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.
   • An Anchoring Argument? Peter van Inwagen, Essay on Free Will, excerpt from p. 56 (the "Consequence Argument")
   • Is There a 'State of the World'? Bas van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, pp. 4-10, 18-25.
     Optional followon reading, for the very ambitious: Brian Cantwell Smith, On the Origin of Objects (MIT Press, 1996).
   • Do We Understand 'It Made Him Do It'? 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)
   • Looking Ahead. 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/
   • Does the Physics Tell Us What You're Doing? "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.
   • A Slower Pass over That Argument. 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: van Inwagen, "When Is the Will Free?", pp. 415-17 (if you want to follow up on the idea that cases in which there's a clearly right choice are rare).
   • We Still Don't Understand 'Necessity'. Review Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, I.iii.1-2 ("Of Liberty and Necessity," "The Same Subject Continu'd"); William James, Pragmatism, final section of Lecture III; "Determinism": ch. 4 in D. Pears, ed., Freedom and the Will.
   • Is There Global Time? 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, and for your amusement, https://xkcd.com/265/.

   Optional followon reading: Ismael, "Free Will in the Physical World" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department); Jenann Ismael, How Physics Makes Us Free (Oxford University Press, 2016).

4. Sept. 17: Can We Make Sense of Libertarianism?
   • Incompleteness and Interpretation. David Wiggins, "Towards a Reasonable Libertarianism" (ch. 5 in Watson).

     Optional reading: Wiggins, "A Sensible Subjectivism?" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Further followon reading (if you're wondering how to have second thoughts about supervenience): Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

   • Adding a Random Number Generator. Robert Kane, "Responsibility, Luck, and Chance" (ch. 15 in Watson).

     Optional reading: TBA.

   • The Straight Man Who Won't Go Away. Roderick Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self" (ch. 1 in Watson).

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

5. Sept. 24: Freedom of the Will as Personality Integration.
   • Denying the Shared Assumption. Harry Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" (ch. 8 in Watson; we'll use this to demo extracting an argument from a text, so look for the structure of Frankfurt's argument as you read); Dennett, Freedom Evolves, pp. 281-87.

     Optional reading: John McDowell, "Virtue and Reason" ( JSTOR) -- para. bridging pp. 334f, starting "One way to bring out the special nature..." --And in case you want a reality check on Frankfurt's characterization of addiction: Owen Flanagan, What Is It Like to Be an Addict?

   • Student Session. Spencer King, "Presently, Ismael Appears Mistaken".

     Optional reading: During the followup to this session, we'll review the process of writing a short paper; I've circulated a chat with a frontier LLM, and you may want to look it over, for purposes of comparison.

   • Owning Yourself. Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" (ch. 16 in Watson).

     Optional reading: in Fischer, "Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism" (ch. 10 in Watson): sec. 3 ("The Challenge"), plus para. on p. 207 starting "I grant that those..."; Watson, "Free Agency" (ch. 17 in Watson).

   • Optional followon reading: Keith Lehrer, Ultimate Freedom.
6. Oct. 1: Questions of Reach.
   • I Can't Get No Satisfaction! Review Harry Frankfurt, "The Faintest Passion" ( JSTOR). We'll read through the following passages in class (circulated on a handout last hour), but you might want to look them over ahead of time: Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Essay II, secs. 1-2; Twilight of the Idols 6:7 ("The error of free will"), 8:6 (para. starting "I put forward at once...").

   • Student Session. Threya Sakshi, "The Limits of Relativistic Agency"; William Norton, "We Are That Thing".

   • Drawing a Boundary Around Yourself. Dennett, Freedom Evolves, ch. 4. (If you somehow skipped the Kane chapter, now's the time to go back and read it.)

7. Oct. 8: Nomological Machines.
   • 'Fitting to' vs. Universal Instantiation. Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World, chs. 1-4, plus, in ch. 5, sec. 2.5 (pp. 118-21); then read her Introduction. (If you've kept up with the reading assignments, this is less than it looks!)

     Optional followon reading: Cartwright, The Dappled World, ch. 6.

   • Student Session. McKay Clemens, "A Prime Mover Moved".

     Optional reading: review Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self" (ch. 1 in Watson).

   • Personality Integration. No new reading. Review "The Faintest Passion".

     Optional reading: R. Lanier Anderson, "Nietzschean Autonomy and the Meaning of the 'Sovereign Individual'".

   Have a great fall break -- take Freedom Evolves with you to Cape Cod!

   • Oct. 22: Sorting out Modalities.
     • Student Session. Logan Kelly, "For Reasons Not Our Own"; Moe Mohammad, "Under Pressure".

       Optional reading: Review Cartwright, The Dappled World, esp. chs. 2, 4.

     • Skepticism about Unobservables: Is Cartwright Inconsistent? Cartwright, The Dappled World.
     • Inevitability vs. Physical Necessity vs. Causation. Dennett, Freedom Evolves, chs. 2-3.

       Optional followon reading: Dennett, Freedom Evolves, ch. 1.

   • Oct. 29: Two Approaches to Metaphysics.
     • Local Modality. Review Dennett, Freedom Evolves, chs. 2-3. Ismael, "Causation, Free Will, and Naturalism"

       Optional reading: David Lewis, "Are We Free to Break the Laws?" (ch. 6 in Watson), if you want to know what picture Ismael is pushing back against. And see Christopher Maloney, Akratic Compatibilism and All Too Human Psychology, pp. 26-30, for a very clear recap of Lewis's move (available in the Philosophy Department office).

     • Student Session. Katrina Shore, "The Free Agent: No Beginning in Sight"; Tredwell Abrams, "Could a Constitutionally Trained AI Be a Frankfurtian Agent?"

       Optional reading: Martha Nussbaum, "The Protagoras: A Science of Practical Reasoning" (available shortly).

     • Descriptive Metaphysics: Outlines of a Conceptual-Affective Scheme. P. F. Strawson, "Freedom and Resentment" (ch. 4 in Watson).

       Optional followon reading: Strawson, Individuals, Part I.

     Optional followon reading: Old Pearl: Judea Pearl, Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems, pp. 383-97; new Pearl: Causality, pp. xv-xvi. Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World, ch. 5.

   • Nov. 5: Freedom and Logic. (tentative)
     • Looking at Yourself from Nowhere. Thomas Nagel, "Freedom," secs. 1-4. Optional reading: TBA.
     • Student Session. TBA.

       Optional reading: TBA.

     • Modernizing the Postulates of Pure Practical Reason. Hilary Bok, "Freedom and Practical Reason" (ch. 7 in Watson).

       Optional reading: Bok, Freedom and Responsibility, chs. 2-3 (available in the Philosophy Department office).

     • Ordinary-Language Reality Check. J. L. Austin, "Ifs and Cans" (available shortly). Optional reading: TBA.
   • Nov. 12: Have We Been Looking for Free Will in the Wrong Place? (tentative)
     • Student Session. TBA.

       Optional reading: TBA.

     • Diagnosing the Phenomenology of the Moment of Freedom. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, first essay.

       Optional reading: Robert Fogelin, Wittgenstein (second ed.), ch. 12 ("The Private Language Argument") -- in case you haven't encountered the position Murdoch is taking time out to argue against, in more or less the interpretation current when she wrote. (Available in the Philosophy Department office.)

     • Where the Real Freedom Is. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, latter two essays. Optional reading: TBA.