In Defence Of Free Will

First published in 2002. This is Volume IV of seventeen in the Library of Philosophy series on Metaphysics. Written in 1968, this is a collection of essays on the topic of looking at the key question of not whether linguistic analysis has a valuable function in philosophy-that has already been settled, but rather as to the precise nature and extent of its profitable employment in solving specific problems.

The problem of freedom and determinism is one of the most enduring, and one of the best, problems in philosophy. One of the best because it so tenaciously resists solution while yet always seeming urgent, and one of the most enduring because it has always been able to present itself in different ways to suit the preoccupations of different ages. This book, first published in 1980, sets out to defend free will: it elaborates a sober and systematic case for libertarianism in the face of the overwhelming threat that is posed by the scientific study of the brain.

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.

In the first in-depth study of the transcendental argument for decades, Free Will and Epistemology defends a modern version of the famous transcendental argument for free will: that we could not be justified in undermining a strong notion of free will, as a strong notion of free will is required for any such process of undermining to be itself epistemically justified. By arguing for a conception of internalism that goes back to the early days of the internalist-externalist debates, it draws on work by Richard Foley, William Alston and Alvin Plantinga to explain the importance of epistemic deontology and its role in the transcendental argument. It expands on the principle that 'ought' implies 'can' and presents a strong case for a form of self-determination. With references to cases in the neuroscientific and cognitive-psychological literature, Free Will and Epistemology provides an original contribution to work on epistemic justification and the free will debate.

This is Volume V of twenty-two of a collection on 20th Century Philosophy. Originally published in 1964, this collection contains original papers assembled and representative in their styles, methods, and preoccupations. The various problems here discussed where to the author both important and unsolved: if others are stimulated to make further progress in solving them, the main purpose of this collection will have been achieved.

With some exceptions, there is not a real interest in Islamic philosophy and t- ology in Western institutions today. This largely ignored area has the potential to present enlightening insights into the development of the Western thought and to contribute to contemporary discussions in philosophy and theology in general. Scholars working in Islamic thought usually focus on its medieval background and consider it to be mainly of a historical interest and far away from the intellectual world of today. Showing its contemporary relevance is an important task by which the status of Islamic philosophy can be elevated to its proper station. By considering these points in mind, the University of Kentucky organized an international graduate student conference on Islamic philosophy and the- ogy with an emphasis on its contemporary relevance which was held between the 28th and 30th September 2007. This book emerged out of the conf- ence by adding more chapters relevant to the main theme of the book. This book presents analyses and discussions of different topics in Islamic philo- phy and theology by relating them to contemporary debates and ideas in four main areas: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion and value t- ory. There are ten chapters in sum. Some of the chapters are written by graduate students and some of them by experienced scholars. Each chapter presents c- siderable insight into its relevant topic but does not represent the opinion of anybody except the author.

First published in 1987. Milton and Free Will is an incisive, ambitious and comprehensive analysis and defence of the concept of free will, using Milton as an example and exemplar. Written with passion, and out of a lifelong engagement with the poetry of Milton and the philosophical and theological problems it encompasses, the book will illuminate both Milton studies and philosophical debate. The author engages with all the major currents of the free will debate, starting with Aristotle and Aquinas and considering arguments advanced by Hume and Kant as well as those of a number of modern philosophers including Polanyi, Kenny, Parfit, Plantinga, Swinburne, Dennett and Davidson. He pays particular attention to the Marxist formalism of Bakhtin, the Catholic phenomenology of Pope John Paul II and the evolutionism of Monod and Sober. He concludes with a rebuttal of the deconstructionism of Barthes, Derrida and Foucault. He claims that all the major difficulties faced by defenders of free will can be overcome if a notion of willing implicit in the work of Milton is properly understood. Freedom as Milton represented and understood it, he suggests, is a condition of mind arising out of inter-personal awareness and not a property or consequence of practical reasoning. He finds supporting evidence for this view in the writings of Newman and in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady, which he reads as a narrative structurally reversing Milton’s representation of the fall of Eve in Paradise Lost. The author systematically analyses and reanalyses key passages in his texts in the light of the many arguments for and against free will, seeking thereby to affirm the validity in principle, and the personal and political importance in practice, of the Christian humanist tradition of which he sees Milton, Newman and the Pope as important (if sometimes misleading) spokesmen.