Free Will

Oxford Readings in Philosophy

by Gary Watson (Editor)

The new edition of this highly successful text will once again provide the ideal introduction to free will. This volume brings together some of the most influential contributions to the topic of free will during the past 50 years, as well as some notable recent work.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Metaphysics, Psychology

472 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 1982

Reviews

[Hossein Gholamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-known question may be: In a world where are natural laws governing, how do we humans claim that we act freely and that we can take responsibility for our actions?
I had read the first edition (edition 1982) includes 11 essays. It was published in 2003, The new edition includes 22 essays. Both editions are different, there is only one common essay in both editions: Peter Strawson's. A major drawback to the previous edition, as well as to this edition, is the lack of Davidson essays. In describing this collection of essays it is enough to say that it contains a collection of the most important essays of analytic philosophy.

[Stephen Okita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great anthology and collection of the greatest contemporary analytic critique on the will.

I do feel that it manifest itself as a distinction from the wider philosophical tradition. Many of the arguments I would arrogantly assume were not as deep as they ended up being. However, the cannon of contemporary academic philosophy find the same 20 or so authors who are quite civil in their critique.

The polite, sedentary realm of analytic philosophy (armchair, mostly) contrasts with the chaos of continental and wider meta-rhetorical critique. Nobody knows what's after postmodernism, praxis is gone and Proteus has re-infected and strangled critique. So it is quite nice to sit there and think the world is fine while dispassionately evaluating counterfactual conditionals, feels old school. But god, these guys do need to start doing more ballsy right before the world falls apart.

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

ploop! plz pedal capitalizim elz were derp

tgif jts - "she knows"

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects almost two dozen essays addressing various problems in the understanding of free will, broadly construed, published over the past half-century or so. Particular emphasis is given to the debate over free will's compatibility with a deterministic physical universe, but attention is also given to questions of the nature of human agency, moral responsibility, and what exactly freedom consists in. As several of these texts make explicit, attempting to reconcile our intuitive experience of freedom with a reflective belief in materialistic causality reveals a rather anxiety-inducing paradox, and while no definitive answers will be found herein, each essay presents a sound theory worthy of serious consideration.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stopped reading when I got to the Gary Watson chapter. It's not that none of the arguments or not convincing, but I was more interested in the question of if free will even exists. This seems to get almost immediately into free will and moral responsibility. This is fine, and it is an interesting question, but I felt that it overlooked what I was really interested in. All in all, though, the essays are very interesting. Sometimes a bit dry, but that's to be expected. I am not an expert on free will, and this doesn't seem to be a very great introduction to free will, so that is kind of a let down, but overall, I enjoyed what i read, but will be looking for a bit more of an intro and to an anthology of free will vs determinism.

[Ben Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a decent selection of relatively modern papers that cover a wide variety of viewpoints on free will (existence of, compatibilism/incompatibilism, etc). I particularly liked "An Argument for Incompatibilism" by Peter van Inwagen and "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" by Harry G. Frankfurt not because I completely agreed with them (I didn't) but because I felt that they were both particularly well written. Neither was written to obfuscate and the arguments were presented in a logical manner. Barring a few exceptions, I think this is true of the other papers in this book as well.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction, which gives an overview of the main debates about free will, but constructs arguments and counterarguments. Also, quite a good selection of articles. May consider reading them all at some point in the future when the Philosophy exam becomes a painless, or at least less painful and recent, memory.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

much expanded over the 1st edition!

[Jonathan Brown]

philosophy,free will

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modern introduction to free will. Not a topic I am particularly interested in, all things considered.