The blogosphere has been full of free will discussions once again. Julian Baggini reviewed several recent books, including Sam Harris's Free Will. The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a series of short articles on free will: start here and follow the links on the page for the others. As if that weren't already a feast, Russell Blackford has been reviewing each of the CHE articles on Talking Philosophy.
And last, Jerry Coyne responds to Blackford's critique on his blog. There's some good discussion in the comments, about evenly split between eliminativists and compatibilists.
Thanks for the links! Very informative.
ReplyDeleteWhile I ultimately agree with Baggini's semantic brush-off "let's focus on what we do know, not on the real meaning of "free will"", I have to say his entire piece is an irritating counter-scientific spiel that I can't take seriously. No reductionism? Really? "free will" is what the philosophers say it is, and mentioning that the common concept is incoherent is barely worth a sentence? Arrgh.
Still working my way through the lot of others. I just needed to rant on Baggini...
Yair