Free Will and Determinism in Nostromo

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THE QUESTION whether we are free in our choices and actions has not exercised philosophers only. Indeed, the problem of free will is protean, discussed in its most abstract form in philosophy but also in science, sociology, history, and literature. A theoretical problem debated with the help of complicated terminology, free will and determinism also concerns such practical issues as responsibility, guilt, justice, human relationships, the way we see ourselves and others, and our so called life-hopes and expectations. Conrad's fiction centrally addresses many of these topics, and his oeuvre constitutes one of the first expressions of a fundamental conceptual shift about the problem of free …