Free Will Causality And The Self

Author : Atle Ottesen Søvik
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2016-09-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783110474466

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Free Will, Causality and the Self by Atle Ottesen Søvik Pdf

A major goal for compatibilists is to avoid the luck problem and to include all the facts from neuroscience and natural science in general which purportedly show that the brain works in a law-governed and causal way like any other part of nature. Libertarians, for their part, want to avoid the manipulation argument and demonstrate that very common and deep seated convictions about freedom and responsibility are true: it can really be fundamentally up to us as agents to determine that the future should be either A or B. This book presents a theory of free will which integrates the main motivations of compatibilists and libertarians, while at the same time avoiding their problems. The so-called event-causal libertarianism is the libertarian account closest to compatibilitsm, as it claims there is indeterminism in the mind of an agent. The charge of compatibilists, however, is that this position is impaired by the problem of luck. This book is unique in arguing that free will in a strong sense of the term does not require indeterminism in the brain, only indeterminism somewhere in the world which there plausibly is.

Author : Atle Ottesen Søvik
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2016-09-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783110474688

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Free Will, Causality and the Self by Atle Ottesen Søvik Pdf

A major goal for compatibilists is to avoid the luck problem and to include all the facts from neuroscience and natural science in general which purportedly show that the brain works in a law-governed and causal way like any other part of nature. Libertarians, for their part, want to avoid the manipulation argument and demonstrate that very common and deep seated convictions about freedom and responsibility are true: it can really be fundamentally up to us as agents to determine that the future should be either A or B. This book presents a theory of free will which integrates the main motivations of compatibilists and libertarians, while at the same time avoiding their problems. The so-called event-causal libertarianism is the libertarian account closest to compatibilitsm, as it claims there is indeterminism in the mind of an agent. The charge of compatibilists, however, is that this position is impaired by the problem of luck. This book is unique in arguing that free will in a strong sense of the term does not require indeterminism in the brain, only indeterminism somewhere in the world which there plausibly is.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 191 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789004409965

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Free Will, Causality, and Neuroscience by Anonim Pdf

Neuroscientists often consider free will to be an illusion. Contrary to this hypothesis, the contributions to this volume show that recent developments in neuroscience can also support the existence of free will. Firstly, the possibility of intentional consciousness is studied. Secondly, Libet’s experiments are discussed from this new perspective. Thirdly, the relationship between free will, causality and language is analyzed. This approach suggests that language grants the human brain a possibility to articulate a meaningful personal life. Therefore, human beings can escape strict biological determinism. Contributing author Sofia Bonicalzi has received funding from the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 754388 (LMUResearchFellows) and from LMUexcellent, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Free State of Bavaria under the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal Government and the Länder.

Author : Derk Pereboom
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2006-11-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521029964

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Living Without Free Will by Derk Pereboom Pdf

Argues that morality, meaning and value remain intact even if we are not morally responsible for our actions.

Author : John Martin Fischer
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 041532727X

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Free Will: Concepts and challenges by John Martin Fischer Pdf

Author : Gerald Young
Publisher : Springer
Page : 950 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2016-05-17
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9783319240947

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Unifying Causality and Psychology by Gerald Young Pdf

This magistral treatise approaches the integration of psychology through the study of the multiple causes of normal and dysfunctional behavior. Causality is the focal point reviewed across disciplines. Using diverse models, the book approaches unifying psychology as an ongoing project that integrates genetics, experience, evolution, brain, development, change mechanisms, and so on. The book includes in its integration free will, epitomized as freedom in being. It pinpoints the role of the self in causality and the freedom we have in determining our own behavior. The book deals with disturbed behavior, as well, and tackles the DSM-5 approach to mental disorder and the etiology of psychopathology. Young examines all these topics with a critical eye, and gives many innovative ideas and models that will stimulate thinking on the topic of psychology and causality for decades to come. It is truly integrative and original. Among the topics covered: Models and systems of causality of behavior. Nature and nurture: evolution and complexities. Early adversity, fetal programming, and getting under the skin. Free will in psychotherapy: helping people believe. Causality in psychological injury and law: basics and critics. A Neo-Piagetian/Neo-Eriksonian 25-step (sub)stage model. Unifying Causality and Psychology appeals to the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, philosophy, neuroscience, genetics, law, the social sciences and humanistic fields, in general, and other mental health fields. Its level of writing makes it appropriate for graduate courses, as well as researchers and practitioners.

Author : Edwin A. Locke
Publisher : Bookbaby
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2018-03-08
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 1543914225

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The Illusion of Determinism by Edwin A. Locke Pdf

This book shows that the theory of determinism, the doctrine that everything we believe, feel or do is determined by forces outside our control, is false (and actually self contradictory). The book shows that free will is self caused and involves the choice to use our rational faculty or not. Experiments that claim to prove determinism are refuted. The libertarian view that free will is based on randomness is also show to be fallacious. A distinction is made between what free will entails and what its limits are. The book shows that determinists' scorn for people who believe in free will (calling this view folk psychology based on ignorance) is misguided. It is determinists who are victims of a false view of human nature.

