Download or read book Free Will written by Sam Harris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Free Will written by Meghan Griffith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of whether humans are free to make their own decisions has long been debated and it continues to be a controversial topic today. In Free Will: The Basics readers are provided with a clear and accessible introduction to this central but challenging philosophical problem. The questions which are discussed include: Does free will exist? Or is it illusory? Can we be free even if everything is determined by a chain of causes? If our actions are not determined, does this mean they are just random or a matter of luck? In order to have the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility, must we have alternatives? What can recent developments in science tell us about the existence of free will? Because these questions are discussed without prejudicing one view over others and all technical terminology is clearly explained, this book is an ideal introduction to free will for the uninitiated.
Download or read book Why Free Will Is Real written by Christian List and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-06 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Four Views on Free Will written by John Martin Fischer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Free Will written by Gary Watson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1982 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A Free Will written by Michael Frede and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-12 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As readers will quickly discover, the quality of the text that [Frede] has bequeathed fully matches the brilliance and incisiveness for which all his work is admired." From the foreword by David Sedley
Download or read book Neurophilosophy of Free Will written by Henrik Walter and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-01-23 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Limits of Free Will written by Paul Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Free Will Explained written by Dan Barker and published by Union Square & Company. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book Free Will written by Graham McFee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question whether human choices and actions are causally determined or are in a way free, and the implications of this for our moral, personal and social lives continues to challenge philosophers. This book explores the determinist rejection of free will through a detailed exposition of the central determinist argument and a consideration of the responses to each of its premises. At every stage familiar examples and case studies help frame and ground the argument. The discussion is at no time peremptory and the invitation to the reader to be drawn in and to contribute to the debate as an engaged participant is palpable in the manner and approach adopted throughout. "Free Will" will be welcomed by students looking for an engaging and clear introduction to the subject, and as a rigorous exercise in philosophical argument it will serve, for the beginning student new to philosophy, as an excellent springboard into the subject more generally.
Download or read book Free Will written by Mark Balaguer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-02-14 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosopher considers whether the scientific and philosophical arguments against free will are reason enough to give up our belief in it. In our daily life, it really seems as though we have free will, that what we do from moment to moment is determined by conscious decisions that we freely make. You get up from the couch, you go for a walk, you eat chocolate ice cream. It seems that we're in control of actions like these; if we are, then we have free will. But in recent years, some have argued that free will is an illusion. The neuroscientist (and best-selling author) Sam Harris and the late Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner, for example, claim that certain scientific findings disprove free will. In this engaging and accessible volume in the Essential Knowledge series, the philosopher Mark Balaguer examines the various arguments and experiments that have been cited to support the claim that human beings don't have free will. He finds them to be overstated and misguided. Balaguer discusses determinism, the view that every physical event is predetermined, or completely caused by prior events. He describes several philosophical and scientific arguments against free will, including one based on Benjamin Libet's famous neuroscientific experiments, which allegedly show that our conscious decisions are caused by neural events that occur before we choose. He considers various religious and philosophical views, including the philosophical pro-free-will view known as compatibilism. Balaguer concludes that the anti-free-will arguments put forward by philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists simply don't work. They don't provide any good reason to doubt the existence of free will. But, he cautions, this doesn't necessarily mean that we have free will. The question of whether we have free will remains an open one; we simply don't know enough about the brain to answer it definitively.
Download or read book Freedom of the Will written by Jonathan Edwards and published by . This book was released on 1860 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Free Will and Consciousness written by Gregg D. Caruso and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, with advances in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences, the idea that patterns of human behavior may ultimately be due to factors beyond our conscious control has increasingly gained traction and renewed interest in the age-old problem of free will. In this book, Gregg D. Caruso examines both the traditional philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will, as well as recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to consciousness and human agency. He argues that our best scientific theories indeed have the consequence that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform and that because of this we do not possess the kind of free will required for genuine or ultimate responsibility. It is further argued that the strong and pervasive belief in free will, which the author considers an illusion, can be accounted for through a careful analysis of our phenomenology and a proper theoretical understanding of consciousness. Indeed, the primary goal of this book is to argue that our subjective feeling of freedom, as reflected in the first-person phenomenology of agentive experience, is an illusion created by certain aspects of our consciousness.
Download or read book The Free Will Delusion written by James B. Miles and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poverty is not accident, but design. We are not all equal before the law. And the central message of contemporary ethics is that only some people matter.
Download or read book Free Will written by Derk Pereboom and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11-13 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique anthology featuring contributions to the dispute over free will from Aristotle to the twenty-first century, Derk Pereboom's volume presents the most thoughtful positions taken in this crucial debate and discusses their consequences for free will's traditional corollary, moral responsibility. The Second Edition retains the organizational structure that made its predecessor the leading anthology of its kind, while adding major new selections by such philosophers as Spinoza, Reid, John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, Galen Strawson, and Timothy O'Connor. Hackett Readings in Philosophy is a versatile series of compact anthologies, each devoted to a topic of traditional interest. Selections include classical, modern, and contemporary writings chosen for their elegance of exposition and success at stimulating thought and discussion.
Download or read book Predestination Free Will written by David Basinger and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-09-20 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If God is in control, are people really free? This question has bothered Christians for centuries. And answers have covered a wide spectrum. Today Christians still disagree. Those who emphasize human freedom view it as a reflection of God's self-limited power. Others look at human freedom in the order of God's overall control. David and Randall Basinger have put this age-old question to four scholars trained in theology and philosophy. John Feinberg of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Norman Geisler of Dallas Theological Seminary focus on God's specific sovereignty. Bruce Reichenbach of Augsburg College and Clark Pinnock of McMaster Divinity College insist that God must limit his control to ensure our freedom. Each writer argues for his perspective and applies his theory to two practical case studies. Then the other writers respond to each of the major essays, exposing what they see as fallacies and hidden assumptions. A lively and provocative volume.
Download or read book Fate and Free Will written by Heath White and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fate and Free Will, Heath White explores and defends a traditional view of God's relationship to creation that has in recent years fallen out of favor. White argues that theological determinism—the idea that God is directly responsible for every detail of history and existence—is relevant to concepts such as human responsibility, freedom, and justice; the meaning of life; and theodicy. Defending theological determinism from the perspective of traditional orthodox Christianity, White clarifies this view, positions it within scripture, and argues positively for it through considerations about divine attributes and via the idea of an ex nihilo creation. White addresses objections to theological determinism by presenting nuanced and insightful counterarguments. He asserts that theological determinism does not undermine practices of criminal punishment, destroy human responsibility, render life meaningless, or hinder freedom. While the book does not attempt to answer every dilemma concerning evil or hell, it effectively grapples with them. To make his case for theological determinism, White relies on theories of free will, moral responsibility, and a meaningful life. He uses clear commonsense language and vivid illustrations to bring to light the conditions of meaning and purpose in our lives and the metaphysics of God's relationship to the world. This original book will appeal to the philosophical community as well as students and scholars of theology.
