Online research in philosophy

This paper outlines one way of thinking about the problem of free will, some general reasons for dissatisfactions with traditional approaches to solving it, and some considerations in favor of pursuing a broadly revisionist solution to it. If you are looking for a student-friendly introduction to revisionist theorizing about free will, this is probably the thing to look at.

Difficulties in arriving at an adequate conception of vagueness have led many writers to describe a phenomenon that has come to be known as "higher-order vagueness". Almost as many have found it to be a problem that needs to be addressed. In what follows I shall argue that, whilst we must acknowledge its presence, it is a pseudo-problem. The crucial point is the vagueness of "vague", which shows the phenomenon to be unproblematic though real enough.

The philosophical enterprise -- The mind-body problem -- Free will and determinism -- The problem of personal identity -- The problem of relativism and morality -- The problem of evil and the existence of god -- The problem of skepticism and knowledge.

In this essay I present what is, I contend, the free-will problem properly thought through, or at least presented in a form in which it is possible to think about it without being constantly led astray by bad terminology and confused ideas. Bad terminology and confused ideas are not uncommon in current discussions of the problem. The worst such pieces of terminology are "libertarian free will" and "compatibilist free will." The essay consists partly of a defense of the thesis that the use of these phrases by writers on the problem of free will can only generate conceptual confusion and partly of a formulation of the problem that does not make use of them. I contend that this formulation is neutral with respect to the historically important positions on free will (e. g., compatibilism and incompatibilism).

According to some cosmologists, the big bang cosmogony and even the (now largely defunct) steady-state theory pose a scientifically insoluble problem of matter-energy creation. But I argue that the genuine problem of the origin of matter-energy or of the universe has been fallaciously transmuted into the pseudo-problem of creation by an external cause. A fortiori, it emerges that the initial "true" and "false" vacuum states of quantum cosmology do not vindicate biblical divine creation ex nihilo at all.

Tsuda's article suggests several plausible concepts of neurodynamic representation and processing, with a thoughtful discussion of their neurobiological grounding and formal properties. However, Tsuda's theory leads to a holistic view of brain functions and to the controversial conclusion that the “binding problem” is a pseudo-problem. By contrast, we stress the role of chaotic patterns in solving the binding problem, in terms of flexible temporal coding of visual scenes through graded and intermittent synchrony.

In this paper I will argue that a profile of the pseudo-sciences can be gained from the scientific pretensions of the pseudo-scientist. These pretensions provide two yardsticks which together take care of the charge of scientific prejudice that any suggested demarcation of pseudo-science has to face. To demonstrate that my analysis has teeth I will apply it to Freud and modern-day Bach-kabbalists. Against Laudan I will argue that the problem of demarcation is not a pseudo-problem, though the discussion will bear out that Laudan's replacement question, namely the question whether someone's theory is well-confirmed, is not, as Lugg claimed, independent of the question as to whether that person is a pseudo-scientist. I further argue that my prototype pseudo-scientists do not have the shortcomings highlighted in Thagard's recent analysis of pseudo-science.

The Theory of Important Criteria is used to argue that the age?old problem of the compatibility of free will and determinism turns on the question of the importance of causal indeterminacy of choice as a criterion of being able to do otherwise. One's answer to this question depends in turn on one's evaluation of certain moral issues and of the force and significance of certain similes, analogies and diagrams in terms of which one can ?depict? a deterministic universe. It is further argued that the problem of free will and determinism is not a pseudo?problem, but a genuine problem that is hard to solve because of the depth and complexity of the evaluative issues on which it hangs.

Perhaps we should begin with this question: What is the “problem of free will”? Like those other great “problem” phrases that philosophers bandy about, “the mind-body problem,” “the problem of universals,” and “the problem of evil,” this phrase has no clear referent. There are obviously a lot of philosophical problems about free will, but which of them, or which combination of them, is the problem of free will? I will propose an answer to this question, but this proposal can be no more than just that, a proposal. I propose that we understand the problem of free will to be the following problem.