Author : Peter Ulric Tse
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 473 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2013-02-22
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780262313162

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The Neural Basis of Free Will by Peter Ulric Tse Pdf

A neuroscientific perspective on the mind–body problem that focuses on how the brain actually accomplishes mental causation. The issues of mental causation, consciousness, and free will have vexed philosophers since Plato. In this book, Peter Tse examines these unresolved issues from a neuroscientific perspective. In contrast with philosophers who use logic rather than data to argue whether mental causation or consciousness can exist given unproven first assumptions, Tse proposes that we instead listen to what neurons have to say. Tse draws on exciting recent neuroscientific data concerning how informational causation is realized in physical causation at the level of NMDA receptors, synapses, dendrites, neurons, and neuronal circuits. He argues that a particular kind of strong free will and “downward” mental causation are realized in rapid synaptic plasticity. Such informational causation cannot change the physical basis of information realized in the present, but it can change the physical basis of information that may be realized in the immediate future. This gets around the standard argument against free will centered on the impossibility of self-causation. Tse explores the ways that mental causation and qualia might be realized in this kind of neuronal and associated information-processing architecture, and considers the psychological and philosophical implications of having such an architecture realized in our brains.

Author : Kadri Vihvelin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199795253

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Causes, Laws, and Free Will by Kadri Vihvelin Pdf

Common sense tells us that we are morally responsible for our actions only if we have free will -- and that we have free will only if we are able to choose among alternative actions. Common sense tells us that we do have free will and are morally responsible for many of the things we do. Common sense also tells us that we are objects in the natural world, governed by its laws. Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers deny that we have free will or that free will is a necessary prerequisite for moral responsibility. Some hold that we are morally responsible only if we are somehow exempt from the laws of nature. Causes, Laws, and Free Will defends a thesis that has almost disappeared from the contemporary philosophical landscape by arguing that this philosophical flight from common sense is a mistake. We have free will even if everything we do is predictable given the laws of nature and the past, and we are morally responsible whatever the laws of nature turn out to be. The impulses that tempt us into thinking that determinism robs us of free will spring from mistakes -- mistakes about the metaphysics of causation, mistakes about the nature of laws, and mistakes about the logic of counterfactuals.

Author : Randolph Clarke
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2006-02-23
Category : Free will and determinism
ISBN : 0195306422

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Libertarian Accounts of Free Will by Randolph Clarke Pdf

This text examines free will in the context of determinism on the one hand, and the notion that this choice may in fact be random and arbitrary on the other.

Author : Roy Baumeister,Alfred Mele,Kathleen Vohs
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2010-07-09
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780195389760

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Free Will and Consciousness by Roy Baumeister,Alfred Mele,Kathleen Vohs Pdf

This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore such issues as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision making; the nature and power of conscious deciding; connections among free will, consciousness, and quantum mechanics; why free will and consciousness might have evolved; how consciousness develops in individuals; the experience of free will; effects on behavior of the belief that free will is an illusion; and connections between free will and moral responsibility in lay thinking. Collectively, these state-of-the-art chapters by accomplished psychologists and philosophers provide a glimpse into the future of research on free will and consciousness.

Author : Gregg D. Caruso
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780739171363

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Free Will and Consciousness by Gregg D. Caruso Pdf

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.

Author : Thomas Pink
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2004-06-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780192853585

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Free Will: A Very Short Introduction by Thomas Pink Pdf

Every day we seem to make and act upon all kinds of free choices - but are these choices really free? Or are we compelled to act the way we do by factors beyond our control? This book looks at free will.

Author : Laura Ekstrom
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2018-03-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780429968914

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Free Will by Laura Ekstrom Pdf

In this comprehensive new study of human free agency, Laura Waddell Ekstrom critically surveys contemporary philosophical literature and provides a novel account of the conditions for free action. Ekstrom argues that incompatibilism concerning free will and causal determinism is true and thus the right account of the nature of free action must be indeterminist in nature. She examines a variety of libertarian approaches, ultimately defending an account relying on indeterministic causation among events and appealing to agent causation only in a reducible sense. Written in an engaging style and incorporating recent scholarship, this study is critical reading for scholars and students interested in the topics of motivation, causation, responsibility, and freedom. In broadly covering the important positions of others along with its exposition of the author's own view, Free Will provides both a significant scholarly contribution and a valuable text for courses in metaphysics and action theory.

Author : Christopher Evan Franklin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2018-03-08
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780190682804

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A Minimal Libertarianism by Christopher Evan Franklin Pdf

In this book, Christopher Evan Franklin develops and defends a novel version of event-causal libertarianism. This view is a combination of libertarianism--the view that humans sometimes act freely and that those actions are the causal upshots of nondeterministic processes--and agency reductionism--the view that the causal role of the agent in exercises of free will is exhausted by the causal role of mental states and events (e.g., desires and beliefs) involving the agent. Franklin boldly counteracts a dominant theory that has similar aims, put forth by well-known philosopher Robert Kane. Many philosophers contend that event-causal libertarians have no advantage over compatibilists when it comes to securing a distinctively valuable kind of freedom and responsibility. To Franklin, this position is mistaken. Assuming agency reductionism is true, event-causal libertarians need only adopt the most plausible compatibilist theory and add indeterminism at the proper juncture in the genesis of human action. The result is minimal event-causal libertarianism: a model of free will with the metaphysical simplicity of compatibilism and the intuitive power of libertarianism. And yet a worry remains: toward the end of the book, Franklin reconsiders his assumption of agency reductionism, arguing that this picture faces a hitherto unsolved problem. This problem, however, has nothing to do with indeterminism or determinism, or even libertarianism or compatibilism, but with how to understand the nature of the self and its role in the genesis of action. Crucially, if this problem proves unsolvable, then not only is event-causal libertarianism untenable, so also is event-causal compatibilism.