences where the goal is typically to identify the principles that fix relevant phenomena in predictable ways. But whether determinism is true of this world remains controversial for reasons that will be discussed below. Still, the general consensus is that some physical systems bear the mark of determinism and that raises a variety of concerns about...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

    Jeremy Evans

Authors
  1. Jeremy Evans
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeremy Evans .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Christian Jordan

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

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Evans, J. (2017). Determinism. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1127-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1127-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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