compatibilism - A Tippling Philosopher

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compatibilism

A collection of 14 posts

Debating Free Will with Verbose Stoic

I sent regular theistic commenter Verbose Stoic (VS) a chapter I was once commissioned to write by John W. Loftus for his anthology Christianity in the Light of Science. VS has written a lengthy critique on his blog here. I have commented a few times there already in answer to

Analysing Breuer's Account of Free Will

Thanks to Luke Breuer for producing his piece on free will the other day and how he thinks you can shoehorn in some level of freedom in a very deterministically constrained reality. First and foremost, please read my piece "Free Will: “We are influenced, but not determined” – the 80-20%

Free Will: Constrained, But Not Completely?

Here is a gratefully received guest post from Luke Breuer, a commenter here with very nuanced theistic tendencies. I asked him to put his thoughts on free will together both in light of my recent pieces arguing against Richard Carrier as well as the fact that we have argued over

Responding to Carrier on Free Will (III): Syllogisms, Laypeople & Christians

Recently, I introduced you to the first piece in my response to Richard Carrier as follows: One Christmas present I received this year is a blog piece by Richard Carrier (“Why Syllogisms Usually Suck: Free Will Edition”) going to town on one of my old free will articles expressing determinism/

Responding to Carrier on Free Will (I): Control

One Christmas present I received this year is a blog piece by Richard Carrier ("Why Syllogisms Usually Suck: Free Will Edition") going to town on one of my old free will articles expressing determinism/libertarian free will issues in a syllogism: "A Syllogism for Determinism". His

classical theism

God's Own Free Will

I have written variously on this subject before but wanted to bring together two ideas: 1. God cannot have free will. 2. If he does, he could not have used it to create the world. Libertarian free will (as in the conscious and actual ability to choose otherwise in a

Why Free Will is Real: Response to Harris, Coyne, and Other Determinists - Dr. Christian List

This is a pretty good conversation between Michael Shermer and Dr Christian List of the LSE. https://youtu.be/9yxHA_gv7vc List sets out three conditions for his version of free will, which he argues humans ( and others to differing degrees have): 1. Intentional agency 2. Alternative possibilities between which

Having a Pop at Modern Compatibilist Atheists

A friend of mine is presently running an “ad” in the Free Enquiry magazine. There are a few ideas I would like to look at here, and I will do so in two posts; this is the second post after looking at "Christian free will" here. The questions

Christian Free Will and Modern Compatibilist Atheists

A friend of mine is presently running an "ad" in the Free Enquiry magazine. There are a few ideas I would like to look at here, and I will do so in two posts. The questions to look at are as follows. First of all: is the term

Dennett, Harris and Free Will

For those who have been unaware of the fascinating conversation between Dan Dennett and Sam Harris in a bar in Banff, here it is. It seeks to bury the hatchet and clear things up over the disagreement that took place a few years ago with regard to Dennett's

Dennett, Harris and Free Will

Daniel Dennett has finally responded (it has been long-awaited) to Sam Harris's short treatise Free Will. The review can be found at the Center for Naturalism, here. I am going to look at what Dennett says, and what Harris's idea of free will is compared to Dennett. Essentially, whilst there is lots

I am editor of "Free Will and Determinism" at DMOZ

A friend of mine on facebook, George Ortega, who runs the causalconsciousness website, alerted me to the website categorisation project known as DMOZ. See below for what DMOZ is. I have changed and added a few titles, as well as denying a bunch of rubbish ones suggested by users which

Interview with Tom Clark of the Center For Naturalism

Interview with Tom Clark of the Center For Naturalism

Tom Clark is the Director for the Center for Naturalism (CFN), an organisation which harbours the excellent resource Naturalism.Org. The Mission for CFN is stated as follows: The Center for Naturalism (CFN) is an educational and advocacy organization devoted to increasing public awareness of natu

Gregg Caruso's "Free Will and Consciousness" Reviewed

I recently came across Gregg Caruso's book Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will. Gregg dropped me a line after coming across my blog and we got chatting. I have not read this book yet, but it seems to ally itself pretty strongly with my first book, Free Wi