{"id":12626,"date":"2009-05-19T20:12:07","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T20:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/05\/19\/a-tension-in-philoponus-doxastic-network\/"},"modified":"2009-05-19T20:12:07","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T20:12:07","slug":"a-tension-in-philoponus-doxastic-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/05\/19\/a-tension-in-philoponus-doxastic-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Will Again: A Tension in Philoponus’ Doxastic Network"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near the end of Thursday night's symposium, Philoponus, animated but not rendered irrational by the prodigious quantity of Fat Tire Ale he had consumed, stated that he is really only interested in practical and existential topics in philosophy as opposed to theoretical ones.  He is concerned solely with questions on the order of: How should we live?  What ought we do? But he also took a hard determinist line on the problem of free will, based on his study of recent neuroscience.  He tells me he has been reading Daniel Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will.<\/a>  It occurred to me the next morning that there is a certain tension between these two Philoponian commitments.<\/font><\/p>\n

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Hard determinism (so-called in contrast to  'soft determinism' or compatibilism) is a theoretical thesis if ever there was one.  It is the thesis that the past, under the aegis of the laws of nature, renders only one present state of things nomologically possible.  So if  a person chooses A over B, that choice is the only one possible given the laws of nature and what went on before the time of the choice.  If so, then the choice is not free in the unconditional 'could have done otherwise' sense.  Philoponous appeared to accept this sense of 'free' and the resulting  incompatibility of determinism and free will.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now here is the problem for Philoponus.  How can he be interested in such questions as how one should live if he sincerely believes that his will is not free?  Someone who seriously asks how he should live presupposes that he is free.  He presupposes that he can amend his life, turn over a new leaf, change his evil ways.  <\/font>That the asking presupposes free will does not of course prove that the will is free. But if a person sincerely believes that his choices are determined, then inquiry into what choices he should make is pointless.<\/font><\/p>\n

I am returning to a point I tried to make before but perhaps did not make very clearly.  I want people to see the aporia in all its starkness.  Let me try another tack.  We are not mere spectators of the world and of ourselves in the world.  We are also actors.  If "all the world's a stage" as the Bard wrote, we are at once actors upon that stage and witnesses of the action.  Now if one were just a spectator, determinism would be unproblematic.  One could simply observe oneself and see what happens.  Fortunately or unfortunately, this is not the way things are: we must sometimes make<\/em> things happen.  For example, if in a restaurant I am asked whether I will have the soup or the salad, I cannot sensibly reply, "Let me observe myself to see which I choose."  I must make<\/em> a choice, and I cannot make a choice without presupposing that determinism is false.  The very act of choosing gives the lie to determinism.<\/font><\/p>\n

If I am told that the sense of being free,  the sense that what happens is up to me, is an illusion, then my reply will be that it is an illusion that is essential to being an agent.  One cannot be an agent without being under this illusion, if illusion it be.  What's more, one is essentially an agent in the sense that one cannot avoid sometimes deliberating, choosing, and engaging in intentional actions.  If you don't believe me, try to go on 'automatic pilot.'  Would it not be wonderful if one could do that?  Consider Sophie's choice: she had to choose which of her two children would stay with her and which would be separated from her.   An agonizing choice.  It would be nice if one could push a button, go on 'automatic pilot,' and temporarily cease being an agent.  But one can't.  One is "condemned to be free" in a famous phrase of Sartre.  ("Condemned," however, puts the wrong value slant on it:  we are dignified by our freedom; it is a god-like element in us.)  I am free to choose A or B; I am not free to choose between being free and being unfree. <\/font><\/p>\n

So if the sense of being free is illusory, then it is an illusion one cannot see through or slough off on pain of ceasing to be an agent.  But this is tantamount to saying that it cannot be an illusion.  For I am an agent, whether I like it or not, and I am essentially an agent.  And I know that I am an agent.  If free will is an illusion, then agency is an illusion.  But agency  is not an illusion.  So free will is not an illusion.<\/font><\/p>\n

We are left with the aporia.  When we view the world and ourselves in it from the third-person point of view of the mere spectator, we cannot understand how what is could have been otherwise given the laws of nature and what went before.  But when we act, as we must, we cannot understand how determinism could be true.  It is an insoluble aporia.  Intellectual honesty would seem to require that one simply accept it as such.  This looks to be a case of ignoramus et ignorabimus.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Addendum<\/em> (20 May 2009).  The problem can be set forth crisply as an aporetic dyad the limbs of which are:<\/font><\/p>\n

1.  The sense that one is libertarianly  free with respect to some actions is an illusion.<\/font><\/p>\n

2. The sense that one is libertarianly free with respect to some actions cannot be an illusion.<\/font><\/p>\n

Plainly, (1) and (2) are contradictories: they cannot both be true and they cannot both be false.  The aporia consists in the fact that there are good reasons to accept both.  The case for determinism is the case for (1).  And the fact that we are agents is the case for (2).  <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Near the end of Thursday night's symposium, Philoponus, animated but not rendered irrational by the prodigious quantity of Fat Tire Ale he had consumed, stated that he is really only interested in practical and existential topics in philosophy as opposed to theoretical ones.  He is concerned solely with questions on the order of: How should we live?  What … Continue reading “Free Will Again: A Tension in Philoponus’ Doxastic Network”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}