In
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
, accidentalism denies the
causal closure
Physical causal closure is a metaphysical fallacy about the nature of causation in the physical realm with significant ramifications in the study of metaphysics and the mind. It's based on the misconception that the physical world is a combinatori ...
of
physical determinism
Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and consi ...
and maintains that events can succeed one another haphazardly or by chance (not in the mathematical but in the popular sense). Opponents of accidentalism maintain that what seems to be a chance occurrence is actually the result of one or more causes that remain unknown due only to a lack of investigation.
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
used the term
tychism
Tychism ( el, τύχη, translation=chance) is a thesis proposed by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce that holds that absolute chance, or indeterminism, is a real factor operative in the universe. This doctrine forms a central part o ...
(from τύχη, chance) for theories that make chance an objective factor in the process of the Universe.
In ethics the term is used, like
indeterminism, to denote the theory that mental change cannot always be ascribed to previously ascertained psychological states, and that volition is not causally related to the motives involved. An example of this theory is the doctrine of the ''liberum arbitrium indifferentiae'' ("liberty of indifference"), according to which the choice of two or more alternative possibilities is affected neither by contemporaneous data of an ethical or prudential kind nor by crystallized habit (character).
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See also
* Necessitarianism
Necessitarianism is a metaphysical principle that denies all mere possibility; there is exactly one way for the world to be.
It is the strongest member of a family of principles, including hard determinism, each of which deny libertarian free wil ...
* Indeterminacy
References
Further reading
External links
*
Metaphysical theories
Meta-ethics
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