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A formal approach to the problem of free will and determinism
Author(s) -
Inwagen Peter Van
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-2567.1974.tb00075.x
Subject(s) - determinism , free will , citation , epistemology , philosophy , computer science , library science
I n this paper I will present simple formal statements of thetheses of free will and universal causal determinism, and show that while these theses are not formal contraries or contradictories, there is nevertheless an important sense in which they are incompatible. It is, of course, not quite realistic to talk about the theses of free will and determinism, since philosophers have given many different senses to these terms. I shall therefore make only this claim for the formal notions of free will and determinism set forth below: they are sufficiently like what is often meant by “free will” and “determinism” in informal philosophical disputation that the question of their compatibility is philosophically interesting.