The Question of Free Will
A Holistic View
Chapter One
Some Preliminary Remarks
Anyone who asks at the end of the twentieth century
what free will is, whether we have it, and how we know that
we have it, owes an explanation to those who may wonder
why they should read yet another volume devoted to these
antique and supposedly antiquated questions. In reply to
those who so wonder I should say that my treatment of the
subject is distinguished by advocating a combination of
ideas that may make this study of interest even to hardened
specialists on free will and to those who have studied
the long history of philosophical thinking about it. I summarize
these ideas in this introductory chapter while fully
aware that some of them have been advocated by other
philosophers and that no writer on free will can ever be
sure that any of his or her ideas on this much-examined
subject are absolutely original. I summarize them here
even though doing so will make my later elaboration of
them more repetitive than I would like it to be. But I do so
because I assume that the reader would prefer ... read full excerpt from The Question of Free Will: A Holistic View ebook
