The new edition of this highly successful text will once again provide the ideal introduction to free will. This volume brings together some of the most influential contributions to the topic of free will during the past 50 years, as well as some notable recent work.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Excellent anthology!"--James Coley, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
"An excellent collection."--Susan Sauve, Harvard University
"Excellent--exactly what I need for my free will course."--George B. Thomas, University of Virginia
"Outstanding and much needed."--Don Garrett, University of Utah
"An excellent collection of recent work on the ever-perplexing issues of mechanism and free will."--Lynne Rudder Baker, Middlebury College
About the Author
Gary Watson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't overestimate a simple textbook,
By Felix Sonderkammer (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) (Paperback)
It is easy to overestimate a book from Oxford University Press with the brief title "Free Will." One is inclined to think that this will describe all of the in's and out's of the ancient and fascinating problem. Though a little reflection ought to make clear that no book of 450-odd pages could ever do justice to the task, it is still an impression that is hard to shake.
Be advised that is a textbook--it is meant to introduce particular subject matter to students. It is not an introduction to the problem of free will and it is not a solution to the problem of free will. Just as the back cover states: "This volume brings together some of the most influential contributions to the topic...[made] during the past 50 years, as well as some notable recent work." This means three things: 1. The essays are those mainstream academic philosophers consider to be the most influential essays published on the subject since World War II, as well as a few that the editor thought would be interesting to throw in. 2. These essays are collected so that it is relatively cheap and easy to get at them. Few would be willing to dig through The Proceedings of the British Academy from 1962, for example. Still others of these essays could not be obtained in print anywhere else, such as Chisholm's and Watson's excellent introduction. 3. Expect only passing reference to ancient, Medieval, Enlightenment, and "Continental" treatment of the question. Remember that this is coming from from Anglophones, who do not generally read contemporary philosophy from outside their world. Once one understands these limitations, one can appreciate the book for what it is: an engaging, informative, and very useful introduction to a cross-section of the free will debate. These essays are very good and have been influential for good reason. One thing I did find disappointing, though, was the dropping of Charles Taylor's "Responsibility for Self" from the first edition. That is a marvelous essay that looks at the problem in a new way under the influence of Hegel and Heidegger.
11 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unless you lack free will, keep looking for an alternative,
By A Customer
This review is from: Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) (Paperback)
The selection of essays is standard; the production standards of the book are low. Since the first edition, Oxford University Press has transferred this title to digital printing, which means that the book's typeface is 'dirty' and of fax quality. As this is a mere reprint (of the aforementioned bad technical quality) it also does not contain any new writing on the problem of free will. This books is not good value for money; most of the classic papers can be found in other anthologies, such as the one in the Hackett series, while the more recent ones reflect a biased perspective from 15 years ago.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent condition,
By Franklin Pearson Allen IV (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) (Paperback)
I got this for a paper and it was extremely useful. The shipper was fast to send and the condition was perfect.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
1. The metaphysical problem of human freedom might be summarized in the following way: Human beings are responsible agents; but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with an deterministic view of human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all.) Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
possible tout court, agent acts with free will, conduct through practical reasoning, possibility tout court, true moral responsibility, unbroken causal continuity, actual sequence rules, conversational interlocutor, divergence miracle, causal determinism rules, rules out moral responsibility, volitional defect, moral reactive attitudes, vicarious analogues, counterfactual intervener, deliberated verdicts, evidential norms, hydraulic conception, superhuman calculator, personal reactive attitudes, deterministic causal chain, transeunt causation, reflective agency, deliberative agency, luck argument Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Pocket Oracle, Oxford University Press, Basic Argument, Journal of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Harry Frankfurt, Gary Watson, First Formal Argument, Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Review, Robert Kane, John Martin Fischer, Galen Strawson, David Lewis, American Philosophical Quarterly, Englewood Cliffs, Journal of Philosophv, Walden Two, Carl Ginet, Clarendon Press, Elbow Room, Harvard University Press, Philosophical Papers, Practical Unreason New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
1. The metaphysical problem of human freedom might be summarized in the following way: Human beings are responsible agents; but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with an deterministic view of human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all.) Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
possible tout court, agent acts with free will, conduct through practical reasoning, possibility tout court, true moral responsibility, unbroken causal continuity, actual sequence rules, conversational interlocutor, divergence miracle, causal determinism rules, rules out moral responsibility, volitional defect, moral reactive attitudes, vicarious analogues, counterfactual intervener, deliberated verdicts, evidential norms, hydraulic conception, superhuman calculator, personal reactive attitudes, deterministic causal chain, transeunt causation, reflective agency, deliberative agency, luck argument Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Pocket Oracle, Oxford University Press, Basic Argument, Journal of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Harry Frankfurt, Gary Watson, First Formal Argument, Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Review, Robert Kane, John Martin Fischer, Galen Strawson, David Lewis, American Philosophical Quarterly, Englewood Cliffs, Journal of Philosophv, Walden Two, Carl Ginet, Clarendon Press, Elbow Room, Harvard University Press, Philosophical Papers, Practical Unreason New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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100
books
cite this book:
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- Free Will (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy) by Robert Kane on 17 pages
- The Significance of Free Will by Robert Kane on 12 pages
- On Action (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Carl Ginet on 10 pages
- Moral Responsibility by John Martin Fischer on 9 pages
- An Essay on Free Will by Peter van Inwagen on 6 pages
See all 100 books this book cites
- Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Michael Smith on 8 pages
- Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility by Paul Russell on 7 pages
- Free Will (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy) by Robert Kane on 7 pages
- Living without Free Will (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Derk Pereboom on 7 pages
- Valuing Emotions (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Michael Stocker on 6 pages
See all 100 books citing this book
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