What is Determinism?

Determinism makes the ideological point that our actions and thought are determined by some universal basis. This universal basis can be language (Bakhtin talks about linguistic determinism), class ideology (Marx talks about determinism of class-consciousness), will (Nietzsche said that everything is determined by will), writing (Derrida says that everything is writing) and so on.

For example, according to linguistic determinism: if one's native language is English one thinks with the help of language as well as one thinks in this language. Language belongs to one as well as one belongs to language. Everything we say in English is contained in the English language. That is why the writer just expresses the structures which are contained in the language to which he belongs.

Language is the tool of thinking, according to Wittgenstein. But it is not a tool like a hammer. So, one can lose one's hammer and yet hit the nail without a hammer. But one can think nothing without language. Really language is the way of thinking. If one's native language is French, you think as Frenchman, you have the logic and world outlook of French culture.

Every language, in my mind, creates its own would outlook, its own culture therefore its own thinking. For example, what color do you associate with happiness? It might be pink or yellow, perhaps? But for the Chinese, black is the symbol of happiness and laughter. Another example, with what do you associate the flower chrysanthemum? For the Japanese, the chrysanthemum is the symbol of death as well as the symbol of the Emperor.

So, there is linguistic determinism: we can think nothing without language. Everything we think belongs to our world outlook (this is ideological determinism too) and to native language (this is linguistic determinism). Every word we think, say or write belongs to our native language, therefore our thinking, saying and writing is determined by our language.

The basis of determinism, in my mind, is the human aspiration to understand the underlying nature of the person. Freud says that a subsection of the person is sexual appetite, therefore he creates the determinism of sexuality. The basis of the person (Ego) in his mind is Id, which embraces all sexual wants and instincts. I think that the philosopher creates determinism to understand and to describe the nature of the human person and to build his own system of philosophical ideology.