moment or situation, his method of mental functioning is the inevitable product of an endless chain of antecedent
factors; he has no choice in the matter.
That which a man does, declare the advocates of determinism, he had to do—that which he believes, he had to
believe—if he focuses his mind, he had to—if he evades the effort of focusing, he had to—if he is guided solely by
reason, he had to be—if he is ruled instead by feeling or whim, he had to be—he couldn't help it.
But if this were true, no knowledge—no conceptual knowledge—would be possible to man. No theory could claim
greater plausibility than any other—including the theory of psychological determinism.
Man is neither omniscient nor infallible. This means: (a) that he must work to achieve his knowledge, and (b) that
the mere presence of an idea inside his mind does not prove that the idea is true; many ideas may enter a man's
mind which are false. But if man believes what he has to believe, if he is not free to test his beliefs against reality
and to validate or reject them—if the actions and content of his mind are determined by factors that may or may not
have anything to do with reason, logic, and reality—then he can never know if his conclusions are true or false.
Knowledge consists of the correct identification of the facts of reality; and in order for man to know that the
contents of his mind do constitute knowledge, in order for him to know that he has identified the facts of reality
correctly, he requires a means of testing his conclusions. The means is the process of reasoning—of testing his
conclusions against reality and checking for contradictions. But this validation is possible only if his capacity to
judge is free—i.e., nonconditional (given a normal brain). If his capacity to judge is not free, there is no way for a
man to discriminate between his beliefs and those of a raving lunatic.
But then how did the advocates of determinism acquire their knowledge? What is its validation? Determinists are
conspicuously silent on this point.
If the advocates of determinism insist that their choice to think and their acceptance of reason is conditional,
dependent on factors outside their control—which means: that they are not free to test their beliefs against the facts
of reality—then they cannot claim to