| Literature DB >> 21960205 |
Abstract
Many philosophers as well as many biological psychologists think that recent experiments in neuropsychology have definitively discredited any notion of freedom of the will. I argue that the arguments mounted against the concept of freedom of the will in the name of natural causal determinism are valuable but not new, and that they leave intact a concept of freedom of the will that is compatible with causal determinism. After explaining this concept, I argue that it is interestingly related to our use of the first person pronoun "I." I discuss three examples of our use of "I" in thought and language and submit a few questions I would like neuropsychologists to answer concerning the brain processes that might underlie those uses. I suggest answering these questions would support the compatibilist notion of freedom of the will I have offered in part 1.Entities:
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Year: 2011 PMID: 21960205 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-011-0382-z
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Psychol Res ISSN: 0340-0727