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Are we free? Determined? Or both?
The question of free will — what it is, and whether we have it — has been central to philosophy from the beginning. It is still a central question in philosophy. But now, we also have scientific resources to study it. For this class session, we’ll be covering both.
Required Philosophy Reading
This is an overview of the contemporary philosophical discussion of free will. It is a bit dense, but also fairly short. Read through it carefully ahead of class, and arrive ready to discuss it.
Required Science Material
Recent scientific developments are relevant to our understanding of free will. Probably the most important is a paper by Benjamin Libet from 1983. Here’s a video that explains the experiment: