Free Will

Course at IAP-PUC, April 23th - May 9th, 2008, by Daniel von Wachter

Contact: epost@ABCD.de - replace "ABCD" by "von-wachter"

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Whether we have free will and what kind of free will we have are philosophical questions that are fascinating, clear, and significant. It is enormously valuable to find the right answers. The aim of this course is to understand the problem of free will and to answer ques-tions about it; the interpretation and understanding of texts is essential for this course too, but it is subordinate to this aim. The professor will present all relevant alternative views but also present and defend his own views. The students are free to defend any view.

The problem of free will consists of many parts and is connected to other big metaphysical questions, for example determinism, laws of nature, and neuro science. Different kinds of "free will" have been defended. For example, some authors defend "compatibilist" free will because they believe that "incompatibilist" free will is untenable but still want to defend free will because they want to uphold responsibility. Further, there can be different degrees of free will. The various parts of the problem of free and their connections will be ad-dressed so that the student gains an overview over the whole field and understands how the parts are connected.

Advice

• My advice (in German) on how to write a philosophical essay.
• A guide to writing a philosophical essay by Michael Huemer
• "How To Read a Philosophy Paper" (James Pryor)
• "Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper" (James Pryor)
• The Number-One Study Technique for Mastering New Material and Reviewing Old Material
by Gary North. This is lesson 1 of
• 15 Lessons to improve your learning skills
by Gary North.
• Read How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler: HTML, PDF, PDF)

Bibliography

Texts you should have

• Kane, Robert, ed., 2002, The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Oxford UP.

Texts available in the Internet

• Ted Honderich's free will website
• Free online papers on free will listed on consc.net/online/
• List of Papers on Free Will on MindPapers (it includes the ones listed on consc.net/online/)
• Wachter, Daniel von. 2003. "Free Agents as Cause". In On Human Persons, edited by K. Petrus. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 183-194, http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1949/ .
• philosophieverstaendlich.de/freiheit (in German)
• Strawson, Galen, "Free Will", Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

• Free Will
• Compatibilism
• Arguments for Incompatibilism
• Incompatibilist Theories of Free Will
• Personal Autonomy
• Divine Freedom

Further Texts

• Chisholm, Roderick. 1976. The Agent as Cause. In Action Theory, edited by M. Brand and D. Walton. Dor-drecht: Reidel, 199-211.
• Fischer, John Martin. 1994. The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control, Aristotelian Society series ; v. 14. Ox-ford: Blackwell.
• Hildebrand, Dietrich von. 1959. Ethik (Christian Ethics). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, chs. 20-26.
• Ingarden, Roman. 1970. Über die Verantwortung: Ihre ontischen Fundamente. Stuttgart: Reclam.
• Libet, Benjamin. 1999. Do We Have Free Will? Journal of Consciousness Studies 6:47-57. http://pacherie.free.fr/COURS/MSC/Libet-JCS1999.pdf
• Lowe, E. J. 2003. Rational Action, Freedom, and Choice. Progress in Complexity, Information, and De-sign 2, http://www.iscid.org/papers/Lowe_RationalAction_103103.pdf
• Mele, Alfred R. 2007. Decisions, Intentions, Urges, and Free Will: Why Libet Has Not Shown What He Says He Has. In Explanation and Causation: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, edited by J. Campbell, M. O'Rourke and D. Shier. MIT Press.
• Nagel, Thomas, The View from Nowhere.
• O'Connor, Timothy. 2000. Persons and Causes. Oxford UP.
• Pink, Thomas, 2004, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction.
• Reid, Thomas, 1788, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/.
• Rowe, William, 2004, Can God Be Free?
• Seifert, Josef, 1973, Leib und Seele, 269-295.
• Swinburne, Richard, 1997, The Evolution of the Soul [important; arguments for free will]
• Wachter, Daniel von. 2003. Free Agents as Cause. In On Human Persons, edited by K. Petrus. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 183-194, http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1949/.

Further Anthologies

• Kane, Robert, Hg., 2002, Free Will (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy), Oxford: Blackwell.
• van Inwagen, Peter, and Dean W. Zimmerman, eds. 1998. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. Oxford: Blackwell, 343-380.
• Fischer, John Martin, Robert Kane, Derk Pereboom, and Manuel Vargas. 2007. Four Views on Free Will. Wiley-Blackwell.
• French, Peter A., Howard Wettstein, and John Martin Fischer, eds. 2005. Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Midwest Studies in Philosophy). Wiley-Blackwell.

Ancient Texts

• Augustine, De libero arbitrio.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Second Part (Prima Secundae), questions 6-17. http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/
• Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, ed. Alan Wolter.
• Erasmus, De libero arbitrio.
• Luther, Martin, De servo arbitrio.
• Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion.