What to read | What to think about | What to write
You will find useful introductory discussions in the background reading we gave you. Each of Blackburn, Hollis, Hospers, Nagel, Ayer introduces the problem in his own particular way. Read any or all. But then read very carefully, and think very carefully about one of the classic essays:
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume, OUP 1998. Section 8 'Of Liberty and Necessity'
You can read it online here. If you would like to see a more recent writer arguing a similar thesis, there is an almost forgotten article:
And then there is a most useful - if dull - collection:
Read the editor's introduction and then anything you like. But you will find Peter van Inwagen's article useful as a very clear account of the incompatibilist position. We recommend the first edition rather than the second because it also contains a famous essay on roughly Humean lines:-
Read the editor's introduction and then anything you like. But you will find Peter van Inwagen's article useful as a very clear account of the incompatibilist position. We recommend the first edition rather than the second because it also contains a famous essay on roughly Humean lines:-
Make sure you understand all the technical jargon (Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, Incompatibilism, etcetera).
Get clear on what you think freedom of the will consists in.
And then work on understanding arguments. What are the major arguments for and against Determinism? For and against Compatibilism? And so on.
And then work on countermoves: how, for instance, might a Compatibilist respond to the arguments for Incompatibilism?
And most important of all, decide your own position on the matter. You are not training to be a reporter on philosophy, you are training to be a philosopher. And philosophers only write when they have formed a view and have something to say.
TWO pieces of written work, please.
Before the first class, a piece of no more than 300 words, laying out as clearly and accurately as possible your views on the matter so far.
For tutorials, an essay, please, to the title
"Are Free Will and Determinism compatible?"
