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Author: Christian List
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674239814
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
A crystal-clear, scientifically rigorous argument for the existence of free will, challenging what many scientists and scientifically minded philosophers believe. Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world.
Author: Christian List
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674239814
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Get Book Here
Book Description
A crystal-clear, scientifically rigorous argument for the existence of free will, challenging what many scientists and scientifically minded philosophers believe. Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world.
Author: John Martin Fischer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405182040
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moralresponsibility, and determinism, this text represents the mostup-to-date account of the four major positions in the free willdebate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposingviewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism,and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’sexplanation of his particular view; the second half allows them todirectly respond to each other’s arguments, in a lively andengaging conversation Offers the reader a one of a kind, interactive discussion Forms part of the acclaimed Great Debates in Philosophyseries
Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451683405
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 96
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Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion. A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.
Author: Paul Russell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019062762X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
The Limits of Free Will presents influential articles by Paul Russell concerning free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other fields, such as law and criminology, moral psychology, theology, and, more recently, neuroscience. These articles were written and published over a period of three decades, although most have appeared in the past decade. Among the topics covered: the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation; practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of agency; moral luck, and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and pessimism. Some essays are primarily critical in character, presenting critiques and commentary on major works or contributions in the contemporary scene. Others are mainly constructive, aiming to develop and articulate a distinctive account of compatibilism. The general theory advanced by Russell, which he describes as a form of "critical compatibilism", rejects any form of unqualified or radical skepticism; but it also insists that a plausible compatibilism has significant and substantive implications about the limits of agency and argues that this licenses a metaphysical attitude of (modest) pessimism on this topic. While each essay is self-standing, there is nevertheless a core set of themes and issues that unite and link them together. The collection is arranged and organized in a format that enables the reader to appreciate and recognize these links and core themes.
Author: Dan Barker
Publisher: Union Square & Company
ISBN: 9781454927358
Category : RELIGION
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"Do we have free will? And if we don't, why do we think we do? Scientists and philosophers have been battling with this issue for years. In this book, a former Christian minister who is now an internationally recognized authority on atheism addresses these questions."--Page 2 of cover.
Author: Henrik Walter
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262265034
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
Walter applies the methodology of neurophilosophy to one of philosophy's central challenges, the notion of free will. Neurophilosophical conclusions are based on, and consistent with, scientific knowledge about the brain and its functioning. Neuroscientists routinely investigate such classical philosophical topics as consciousness, thought, language, meaning, aesthetics, and death. According to Henrik Walter, philosophers should in turn embrace the wealth of research findings and ideas provided by neuroscience. In this book Walter applies the methodology of neurophilosophy to one of philosophy's central challenges, the notion of free will. Neurophilosophical conclusions are based on, and consistent with, scientific knowledge about the brain and its functioning. Walter's answer to whether there is free will is, It depends. The basic questions concerning free will are (1) whether we are able to choose other than we actually do, (2) whether our choices are made intelligibly, and (3) whether we are really the originators of our choices. According to Walter, freedom of will is an illusion if we mean by it that under identical conditions we would be able to do or decide otherwise, while simultaneously acting only for reasons and being the true originators of our actions. In place of this scientifically untenable strong version of free will, Walter offers what he calls natural autonomy—self-determination unaided by supernatural powers that could exist even in an entirely determined universe. Although natural autonomy can support neither our traditional concept of guilt nor certain cherished illusions about ourselves, it does not imply the abandonment of all concepts of responsibility. For we are not mere marionettes, with no influence over our thoughts or actions.
Author: Martin Buber
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826476937
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 110
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Book Description
'The publication of Martin Buber's I and Thou was a great event in the religious life of the West.' Reinhold Niebuhr Martin Buber (1897-19) was a prolific and influential teacher and writer, who taught philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1939 to 1951. Having studied philosophy and art at the universities of Vienna, Zurich and Berlin, he became an active Zionist and was closely involved in the revival of Hasidism. Recognised as a landmark of twentieth century intellectual history, I and Thou is Buber's masterpiece. In this book, his enormous learning and wisdom are distilled into a simple, but compelling vision. It proposes nothing less than a new form of the Deity for today, a new form of human being and of a good life. In so doing, it addresses all religious and social dimensions of the human personality. Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith>
Author: Gary Watson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
The Aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university students or the general reader.
Author: Matthew R. Dasti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019992273X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Focusing on the rich and variegated cluster of Indic philosophical traditions as they developed from the late Vedic period up to the pre-modern period, this book offers an understanding, according to each school, of the nature of free will and agency.
Author: Bernard Berofsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199640017
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
This book offers a defense of humean compatibilism, which bases the belief in the compatibility of free will and determinism on David Hume's idea that laws do not uphold the existence of necessary connections in nature.
