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- Title
Logic and the free will problem.
- Authors
van Inwagen, Peter
- Abstract
The article focuses on getting an intuitive grip on the problem of free will and determinism. The best way to get an intuitive grip on the problem is to think of the alternatives that one considers in deliberation as being incidents that are included in alternative futures, and to think of alternative futures diagrammatically, in the way suggested by a path or a river or a road that literally forks. It is a common opinion that free will is required by morality. This common opinion is examined from the perspective that is provided by looking at time as a garden of forking paths. It has seemed obvious to most people who have not been exposed to philosophy that free will and determinism are incompatible. It is almost impossible to get beginning students of philosophy to take seriously the idea that free will and determinism are compatible. Indeed, people who have not been exposed to philosophy usually understand the word determinism to stand for the thesis that there is no free will. One might think that the incompatibility of free will and determinism deserves to seem obvious-because it is obvious.
- Subjects
FREE will &; determinism; ACT (Philosophy); ETHICS; STUDENTS; LOGIC; PHILOSOPHY
- Publication
Social Theory & Practice, 1990, Vol 16, Issue 3, p277
- ISSN
0037-802X
- Publication type
Article