Freedom Versus Determinism Freud Versus Sartre Essay

Freedom versus Determinism In Class Essay The person portrayed in The Scream clearly is in distress, they looked extremely surprised and scared. This is because they have just realized that they have been living in-authentically, that is, they have set certain parameters to live by that has ultimately affected, and taken away , their freedom. This debate about whether or not we have freedom in the decisions that we make is one that Sartre and Freud both are strongly opinionated about. Freud, being a soft determinist, claims that much of what we do, especially the things that define our lives, is determined. Sartre on the other hand says that we have so much freedom that it scares us and the person in the scream is in anguish due to how†¦show more content†¦Because of the presence of this voice, however, we as the human are either choosing to follow our instincts or to abide by social boundaries, and thus it is always our choice, we have free will. Freud Continues his determinist argument with psychosexual stages: Be ing disrupted at certain early stages of our life is out of our control, but it can correspond to our character later in life, thus determining our actions. For example, if a child’s development is disrupted in the â€Å"anal† Stage, they will be especially analy retentive as an adult. However these correlations have been shown to be arbitrary, as one could be inclined towards being good at math through DNA or other reasons, instead of their retentiveness due to their Anal stage disruption. Finally, Freud identifies â€Å"Ontogenic history,† our own personal history which continually influences us and defines our personality. This point contains validity, because I will not strip naked and run around even though I should theoretically be able to. My personal history, however, has taught me that I shouldn’t thus I am obeying the SuperEgo, and it was determined by my upbringing that I should do so. However ultimately this point is invalid because I made con scious choices earlier to bow down to the SuperEgo, which led me to decide not to strip naked. Ergo the Superego’s deterministic power is undermined because at some point I had to chooseShow MoreRelatedFate and Destiny7886 Words   |  32 Pages\\server05\productn\T\THE\26-1-2\THE1203.txt unknown Seq: 1 26-FEB-07 9:49 Fate and Destiny: Some Historical Distinctions between the Concepts Richard W. Bargdill Saint Francis University Abstract There has been a great deal of attention given to the â€Å"free will versus determinism† debate. However, little attention has been paid to the most common expressions from this controversy—people’s everyday experience of fate and destiny. In fact, fate and destiny are terms that are often used as synonyms as if there were no differences