Understanding The Free Will Controversy

Author : Thomas Talbott
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1725268361
Total Pages : 141 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Understanding the Free-Will Controversy written by Thomas Talbott and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is free will and do humans possess it? While these questions appear simple they have tied some of our greatest minds in knots over the millennia. This little book seeks to clarify for an audience of educated non-specialists some of the issues that often arise in philosophical disputes over the existence and the nature of human free will. Beyond that, it proposes a particular solution to the puzzles. Many philosophers have argued that free will is incompatible with determinism, and many have also argued that it is incompatible with indeterminism. So, is free will simply an incoherent concept? Talbott argues that the best way out of this quagmire requires that we come to appreciate why certain conditions essential to our emergence as free moral agents—conditions such as indeterminism, ignorance, and a context of ambiguity and misperception—are themselves obstacles to a fully realized freedom. For a fully realized freedom requires that, as minimally rational individuals, we have learned some important lessons for ourselves; and once these lessons have been learned, some of our freest choices may be such that we could not have chosen otherwise because so choosing would then seem to us utterly unthinkable and irrational.

Author : Thomas Talbott
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1725268388
Total Pages : 93 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Understanding the Free-Will Controversy written by Thomas Talbott and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is free will and do humans possess it? While these questions appear simple they have tied some of our greatest minds in knots over the millennia. This little book seeks to clarify for an audience of educated non-specialists some of the issues that often arise in philosophical disputes over the existence and the nature of human free will. Beyond that, it proposes a particular solution to the puzzles. Many philosophers have argued that free will is incompatible with determinism, and many have also argued that it is incompatible with indeterminism. So, is free will simply an incoherent concept? Talbott argues that the best way out of this quagmire requires that we come to appreciate why certain conditions essential to our emergence as free moral agents--conditions such as indeterminism, ignorance, and a context of ambiguity and misperception--are themselves obstacles to a fully realized freedom. For a fully realized freedom requires that, as minimally rational individuals, we have learned some important lessons for ourselves; and once these lessons have been learned, some of our freest choices may be such that we could not have chosen otherwise because so choosing would then seem to us utterly unthinkable and irrational.

Author : R. C. Sproul
Publisher : Baker Books
ISBN 13 : 9780801064128
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Willing to Believe written by R. C. Sproul and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2002-04-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of the will in believing the good news of the gospel? Why is there so much controversy over free will throughout church history? R. C. Sproul finds that Christians have often been influenced by pagan views of the human will that deny the effects of Adam's fall. In Willing to Believe, Sproul traces the free-will controversy from its formal beginning in the fifth century, with the writings of Augustine and Pelagius, to the present. Readers will gain understanding into the nuances separating the views of Protestants and Catholics, Calvinists and Arminians, and Reformed and Dispensationalists. This book, like Sproul's Faith Alone, is a major work on an essential evangelical tenet.

Author : Christian List
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674239814
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : David Palmer (Professor)
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199860084
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Libertarian Free Will written by David Palmer (Professor) and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title provides a collection of essays on the libertarian position on free will and related issues that focus specifically on the views of philosopher Robert Kane. Written by a distinguished group of philosophers, the essays range from various areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of mind.

Author : Davidson M
Publisher : Hassell Street Press
ISBN 13 : 9781013913495
Total Pages : 138 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Free Will Controversy written by Davidson M and published by Hassell Street Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Author : Saint Augustine (of Hippo)
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Problem of Free Choice written by Saint Augustine (of Hippo) and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Augustine's most important works, written between 388 and 395, this dialogue has as its objective not so much to discuss free will for its own sake as to discuss the problem of evil in reference to the existence of God, who is almighty and all-good.

Author : David Hume
Publisher : VM eBooks
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding written by David Hume and published by VM eBooks. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves. As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such as is best fitted to please the imagination, and engage the affections. They select the most striking observations and instances from common life; place opposite characters in a proper contrast; and alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness, direct our steps in these paths by the soundest precepts and most illustrious examples. They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments; and so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour, they think, that they have fully attained the end of all their labours.

Author : Alain Bécoulet
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262547287
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Star Power written by Alain Bécoulet and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise and accessible explanation of the science and technology behind the domestication of nuclear fusion energy. Nuclear fusion research tells us that the Sun uses one gram of hydrogen to make as much energy as can be obtained by burning eight tons of petroleum. If nuclear fusion—the process that makes the stars shine—could be domesticated for commercial energy production, the world would gain an inexhaustible source of energy that neither depletes natural resources nor produces greenhouse gases. In Star Power, Alan Bécoulet offers a concise and accessible primer on fusion energy, explaining the science and technology of nuclear fusion and describing the massive international scientific effort to achieve commercially viable fusion energy. Bécoulet draws on his work as Head of Engineering at ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) to explain how scientists are trying to “put the sun in a box.” He surveys the history of nuclear power, beginning with post–World War II efforts to use atoms for peaceful purposes and describes how energy is derived from fusion, explaining that the essential principle of fusion is based on the capacity of nucleons (protons and neutrons) to assemble and form structures (atomic nuclei) in spite of electrical repulsion between protons, which all have a positive charge. He traces the evolution of fusion research and development, mapping the generation of electric current though fusion. The ITER project marks a giant step in the development of fusion energy, with the potential to demonstrate the feasibility of a nuclear fusion reactor. Star Power offers an introduction to what may be the future of energy production.

Author : P.F. Strawson
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134060866
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays written by P.F. Strawson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-08-28 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the time of his death in 2006, Sir Peter Strawson was regarded as one of the world's most distinguished philosophers. First published thirty years ago but long since unavailable, Freedom and Resentment collects some of Strawson's most important work and is an ideal introduction to his thinking on such topics as the philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology and aesthetics. Beginning with the title essay Freedom and Resentment, this invaluable collection is testament to the astonishing range of Strawson's thought as he discusses free will, ethics and morality, logic, the mind-body problem and aesthetics. The book is perhaps best-known for its three interrelated chapters on perception and the imagination, subjects now at the very forefront of philosophical research. This reissue includes a substantial new foreword by Paul Snowdon and a fascinating intellectual autobiography by Strawson.