Required textbooks:

You will have to have paper copies of these books, which you will need to bring to class. The bookstore has notified me that you will have to request them to special order the physical copies of the books.

• Gary Watson, ed., Free Will, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, paperback, ISBN 978-0-19-925494-1). [second edition only]
• Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (Routledge, paperback, ISBN 978-0415253994) [in print since about 1970; any edition/imprint is fine].
• Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves (Penguin, paperback, ISBN 0-14-200384-0).
• Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World (Cambridge UP, paperback, ISBN 0-521-64411-9).

Optional textbooks:

• Thomas Pink, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2004); I'll use this in the opening session.
• Jenann Ismael, How Physics Makes Us Free (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Reading Assignments:

1. Aug. 27: Introduction.

   Optional summer prereading: Thomas Pink, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2004; for an overview of the problem space). Optional reading really is optional -- it's there in case you have an interest in following up on a topic or, in this case, in getting oriented ahead of time.

2. Sept. 3: Setting an Agenda.
   • Peter van Inwagen, Essay on Free Will, excerpt from p. 56 (the "Consequence Argument")
   • Bas van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, pp. 4-10, 18-25
   • David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, sec. 8 ("Of Liberty and Necessity"; if you have the Selby-Bigge 3rd ed., this is pp. 80-103)
   • William James, Pragmatism, final section of Lecture III (if you have the Hackett edition, this starts on p. 54). Optional accompanying material: https://xkcd.com/325/
   • "Determinism": ch. 4 in D. Pears, ed., Freedom and the Will (this is a transcript of a conversation on the BBC, with G. J. Warnock, P. F. Strawson, and J. F. Thomson as participants; pay special attention to the exchange from p. 62 on)

   Optional reading: Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, I.iii.1-2 ("Of Liberty and Necessity," "The Same Subject Continu'd"; if you have the Norton and Norton edition, this is on pp. 257-65); James, "The Will to Believe" (available shortly).

3. Sept. 10: Second Thoughts about Time and Space. (tentative)
   • Peter van Inwagen, "An Argument for Incompatibilism" (ch. 2 in Watson, ed., Free Will); in T. M. Scanlon's "The Significance of Choice," footnote 2 (this is on p. 354 of the Watson volume).
     Optional accompanying material: https://xkcd.com/265/
   • Jenann Ismael, "Rethinking Time and Determinism: What Happens to Determinism When You Take Relativity Seriously".

     Optional background/followon reading: A. P. French, Special Relativity, Robert Geroch, General Relativity from A to B.

   • Ismael, "Free Will in the Physical World" (available shortly)

   Optional followon reading: Jenann Ismael, How Physics Makes Us Free (Oxford University Press, 2016).

4. Sept. 17: Can We Make Sense of Libertarianism? (tentative)
   • David Wiggins, "Towards a Reasonable Libertarianism" (ch. 5 in Watson).
     Optional reading: Wiggins, "A Sensible Subjectivism?" (available shortly).
   • Robert Kane, "Responsibility, Luck, and Chance" (ch. 15 in Watson).

     Optional reading: Dennett, Freedom Evolves, ch. 4.

   • Roderick Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self" (ch. 1 in Watson).

   Optional followon reading, for the very ambitious: Mark Wilson, Wandering Significance.