The Stranger

In the Philosophy, Determinism has many different categories. Actually according to the textbook, the Determinism is the view that every event, including human actions, are brought about by previous events in accordance with the natural laws that govern the world. Human freedom is an illusion. Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza does not deny that people’s wishes and desires will lead to the soul, and he said, "but neglected one important

Determinism is the idea that everything we do as humans is determined by events prior to us being born and events that have happened in the past. Decisions that you may think are based on your desires, are actually based of things beyond your control. But the big question is, if determinism is

“The Stranger” by Albert Camus follows the story of an apathetic and withdrawn man, Meursault, as he easily cruises through life with the belief that he is indifferent to the universe. The novel begins with Meursault receiving news that his mother had passed away. Immediately after traveling to the funeral, and not showing an ounce of emotion, Meursault engages in an unemotional relationship with a woman named Marie. His moral bankruptcy and emotionally detached demeanor stays constant throughout the majority of the novel, even after committing murder and being sentenced to death. In fact, as a consequence of his sentencing Meursault has an epiphany and realizes that the universe is irrational and therefore indifferent to human life. This theme

1. On page 109, Meursault says after his death sentence has been pronounced that there "really was something ridiculously out of proportion between the verdict such certainty was based on and the imperturbable march of events from the moment the verdict was announced." How does this comment address the strong need manifested in social and legal institutions to attain certainty about people and events?

Determinism (as defined by Webster) is “A doctrine that acts of the will, natural events, or social changes are determined by preceding events or natural causes”. Likely, the most radical definition of determinism would state that all events in the world are the result of a previous event, or a combination of previous events. Within the realm of the all encompassing radical determinism there are philosophies that are somewhat better thought out or backed by science. One example of this is Genetic Determinism. We know that people are in some way determined by their genes both physically and behaviorally, as the human DNA is applied. Two categories of genetic determinism are Genetic Fixity and Innate Capacity.

In the movie, “A stranger among us”, it is vivid that there are three ethnic groups that are represented. The first group of people is the Jewish religious people who are from the Hasidic sub group of the Jewish religion. The second group of people represented in the movie are the mobsters who detective Eden refers to them as “scumbags”. The third group of people are the citizens of Brooklyn like detective Eden herself, her father, the boyfriend and other police men. All these groups play a significant role in the movie and thus are able to show is the diversity that exists in the movie. The movie is portrayed from various perspectives and this is because of the uniqueness of the groups represented in the movie. One of the main perspectives which the movie is portrayed is through detective Eden’s perspective, who observes the lives and the culture of the Jewish community. By virtual of the lack of understanding of the Jewish culture that we are able to learn how the Jews live and also get to know more about their culture. The other perspective in which the movie is presented is through the Jews, which enables us to see the ways of life in their community, in a completely different perspective.

Determinism supporters claim that all consequences are inevitable since conditions are met and nothing else would occur by any chances. And determinism could influence and controlling everything in the universe with causal laws. According to determinism, we could make predictions about the occurrences of certain events or actions of human beings. There three types of determinism that I will discuss in the following, the Hard determinism, Soft determinism and Libertarianism.

I thought that Baron d’Holbach summarized the determinists viewpoint when he said, “Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting” (Chaffee, 2013, p. 178).

Albert Camus creates a series of characters in The Stranger whose personality traits and motivations mirror those that are overlooked by the average man. Camus develops various characters and scenarios that are considered rude and unpleasant, but because it has become common, society accepts it as norms. Camus incorporates atrocious personality traits of the characters, variety, consistency, and everyone’s fate through the creation of the characters.

A Stranger Among Us is a movie that displays many aspects of ethnicity, and how many different groups of people interact and adapt to each other’s difference. There is a murder and a detective named Emily Eden has to place herself into a Jewish community to help solve this murder. In the film there is several groups displayed and many different perspectives, along with an ethnic neighborhood and lots of learning about the Hasidic culture, and Detective Eden made some crucial mistakes in unraveling the murder. Also, this is a movie that is beneficial to everyone in our class.

The Stranger written by Albert Camus published in 1942 is a story of a man without any of sense of morality he goes by the name of Meursault. This is Camus’s first novel that he has published and given by the understanding of his character Meursault, he goes into depth of how no one sees the world differently the way he does. Story takes place where Meursault is told that his mother has passed away he goes to the location that he originally put her in for reasons unknown. Meursault was asked if he wanted to see his mother of course she was in a coffin but he refused which many believe to be uncommon because what son does not want to say goodbye to his mother one last time. Though it is unusual for him to think about going to a movie with his

     Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue" pg 3). This is the position that Daniel, a character in Williams’ dialogue, chooses to believe and defend. David Hume goes a little deeper and explains in his essay, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Liberty and Necessity," that determinism is this: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and

When Meursault’s mother dies, he is bothered not by her death, but the fact that he must travel to attend her funeral. After he arrives at the funeral, he does not grieve, but gets swallowed by the day’s heat. The only pleasure that Meursault experiences is in tangible objects, such as the taste of a cigarette, or the gentle touch of his girlfriend. Instead of approaching ideas like existentialism on an academic approach, he approaches existentialism with a character, showing us how an existentialistic person might behave. Camus does a superb job of not only demonstrating the philosophy of existentialism, but also the physical representation, making The Stranger a unique book.

However, one of the stranger and more interesting philosophical identities, which exists in a world of its own, is Existentialism. Existentialists try to acknowledge the incongruent irrationalities of the world and try to live with them. One of these such prolific existentialist and literary sculptor is Albert Camus. In his novel, The Stranger,

Casual determinism put simply, is the theory that all things happen for a particular reason and everything is predetermined. It is the idea all the events in one’s life can be explained, and each event has a particular reason for being. If everything is predetermined, then this therefore suggests that the future is fixed which further suggests that we can possibly predict the behavior of things. The theory of determinism ultimately suggests that we don’t the capacity to have free will because all future events are destined to occur, and furthermore we do not posses the knowledge to figure out whether it can be proved true or false (Hoefer). There has been three positions that have developed concerning the theory of causal determinism: hard determinist, compatibilist or soft determinist, and compatibilist.