"All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it"
About this Quote
Johnson lands the punch with a neat paradox: the mind, when it starts system-building, keeps talking itself out of moral agency; the body, when it actually lives, can’t shake the feeling of choosing. “All theory” isn’t a swipe at thinking so much as a warning about what happens when abstraction gets drunk on its own elegance. Philosophical determinism can feel airtight on paper, because paper never has to decide whether to apologize, resist temptation, or get out of bed.
The line works because it turns “experience” into evidence without pretending it’s a proof. Johnson isn’t offering a lab result; he’s pointing to the stubborn phenomenology of being human. We deliberate. We regret. We praise and blame. Even the determinist, in practice, argues as if persuasion matters - as if words can change minds, which is just free will in street clothes.
The subtext is moral and social: if you let “theory” dominate, you don’t just lose a metaphysical debate, you risk dissolving responsibility into mechanism. Johnson, a staunch moralist writing in an Enlightenment culture obsessed with reasoned systems, is bracing against the era’s temptation to explain away the self. His genius is to concede theory’s glamour while refusing its sovereignty.
It’s also a subtle jab at intellectual fashion. Johnson suggests the most sophisticated argument can still be less authoritative than the ordinary, repetitive fact of choice as we encounter it - in courts, friendships, vows, and every moment when we treat people as agents rather than weather patterns.
The line works because it turns “experience” into evidence without pretending it’s a proof. Johnson isn’t offering a lab result; he’s pointing to the stubborn phenomenology of being human. We deliberate. We regret. We praise and blame. Even the determinist, in practice, argues as if persuasion matters - as if words can change minds, which is just free will in street clothes.
The subtext is moral and social: if you let “theory” dominate, you don’t just lose a metaphysical debate, you risk dissolving responsibility into mechanism. Johnson, a staunch moralist writing in an Enlightenment culture obsessed with reasoned systems, is bracing against the era’s temptation to explain away the self. His genius is to concede theory’s glamour while refusing its sovereignty.
It’s also a subtle jab at intellectual fashion. Johnson suggests the most sophisticated argument can still be less authoritative than the ordinary, repetitive fact of choice as we encounter it - in courts, friendships, vows, and every moment when we treat people as agents rather than weather patterns.
Quote Details
| Topic | Free Will & Fate |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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