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Free will is the notional capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Determinism is the philosophical view that events are completely determined by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Like eternalism, determinism focuses on particular events rather than the future as a concept. The opposite of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to chance. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatible.
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning. Genetic reductionism is a similar concept, but it is distinct from genetic determinism in that the former refers to the level of understanding, while the latter refers to the supposedly causal role of genes. Biological determinism has been associated with movements in science and society including eugenics, scientific racism, and the debates around the heritability of IQ, the basis of sexual orientation, and sociobiology.
Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban design considers 'bigger picture' issues of economic, social and environmental value and social design. The scope of a project can range from a local street or public space to an entire city and surrounding areas. Urban designers connect the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning to better organize physical space and community environments.
The term incompatibilism was coined in the 1960s, most likely by philosopher Keith Lehrer, to name the view that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical thesis of free will. The term compatibilism was coined to name the view that the classical free will thesis is logically compatible with determinism, i.e. it is possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will even in a universe at which determinism is true. These terms were originally coined for use within a research paradigm that was dominant among academics during the so-called "classical period" from the 1960s to 1980s, or what has been called the "classical analytic paradigm". Within the classical analytic paradigm, the problem of free will and determinism was understood as a Compatibility Question: "Is it possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will when determinism is true?" Those working in the classical analytic paradigm who answered "no" were incompatibilists in the original, classical-analytic sense of the term, now commonly called classical incompatibilists; they proposed that determinism precludes free will because it precludes our ability to do otherwise. Those who answered "yes" were compatibilists in the original sense of the term, now commonly called classical compatibilists. Given that classical free will theorists agreed that it is at least metaphysically possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will, all classical compatibilists accepted a compossibilist account of free will and all classical incompatibilists accepted a libertarian account of free will.
Cultural ecology is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments. Human adaptation refers to both biological and cultural processes that enable a population to survive and reproduce within a given or changing environment. This may be carried out diachronically, or synchronically. The central argument is that the natural environment, in small scale or subsistence societies dependent in part upon it, is a major contributor to social organization and other human institutions. In the academic realm, when combined with study of political economy, the study of economies as polities, it becomes political ecology, another academic subfield. It also helps interrogate historical events like the Easter Island Syndrome.
Fatalism is a family of related philosophical doctrines that stress the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or destiny, and is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are thought to be inevitable.
Hard determinism is a view on free will which holds that determinism is true, that it is incompatible with free will, and therefore that free will does not exist. Although hard determinism generally refers to nomological determinism, it can also be a position taken with respect to other forms of determinism that necessitate the future in its entirety.
Cultural determinism is the belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels. It contrasts with genetic determinism, the theory that biologically inherited traits and the environmental influences that affect those traits dominate who we are.
Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental psychology emphasizes how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans' experiences and behaviors. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. According to an article on APA Psychnet, environmental psychology is when a person thinks of a plan, travels to a certain place, and follows through with the plan throughout their behavior.
In geometry, an isovist is the volume of space visible from a given point in space, together with a specification of the location of that point. It is a geometric concept coined by Clifford Tandy in 1967 and further refined by the architect Michael Benedikt.
This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology.
The defensible space theory of architect and city planner Oscar Newman encompasses ideas about crime prevention and neighborhood safety. Newman argues that architectural and environmental design plays a crucial part in increasing or reducing criminality. The theory developed in the early 1970s, and he wrote his first book on the topic, Defensible Space, in 1972. The book contains a study from New York that pointed out that higher crime rate existed in high-rise housing projects than in low-rise complexes. This, he concluded, was because residents felt no control or personal responsibility for an area occupied by so many people. Throughout his study, Newman focused on explaining his ideas on social control, crime prevention, and public health in relation to community design.
A self-refuting idea or self-defeating idea is an idea or statement whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true. Many ideas are called self-refuting by their detractors, and such accusations are therefore almost always controversial, with defenders stating that the idea is being misunderstood or that the argument is invalid. For these reasons, none of the ideas below are unambiguously or incontrovertibly self-refuting. These ideas are often used as axioms, which are definitions taken to be true, and cannot be used to test themselves, for doing so would lead to only two consequences: consistency or exception (self-contradiction).
Place identity or place-based identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, interior design, spatial design, environmental psychology, ecocriticism and urban sociology/ecological sociology. Place identity is sometimes called urban character, neighbourhood character or local character. Place identity has become a significant issue in the last 25 years in urban planning and design. Place identity concerns the meaning and significance of places for their inhabitants and users, and how these meanings contribute to individuals' conceptualizations of self. Place identity also relates to the context of modernity, history and the politics of representation. In other words, historical determinism, which intersects historical events, social spaces and groups by gender, class, ethnicity. In this way, it explores how spaces have evolved over time by exploring the social constructs through time and the development of space, place and power. To the same extent, the politics of representation is brought into context, as the making of place identity in a community also relates to the exclusion or inclusion in a community. Through this, some have argued that place identity has become an area for social change because it gives marginalized communities agency over their own spaces. In the same respect, it is argued that place identity has also been used to intervene social change and perpetuate oppression from a top-down approach by creating segregated spaces for marginalized communities.
Architectural design values make up an important part of what influences architects and designers when they make their design decisions. However, architects and designers are not always influenced by the same values and intentions. Value and intentions differ between different architectural movements. It also differs between different schools of architecture and schools of design as well as among individual architects and designers.
Free will in antiquity is a philosophical and theological concept. Free will in antiquity was not discussed in the same terms as used in the modern free will debates, but historians of the problem have speculated who exactly was first to take positions as determinist, libertarian, and compatibilist in antiquity. There is wide agreement that these views were essentially fully formed over 2000 years ago. Candidates for the first thinkers to form these views, as well as the idea of a non-physical "agent-causal" libertarianism, include Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus, Chrysippus, and Carneades.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to social science:
Social determinism is the theory that social interactions alone determine individual behavior.
Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that assumes that a society's technology progresses by following its own internal logic of efficiency, while determining the development of the social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have originated from Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist. The most radical technological determinist in the United States in the 20th century was most likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey. William Ogburn was also known for his radical technological determinism and his theory on cultural lag.
References
- ↑ Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioural Science, article on "Environmental Psychology", p. 510
- ↑ Arena:The Architectural Association Journal, 81, 1966, p. 149–154
- ↑ quoted in Sources of Architectural Form, Mark Gelernter, p. 251.
- ↑ see Urban Theory, Urban Policy
- Paul-Alan Johnson, The Theory of Architecture: Concepts, Themes, and Practices, 1994.