Précis of the significance of free will

Abstract

The significance of free will (Oxford, 1996) has two broad aims. The first is to survey and critically examine recent debates about free will over the past half century, relating these debates to the long history of the free will issue and to other currents of twentieth-century thought. The second aim is to defend a traditional incompatibilist or libertarian view of free will in ways that respond to twentieth century developments in philosophy and the sciences–physical, biological, psychological, cognitive and neuro-sciences–without the usual appeals to obscure or mysterious forms of agency or causation.