A very powerful opposition to all doctrines based upon or upholding determinism shows itself in the work of Cournot and the neo-critical philosophy. The idea of freedom is a central one in the thought of both Cournot and Renouvier.
Cournot devoted his early labours to a critical and highly technical examination of the question of probability, considered in its mathematical form, a task for which he was well equipped.[6] Being not only a man of science but also a metaphysician, or rather a philosopher who approached metaphysical problems from the impulse and data accorded him by the sciences, Cournot was naturally led to the wider problem of _probabilité philosophique_. He shows in his _Essai sur les Fondements de nos Connaissances_ that hazard or chance are not merely words which we use to cover our ignorance, as Taine would have claimed. Over against the doctrine of a universal determinism he asserts the reality of these factors. The terms chance and hazard represent a real and vital element in our experience and in the nature of reality itself. Probability is a factor to be reckoned with, and this is so because of the elements of contingency in nature and in life. Freedom is bound up essentially with the vitality which is nature itself.
[6] See his _Essai sur les Fondements de nos Connaissances: “Hazard,”_ chap. iii.; “_Probabilité Philosophique_,” chap, iv., pp. 71-101; and chap. v., “_De l’Harmonie et de la Finalité_,” pp. 101-144.
The neo-critical philosopher, Renouvier, is a notable champion of freedom. We have already seen the importance he attaches to the category of personality. For him, personality represents a consciousness in possession of itself, a free and rational harmony—in short, freedom personified.
From a strictly demonstrative point of view Renouvier thinks it is impossible to prove freedom as a fact. However, he lays before us with intense seriousness various. considerations of a psychological and a moral character which have an important bearing upon the problem. This problem, he asserts, not only concerns our actions but also our knowledge. To bring out this point clearly, Renouvier develops some of the ideas of his friend, Jules Lequier, on the notion of the autonomy of the reason, or rather of the reasonable will. In this way he shows doubt and criticism to be themselves signs of freedom, and asserts that we form our notions of truth freely, or that at least they are creations of our free thought, not laid upon us by an external authority.