The Significance of Free Will

by Robert Kane

Overview

Robert Kane provides a critical overview of debates about free will of the past half century, relating this recent inquiry to the broader history of the free will issue and to vital currents of twentieth century thought. Kane also defends a traditional libertarian or incompatibilist view of free will (one that insists upon the incompatibility of free will and determinism), employing arguments that are both new to philosophy and that respond to contemporary developments in physics and biology, neuro science, and the cognitive and behavioral sciences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199880355
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/21/1996
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	486 KB

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
I. The Ascent Problem:Compatibility and Significance
2. Will
3. Responsibility
4. Alternative Possibilities
5. Ultimate Responsibility
6. Significance
II. The Descent Problem: Intelligibility and Existence
7. Plurality and Indeterminism
8. Moral and Prudential Choice
9. Efforts, Purposes, and Practical Reason
10. Objections and Responses
11. Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Provides the most fully articulated, the most comprehensive, and the best case for libertarianism that has ever been devised."—Richard Double, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania

"A magisterial work [that] culminates twenty-five years of thinking about the problems of free will. For those who believe both that robust free will cannot survive in a deterministic climate and that a viable free will need be scientifically respectable, Kane's work may prove salvific."—Mark Bernstein, University of Texas at San Antonio

"For more than a decade Robert Kane has vigorously defended libertarian free will in prose and print. Significance represents his definitive statement and it is a truly splendid book. Remarkably well organized and original, Significance requires rethinking standard convictions in the freedom/determinism debate about explanation, causation, responsibility, and worth. It's a must read for philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists."—George Graham, University of Alabama at Birmingham

"This is, quite simply, the most thoughtful and detailed defense of libertarianism currently available." —Alfred R. Mele, Davidson College

",,,complex and carefully argued..."—Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher