Contents: Acknowledgements. Preface. CHAPTER ONE: OLDCOMB AND NEWCOMB. 1. In the King Comb's Chamber of Game. 2. The Newcombian Predicaments. CHAPTER TWO: ANANKE. 1. Fatalism: What It Is Not? 2. Fatalism: What Is It? 3. Fatalism and a priori Arguments. 4. Fatalism and ‘Internal' Experience. 5. Determinism, Indeterminism and Fatalism. 6. Transientism, Eternism and Fatalism. 7. Fatalism: What It Does Not Imply? CHAPTER THREE: FATED FREEDOM. 1. More on Libertarianism. 2. On the Deterministic Concept of Freedom. 3. Moral Self and (...) Responsibility in the Light of Probabilism. 4. Fated Freedom. CHAPTER FOUR: THE VIRUS OF FATALISM. 1. Fatalism and Problems of Cognition. 2. The Virus of Fatalism: Why Mostly Harmless? (shrink)

Transientism (whose name derives from the concept of transience of events) is the metaphysical hypothesis abuot the objectivity of becoming. Its opposite is permanentism (eternism). It is represented by a number of versions. In this paper some attention is given to „naive” transientism (which by no means may only be the point of view of scientifically and philosophically untutored minds) and most of it to the contemporarily most widespread (in philosophy) version which deserve the name of Aristotelian possibilism. The main (...) conclusions from the examination of the doctrine of transientism in the paper are following. All attempts of those authors who try to prove either that transientism is inconsistent or that the objetive import of all tenses statements can be rendered, without a loss of content, by means of the tenseless language of permanentism are doomed to be thwarted. While any model of the universe without a priviledged stratification of the space-time into instants is inconsistent with transientism (unless some unempirical conjectures are intoduced), any model with a priviledged stratification is compatible with Aristotelian possibilsm, both determinism and indeterminism are compatible with permanentism. According to the author transientism, even in case it is true, never can get a support of science to prevail over its rival. A thinker who does not assume that metaphysical intuitions growing out of the „immediate” everyday life experience furnish us with a reliable background for metaphysical doctrines cannot positively declare himself in favor of transientism. The import of Aristotelian possibilism for the dispute about the freewill problem also is briefly discussed in the paper; the implicit conclusion is that Aristotelian possibilism, even if its truth be asumed, could not support the doctrine of libertarianism. (shrink)

Using a comprehensive quotation from a book of Władysław Krajewski a characteristic of moderate scientism (to be called scientism below) is given. That is the stance I share with Krajewski. I complement the characteristic presenting scientism as an approved by me "naive trust in science". In the main part of the paper I discuss, however, the limitations imposed by contemporary science on the traditional epistemological optimism of scientism.