We have the things we take as evidence and then we have the conclusions we draw from that evidence. In the ancient world the primary evidence was taken to be volition (will), for humans obviously act from volition and our worlds are full of humans. Volition was then attributed to other things (or to the forces underlying them), such as thunder and lightning.
In the modern world the primary evidence is taken to be mechanistic interaction (efficient causality). Focusing on efficient causality is helpful to the scientific enterprise, and given the way we prize the scientific enterprise we are prone to favor efficient causality. Thus in the modern world the opposite move occurs. Instead of saying that lightning is a consequence of volition, modern people say that volition is a consequence of lightning (electricity, or efficient causality more generally, or abiogenesis etiologically).
Aristotle noted the obvious fact that volitional and non-volitional realities both exist, and are different. Reducing one to the other is irrational, and betrays bias. The corrective to idealism is to note that matter and its interactions do exist and do count as evidence. The corrective to determinism is to note that volition and its interactions do exist and do count as evidence. Only by superficially reducing one to the other does one arrive at these extremes.