ABSTRACT
The general principles underlying most of the scientific and philosophical and ethical theories are the principles of indeterminism and determinism. Indeterminism is a theory opposite to determinism, especially in application to man. All the respective theories in the field represent either a deterministic or an indeterminate or a mixed standpoint. Such being the general characteristics of determinism and indeterminism, each of them has an enormous variety of concrete forms and shadings. In some of the deterministic theories man's behavior is considered as rigidly conditioned as is the motion of a stone falling. In others its conditioned character is qualified by so many reservations, exemptions, and limitations that such a deterministic theory almost imperceptibly merges into indeterminism. Mutatis mutandis, the same can be said of various conceptions of indeterminism, which range from almost absolute freedom of man, or anything else from any external conditioning except man's free will, to such diluted indeterminisms as are on the border line between determinism and indeterminism.
