Abstract

This chapter investigates freedom of actions in relation to ‘indeterminism and determinism’. The main question is whether human beings are free in view of having free will (freedom of choice) or whether they are determined by external factors, such as natural laws. In fact, this has attracted different important developments, such as compatibilism, which assumes that free will and determinism are compatible, hence arguing that ‘human beings are free’, and incompatibilism, a view that they are not compatible, hence ‘human beings are not free’. Apart from presenting the studies on this issue in Western analytic philosophy, the chapter explores issues relative to freedom of actions, determinism and indeterminism in the African thought through the study of language. This will show that language use in African thought reveals that there is a multiplicity of interpretations that accommodates these views in the traditional setting.