Download or read book Free Will written by Joseph Keim Campbell and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is free will? Why is it important? Can the same act be both free and determined? Is free will necessary for moral responsibility? Does anyone have free will, and if not, how is creativity possible and how can anyone be praised or blamed for anything? These are just some of the questions considered by Joseph Keim Campbell in this lively and accessible introduction to the concept of free will. Using a range of engaging examples the book introduces the problems, arguments, and theories surrounding free will. Beginning with a discussion of fatalism and causal determinism, the book goes on to focus on the metaphysics of moral responsibility, free will skepticism, and skepticism about moral responsibility. Campbell shows that no matter how we look at it, free will is problematic. Thankfully there are a plethora of solutions on offer and the best of these are considered in full in the final chapter on contemporary theories of free will. This includes a rigorous account of libertarianism, compatabilism, and naturalism. Free Will is the ideal introduction to the topic and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand the importance and relevance of the concept for contemporary philosophy.
Download or read book The World as Will and Representation Vol 1 written by Arthur Schopenhauer and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 1 of the definitive English translation of one of the most important philosophical works of the 19th century, the basic statement in one important stream of post-Kantian thought.
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 Theories and Things written by Willard Van Orman Quine and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here are the most recent writings, some of them unpublished, of the preeminent philosopher of our time. Quine is always, whatever his subject, an elegant writer, witty, precise, and forceful. Admirers of his earlier books will welcome this new volume.
Download or read book The Meaning of Meaning written by Charles Kay Ogden and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Theory of Justice written by John RAWLS and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.
Download or read book Taking Life written by Torbjörn Tännsjö and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When is it right to kill? Three ethical theories are examined, deontology, a moral rights theory, and utilitarianism. The implications of each theory are worked out for different kinds of killing. In the final analysis, utilitarianism can best account for our considered intuitions about these kinds of killing.
Download or read book Free Will written by Robert Kane and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2001-12-03 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free Will brings together the essential readings on the debate of free will and determinism. Written by top scholars in the field, the essays represent some of the clearest and most accessible thinking on this subject. The introduction offers a concise yet thorough mapping of this age-old debate as well as a helpful overview of the selections.
Download or read book The Theory of Moral Sentiments written by Adam Smith (économiste) and published by . This book was released on 1812 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Who are We written by Louis P. Pojman and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pojman examines the major theories of Western philosophy and religion and Eastern thought in the context of human nature by contrasting Hebrew/Christian and classical Greek, medieval, Hindu and Buddhist, Kantian, conservative and liberal, Freudian, existential and materialistic perspectives.
Download or read book Living Without Free Will written by Derk Pereboom and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that morality, meaning and value remain intact even if we are not morally responsible for our actions.
Download or read book Choice Theory written by William Glasser, M.D. and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. William Glasser offers a new psychology that, if practiced, could reverse our widespread inability to get along with one another, an inability that is the source of almost all unhappiness. For progress in human relationships, he explains that we must give up the punishing, relationship–destroying external control psychology. For example, if you are in an unhappy relationship right now, he proposes that one or both of you could be using external control psychology on the other. He goes further. And suggests that misery is always related to a current unsatisfying relationship. Contrary to what you may believe, your troubles are always now, never in the past. No one can change what happened yesterday.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories written by M. Dentith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy theories are a popular topic of conversation in everyday life but are often frowned upon in academic discussions. Looking at the recent spate of philosophical interest in conspiracy theories, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories looks at whether the assumption that belief in conspiracy theories is typically irrational is well founded
Download or read book Theory of Categories written by Dr. Patrick Grim and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Categorization is an essential and unavoidable instrumentality for conceptually navigating a world—indeed for being able to conceptualize a world to be navigated. Classification is a pivotal instrument for scientific systemization, featured as a basis for the philosophical understanding of reality since Aristotle, but classificatory concepts of sorts, types and natural kinds inevitably pervade our understanding of ourselves and our position in the social as well as the natural world at all levels. The authors argue that the character, purpose-, context-, and culture-relativity of categories and categorization have been widely misunderstood—that standard philosophical views are substantially correct in some respects but markedly mistaken in others. The book offers a comprehensive survey of basic principles of classification and categorization, a survey of relevant empirical work, and a multitude of illustrative examples accompanied by instructive analysis of ways and means. The work traces wide-ranging implications of the current approach for philosophical problematic and paradox in philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of science, social philosophy and ethics.
Download or read book Test Theory for a New Generation of Tests written by Norman Frederiksen and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Theory and Truth written by Lawrence Sklar and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2002-02-07 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skeptics have cast doubt on the idea that scientific theories give us a true picture of an objective world. Lawrence Sklar examines three kinds of skeptical arguments about scientific truth, and explores the important role that these play within foundational science itself, especially physics. First, doubts have been expressed about the legitimacy of claiming truth for assertions about the realm of the unobservable. Second, scientific theories have been characterized as relying heavily on idealization of the physical systems they seek to describe. Third, it is noted that scientific theories tend to be transient, and even the best currently available are expected to be replaced in the future. Sklar demonstrates that these kinds of philosophical critique are employed within science itself, and reveals the clear difference between how they operate in a scientific and in a more abstract philosophical context. The underlying theme of Theory and Truth is that science and philosophy are essential to, and inextricable from, each other. One cannot understand the methods of science except by understanding philosophy, and one cannot fruitfully pursue philosophy of science without understanding foundational science as well.
Download or read book The Theistic Argument as Affected by Recent Theories written by Jeremiah Lewis Diman and published by . This book was released on 1882 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: