Search

In recent years, neurophysiological research has pushed the concept of free will towards a reductionist interpretation, largely avoiding the concept of a freely willing agent. This paper explores the ongoing debate surrounding free will, highlighting the contrasting perspectives of determinism, indeterminism (libertarianism), and compatibilism. It questions how individuals, particularly those adhering to deterministic viewpoints, can ethically navigate a world defined by causal relationships. The paper argues that reductionist approaches struggle to account for ethical responsibility and the human experience of making choices. While compatibilism offers a middle ground, asserting that actions in line with one's desires are free and thus ethically accountable, this stance is scrutinized for its potential limitations in answering questions about personal responsibility. Specifically, it is argued that compatibilism may not be the ideal framework for a neurophysiologist confronted with ethical dilemmas, thus leaving room for the re-examination of indeterminism. Through this discussion, the paper aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of free will that incorporates both the scientific and philosophical dimensions of human decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I have argued against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities using a time travel-based counterexample. Kelly McCormick has responded to my counterexample by arguing that the time travel scenario must be a scenario in which a time traveler's actions are causally determined; hence, she claims, we should be suspicious of attributing moral responsibility to anyone in such a scenario. In this paper, I respond by arguing that one might be morally responsible in an indeterministic time travel scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper, Nicolas Gisin suggests that by conducting physics with intuitionistic rather than classical mathematics, rich temporality—that is, passage and tense, and specifically the future's openness—can be incorporated into physics. Physics based on classical mathematics is tenseless and deterministic, and that, so he holds, renders it incongruent with experience. According to Gisin, physics ought to represent the indeterminate nature of reality, and he proposes that intuitionistic mathematics is the key to succeeding in doing so. While I share his insistence on the reality of passage and tense and on the future being real and open, I argue that the amendment he offers does not work. I show that, its attunement to time notwithstanding, intuitionistic mathematics is as tenseless as classical mathematics and that physics is bound to remain tenseless regardless of the math it employs. There is much to learn about tensed time, but the task belongs to phenomenology and not to physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounding is sometimes thought of as metaphysical causation. If we take this analogy seriously, given the possibility of indeterministic causation we have at least prima facie reason to accept the possibility of indeterministic grounding. However, prima facie reasons are defeasible and there may be stronger reasons to reject this possibility. This paper sets out to critically examine this mostly overlooked possibility. After introducing the possibility of indeterministic grounding as analogous to indeterministic causation (Sect. 1), I clarify further the notion of indeterministic grounding by relating it to failure of supervenience (Sect. 2). I then construct an argument for the logical or conceptual possibility of indeterministic grounding, and defend it against a few possible objections (Sect. 3). Next, I explore and reject various reasons for dismissing the possibility of indeterministic grounding (Sects. 4 and 5). And I conclude by considering why philosophers almost universally overlook or rule out the possibility of indeterministic grounding, by examining the case of physicalism (Sect. 6). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Chapter 6 of Objects of Credence , Anna Mahtani argues that the opacity of credence raises difficulties for the Principal Principle and proposes a revised principle relating credence and chance that avoids it. In this comment on her book, I both defend Mahtani's proposed principle against a charge of triviality and argue that the opacity of belief does not threaten the role of chance in guiding credence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the relationship between R.A. Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection (FTNS) and the two major pieces that Fisher wrote on indeterminism, "Indeterminism and Natural Selection" (1934) and Creative Aspects of Natural Law (1950). I argue that the FTNS presents a picture of natural selection that is interestingly different from what we find in these two indeterminism pieces, pace some recent work that advances the opposite conclusion. I also identify as the source of this difference both the mathematical form of the FTNS (i.e., a differential equation) and Fisher's meta-scientific commitment to advancing "general" claims about evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While proceeding toward the end of War and Peace a reader can find itself startling and struggling to understand what kind of work is actually dealing with. The fictional narration is not yet concluded when L. Tolstoy (1828-1910) starts to lose himself in philosophical discussions regarding the nature of history as a science. Suddenly words such as god, he- roes and men start to fill the pages recalling in the mind the language of a philosopher with at his back a history of long oblivion, the Italian G. Vico (1668-1744). The common terminology is only the triggering point for approaching a possible comparison between two authors that are so distant for time, context, interests, life and styles. A deep reading of their works however reveals some points of contact especially in a critique of their contemporary historicism, in their common interests on history as an objective science, on the analyses of events recollection and invention of tradition, in their overlapping instances of heterogeneity of ends and their reference to divine providence. A specific and different investigation might be necessary in order to understand whether those concepts somehow traveled along about one century and half from one to the other or whether they are just floating ideas of historical discourse. Nevertheless, starting from their commonalities the paper offers a clue on their inevitable divergences and a possible development of some of their central concepts. Being Tolstoy a writer of the ungraspable and indeterminate, concepts related to complex thinking will emerge during the reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary debate on free will, most philosophers assume that the defense of libertarianism implies the defense of the notion of alternative possibilities. This article discusses this presupposition by showing that it is possible to build a libertarianism without alternative possibilities, apparently more robust than libertarianism with alternative possibilities. Inspired by Bergson, this nonclassical libertarianism challenges the idea that all causation implies the actualization of a predetermined possibility (an idea shared by determinism and classical libertarianism). Moreover, it challenges the idea that free will is a mere choice between prefixed possibilities: for this libertarianism, free will is the result of a creative process of the mind—an entirely causal process whose outcome is not, however, predetermined. This nonclassical libertarianism describes the process of forming a will in a more realistic way than classical libertarianism does. Furthermore, it is not threatened by the problem of chance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to libertarianism about free will, at least some of the choices we make are free and undetermined. Many libertarians also accept the thesis that, before we make an undetermined choice, there is a nontrivial objective probability that we will make that choice. In the literature on free will, the ascription of objective probabilities is sometimes justified via an "Argument from Motivation," which adverts to the fact that typically, in situations of choice, we are more motivated to choose some options over others. In this paper, I will examine this argument and I will argue that it is unsound, as one of its premises is at odds with a widely accepted principle governing the evolution of objective probabilities over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is shown how the temporal-modal system of events TM (axiomatized in Appendix) allows for the avoidance of the logical determinism without the rejection of the principle of bivalence. The point is that the temporal and the modal parts of TM are so inter-related that modalities are in-the-real-world-inherent modalities independently of whether they concern actual or only possible events. Though formulated in a tenseless language, whose interpretation does not require the assumption of tense facts at the basic level of reality, TM implies an objective, observer-independent difference between tenses based only on the way in which modalities are distributed along the time continuum. The conclusion is that the arrow of time is an intra-model characteristic of any model of TM that describes the non-deterministic real world up to a certain point of its history, while the flow of time is an inter-model characteristic of the continuous transition between these models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain) as elements of reality, thereby complementing the actual properties taken by physical variables. This allows one to naturally reconcile realism and fundamental indeterminism in any theoretical framework. We discuss our specific interpretation of propensities, that require them to depart from being probabilities at the formal level, though allowing for statistics and the law of large numbers. This view helps reconcile classical and quantum physics by showing that most of the conceptual problems that are customarily taken to be unique issues of the latter -- such as the measurement problem -- are actually in common to all indeterministic physical theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avicenna was one of the premodern philosophers who argued for the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), namely the claim that everything has a cause and that no uncaused beings can exist. One of the consequences of PSR is necessitarianism, which is the assertion that whatever exists actually also exists necessarily because each and every member of the causal chain is determined by antecedent causes. PSR thus goes against human intuition that suggests that things could have been otherwise. My goal is to investigate whether post-Avicennian authors tried to mitigate the necessitarian consequences of PSR by excluding human will from it. I will concentrate on the comparison between Na~īr al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s (d. 1274) Persian treatise Jabr va qadar and his theological summa Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād. The immediate reason for choosing this issue is al-Tūsī’s assertions that humans intuitively know that they are autonomous agents of their actions, which seems to contradict the universal applicability of PSR. I will argue that al-Tūsī espoused somewhat different views on free will. Depending on the character of the texts and the period in which they were written, sometimes being consistent with Avicenna while other times engaging with Muʿtazilism. I will show how al-Tūsī left room for human freedom, however causally ineffective at times, which he understood as a different kind of determination that is able to act independently of the other types of determination to which humans are subject, be they physical or divine. Overall, the discussion tests al-Tūsī’s allegiance to either Avicennian philosophy or Shiʿi theology and even forces him to take a stance against Avicenna’s view on knowledge in some of his works.

Abstract We empirically explore whether perceptions of (in)determinism are related to the willingness to tolerate uncertainty. We argue that the belief in indeterminism supports a sense of personal autonomy and independence from external influence, a stance that provides protection from perceived uncertainties. Our preliminary study (N = 61) suggests that the belief in an indeterminate world is positively associated with uncertainty tolerance, whereas beliefs in free will and metaphysical dualism are not. We extend these findings by examining proxies of indeterminism belief in a cross-national dataset (N = 31 countries). We find that greater political and personal freedom is associated with higher tolerance for uncertainty, whereas religious belief, which posits a world determined by divine powers, is negatively associated with uncertainty tolerance. With these theoretical ideas and empirical findings, we hope to stimulate research to further advance our understanding of the association between belief in indeterminism and tolerating uncertainty.

I have argued against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities using a time travel-based counterexample. Kelly McCormick has responded to my counterexample by arguing that the time travel scenario must be a scenario in which a time traveler’s actions are causally determined; hence, she claims, we should be suspicious of attributing moral responsibility to anyone in such a scenario. In this paper, I respond by arguing that one might be morally responsible in an indeterministic time travel scenario.

The paper investigates the systematic connection between Kantian concept of radical evil and radical indeterministic idea of freedom. According to the presented thesis the systematically relevant interpretation of the radical evil concept requires considering not only philosophical ideas Kant`s but also the historic background in which they were formulated. Particularly the specific situation of German philosophic terminology in the 17th and early 18th Century will be acknowledged as one of the most significant factors influencing the development of the radical evil concept. For the sake of methodological precision of the presented analysis, the differentiation between thick and thin concept of evil will be introduced.

Avicenna was one of the premodern philosophers who argued for the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), namely the claim that everything has a cause and that no uncaused beings can exist. One of the consequences of PSR is necessitarianism, which is the assertion that whatever exists actually also exists necessarily because each and every member of the causal chain is determined by antecedent causes. PSR thus goes against human intuition that suggests that things could have been otherwise. My goal is to investigate whether post-Avicennian authors tried to mitigate the necessitarian consequences of PSR by excluding human will from it. I will concentrate on the comparison between Na~īr al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s (d. 1274) Persian treatise Jabr va qadar and his theological summa Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād. The immediate reason for choosing this issue is al-Tūsī’s assertions that humans intuitively know that they are autonomous agents of their actions, which seems to contradict the universal applicability of PSR. I will argue that al-Tūsī espoused somewhat different views on free will. Depending on the character of the texts and the period in which they were written, sometimes being consistent with Avicenna while other times engaging with Muʿtazilism. I will show how al-Tūsī left room for human freedom, however causally ineffective at times, which he understood as a different kind of determination that is able to act independently of the other types of determination to which humans are subject, be they physical or divine. Overall, the discussion tests al-Tūsī’s allegiance to either Avicennian philosophy or Shiʿi theology and even forces him to take a stance against Avicenna’s view on knowledge in some of his works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We empirically explore whether perceptions of (in)determinism are related to the willingness to tolerate uncertainty. We argue that the belief in indeterminism supports a sense of personal autonomy and independence from external influence, a stance that provides protection from perceived uncertainties. Our preliminary study (N = 61) suggests that the belief in an indeterminate world is positively associated with uncertainty tolerance, whereas beliefs in free will and metaphysical dualism are not. We extend these findings by examining proxies of indeterminism belief in a cross-national dataset (N = 31 countries). We find that greater political and personal freedom is associated with higher tolerance for uncertainty, whereas religious belief, which posits a world determined by divine powers, is negatively associated with uncertainty tolerance. With these theoretical ideas and empirical findings, we hope to stimulate research to further advance our understanding of the association between belief in indeterminism and tolerating uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dwayne Moore raises the physical indeterminism luck objection to libertarian theories of free will, which claims that because agents lack control over the indeterministic physical processes that cause choices, agents lack control over those choices. Moore considers the libertarian strategy of identifying these processes with agential states, such as efforts of will, in order to secure agential control over the outcome of these processes. According to Moore, this strategy faces an insurmountable obstacle in the form of a quausation problem. He argues that naturalistically minded libertarians like Kane are committed to the idea that agential states cause what they do only in virtue of their physical properties. This implies that the agential properties are causally irrelevant to the outcome of these indeterministic processes in which case they cannot help to secure agential control over the outcome. I argue that if Kane is a nonreductive physicalist, he has a way of dealing with the quausation problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article continues a discussion the authors have had with Mats Wahlberg on evolutionary theodicies. We have previously suggested a theodicy where there are token unique goods that could only have been actualized through indeterministic evolution. Wahlberg objects that we cannot appeal to such goods, since given indeterminism, God cannot know that such goods will appear. In this article we respond by arguing that God can know well enough that certain kinds of token goods will appear, without knowing in detail their specific character, or when they will happen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions on indeterminism in physics focus on the possibility of an open future, i.e. the possibility of having potential alternative future events, the realisation of one of which is not fully determined by the present state of affairs. Yet, can indeterminism affect also the past, making it open as well? We show that by upholding principles of finiteness of information one can entail such a possibility. We provide a toy model that shows how the past could be fundamentally indeterminate, while also explaining the intuitive (and observed) asymmetry between the past—which can be remembered, at least partially—and the future—which is impossible to fully predict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B. F. Skinner has committed himself to determinism at different points in his lifework. However, the Skinnerian scientific system is not based on fixed epistemological assumptions. This article aims to demonstrate that Skinnerian statements about determinism have different meanings, and some of them may also coincide with the opposite thesis of determinism (i.e., indeterminism). Concepts associated with determinism were examined within the three models of behavior proposed by Skinner (reflex, operant, and selection by consequences). This conceptual investigation showed that the formulations within the reflex model are consistent with determinism; those within the operant model are ambiguous as to their compatibility with deterministic and indeterministic scientific conceptions; and those within selection by consequences are aligned with scientific indeterminism. Skinner's repeated commitment to determinism should not lead behavior analysts to assume it is an uncontroversial "ism"; therefore, other interpretations of behavior analysis's fundamental postulates are possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anscombe’s 1971 inaugural lecture at Cambridge, entitled ‘Causality and Determination’, has had a lasting influence on a remarkably broad range of philosophers and philosophical debates, touching on fundamental topics in philosophy of science, action theory, the free will debate, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. Especially where anti-reductionist or pluralist strands of philosophical thought are being seriously considered, one should not be surprised to find references to Anscombe’s lecture. Moreover, there appears to be a growing interest in Anscombe’s comprehensive philosophical outlook, as attested by the recent publication of a weighty collection of essays spanning that outlook in its full breadth in the prestigious Routledge Philosophical Minds series. Against this background it is apt that now, 50 years after the original lecture, a Topical Collection sees the light, circling around the most central themes from Anscombe’s lecture, with a particular emphasis on the question how these hang together, how they form part of the larger philosophical project that Anscombe obviously intended the lecture to highlight. This Introduction motivates the Topical Collection, and introduces the various contributions against that background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop the ontology of “process complexity” and describe how the dynamics of “becoming” can be framed as the emerging, stabilising, and ultimate dissolving of “patterns of relationships.” By extending traditional complexity thinking through introducing a “field theory” view, we develop a more nuanced and inclusive perspective of the processual complex world. We show how this leads to the idea of ontological uncertainty. We demonstrate how process complexity resonates with the ontologies of many different schools of thought including quantum gravity, the process philosophers of the Axial Age, and the early modern process philosophers impacted by Darwin’s theory of evolution, such as Bergson, Whitehead, and James. The remarkable alignment of these diverse perspectives from science and philosophy adds conviction and depth to the development of process complexity. We conclude by indicating how process complexity influences our approach to policy and management practice.

The radical redefinition of the landscape of physics that followed the contributions of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg at the start of the 20th century led to plethora [of] new perspectives on age-old metaphysical questions on determinism and the nature of reality. The main contention of this article is that the work of Gilbert Simondon - whose magnum opus possesses a scope uniting the most basic philosophical concerns with the (then) most recent breakthroughs in natural sciences - is highly relevant for an adequate understanding of the split between determinism and indeterminism, as well as the underlying presuppositions which have driven some influential contributions to this topic. To this end, the article shows that the more deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics offered by David Bohm and Louis de Broglie proves to be a valuable reference point for a more precise use and understanding of Simondon’s transductive logic - especially when its philosophical lapses are considered closely. Finally, following the considerations of both thinkers, we aim at a more precise reconsideration of the stakes of indeterminism in modern physics, as well as a restructuration of what is often understood as a polarization.

Anscombe’s “Causality and Determination” is often cited in the contemporary free will debate, but rarely discussed in much detail. It’s main contribution, it is thought, is the defense of an alternative to deterministic causation, thus clearing the way for an incompatibilist analysis of free actions in terms of probabilistic causation. However, in this paper I will show that the contemporary probabilistic analysis of free action actually stands in direct conflict with Anscombe’s lecture. Instead, I will argue, its true value for incompatibilist accounts of free will lies in Anscombe’s thought that there are various fundamentally different kinds of causality. This variety, I argue, allows for a revised conception indeterminism and an understanding of free will as the manifestation of a particular sort of agent-causal power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libertarian views of freedom claim that, although determinism would rule out our freedom, we are nevertheless free on some occasions. An odd implication of such views (to put it mildly) seems to be that indeterminism somehow enhances or contributes to our agency. But how could that be so? What does indeterminism have to offer to agency? This paper develops a novel answer, centred around the notion of explanation. In short, it is argued that, if indeterminism holds in the right places, then the best explanation of the history of the world necessarily cites facts about our agency. Along the way, alternative proposals regarding the significance of indeterminism are considered and, ultimately, rejected in favour of the one developed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards the end of her famous 1971 paper “Causality and Determination”, Elizabeth Anscombe discusses the controversial idea that “ ‘physical haphazard’ could be the only physical correlate of human freedom of action”. In order to illustrate how the high-level freedom of human action can go together with micro-indeterminism without creating a problem for micro-statistics, she provides the analogy of a glass box filled with minute coloured particles whose micro-dynamics is subject to statistical laws, while its outside reliably displays a recognisable variation of a certain image created by an external cause. Anscombe’s example is somewhat enigmatic, and she provides no details to support its viability. In this paper we discuss the context of Anscombe’s analogy, and we provide basics of the theory and practice of building an Anscombe box. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to introduce, elucidate and defend the usefulness of a variant of grounding, or metaphysical explanation, that has the feature that the grounds explain of some states of affairs that one of them obtains without explaining which one obtains. I will dub this variant arbitrary grounding. After informally elucidating the basic idea in the first section, I will provide three metaphysical hypotheses that are best formulated in terms of arbitrary grounding in the second section. The third section will be concerned with the relation between arbitrary grounding and non-arbitrary grounding. The fourth section will compare arbitrary grounding to two extant proposals in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that agents (or, agent-involving events) cause actions to occur or not occur: Maddy's decision to get a beer causes her to get up off her comfortable couch to get a beer, though she almost chose not to get up. Libertarian free will notoriously faces the luck objection, according to which agential states do not determine whether an action occurs or not, so it is beyond the control of the agent, hence lucky, whether an action occurs or not: Maddy's reasons for getting beer in equipoise with her reasons to remain in her comfortable seat do not determine that she will get up or stay seated, so it seems beyond her control, hence lucky, that she gets up. In this paper I consider a sub-set of the luck objection called the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection, according to which indeterministic physical processes cause actions to occur or not, and agent's lack control over these indeterministic physical processes, so agent's lack control over, hence it is lucky, whether action occurs or not. After motivating the physical indeterminism luck objection, I consider responses from three recent event-causal libertarian models, and conclude that they fail to overcome the problem, though one promising avenue is opened up. This paper is divided into six parts. In Section One, I minimally define libertarian free will as accepting agential indeterminism, which is the conjunction of indeterminism and agential causation, where agential indeterminism occurs when an agent's reasons, efforts or character indeterministically cause actions. In Sections Two and Three I outline the physical indeterminism luck objection to libertarian free will, which states that sub-agential physical processes in the brain indeterministically cause actions to occur, and agents lack control over these indeterministic physical causes, so agent's lack control over whether their actions occur. If agent's lack control over whether actions occur, the occurrence of these actions is lucky, where this luck jeopardizes free will and moral responsibility. In Sections Four through Six I consider three recent libertarian responses to this objection—Mark Balaguer in Section Four, Chris Franklin in Section Five, and Robert Kane in Section Six. I conclude that none of these models satisfactorily overcomes the physical indeterminism luck objection, though one interpretation of Kane yields a promising avenue of reply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I present and explain ten different possible meanings of a chance event – some ontological, some epistemic – and provide examples whenever possible. I describe and illustrate more carefully the view of chance (tychē) expressed by Aristotle in his Physics, a demanding and complex notion, and contrast it to the other senses examined. The etymology of chance also reveals a cross-reference between chance and indeterminism. I draw attention to the fact that most of the definitions of chance on offer need not conflict with causal determinism.

Can Brownian motion arise from a deterministic system of particles? This paper addresses this question by analysing the derivation of Brownian motion as the limit of a deterministic hard-spheres gas with Lanford’s theorem. In particular, we examine the role of the Boltzmann-Grad limit in the loss of memory of the deterministic system and compare this derivation and the derivation of Brownian motion with the Langevin equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific theories and methods developed within the framework of quantum and relativistic physics are the most representative paradigmatic instantiations of non-classical science. The profile of nonclassical science is exposed through the analysis of a set of epistemic ideals and methodological principles. The adoption of the principle of operational relativity of phenomenal descriptions showed that a reference to the means of observation had become an intrinsic part of scientific description strategies. The transformation of the concept of objectivity can be seen in a specific combination of operationalism with interactional phenomenalism and constructivism. The introduction of the principle of complementarity marked the deviation from the standards of a monologic and linear description of the objects under study. This principle provides the operational basis for the integration of different parts of our knowledge with regard to non-trivial cognitive situations featured by the indeterminacy relations. Another prominent methodological trend is the reconsideration of the value of strict deterministic explanation strategies in favour of probabilistically oriented approaches. Scientists have encountered a new class of regularities that are typically analysed in terms of various types of statistical and non-causal determination. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to assume that any probabilistic account of natural phenomena implies indeterminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to "speak" of indeterminism, its inability to present us a worldview in which new information is created as time passes. In such a case, scientific determinism would only be an illusion due to the timeless mathematical language scientists use. To investigate this possibility it is necessary to develop an alternative mathematical language that is both powerful enough to allow scientists to compute predictions and compatible with indeterminism and the passage of time. We suggest that intuitionistic mathematics provides such a language and we illustrate it in simple terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her seminal essay 'Causality and Determination', Elizabeth Anscombe very decidedly announced that "physical indeterminism" is "indispensable if we are to make anything of the claim to freedom". But it is clear from that same essay that she extends the scope of that claim beyond freedom–she suggests that indeterminism is required already for animal self-movement (a position recently called 'agency incompatibilism' by Helen Steward). Building on Anscombe's conception of causality and (in)determinism, I will suggest that it extends even further: life as such already requires physical indeterminism. Furthermore, I show that we can, on this basis, arrive at the idea of varieties of (in)determinism, along with a corresponding variety of incompatibilist theses. From this Anscombean vantage point, the free will discussion takes on a quite different outlook. The question whether free agency can coexist with determinism on the level of blind physical forces, which preoccupies the philosopher of free will, turns out to conflate a whole series of compatibility questions: not just whether life is compatible with physical determinism, but also whether animal self-movement is compatible with 'biological determinism', and whether free agency is compatible with 'animal determinism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of symmetries in physical theories implies a pernicious form of underdetermination. In order to avoid this theoretical vice, philosophers often espouse a principle called Leibniz Equivalence, which states that symmetry-related models represent the same state of affairs. Moreover, philosophers have claimed that the existence of non-trivial symmetries motivates us to accept the Invariance Principle, which states that quantities that vary under a theory's symmetries aren't physically real. Leibniz Equivalence and the Invariance Principle are often seen as part of the same package. I argue that this is a mistake: Leibniz Equivalence and the Invariance Principle are orthogonal to each other. This means that it is possible to hold that symmetry-related models represent the same state of affairs whilst having a realist attitude towards variant quantities. Various arguments have been presented in favour of the Invariance Principle: a rejection of the Invariance Principle is inter alia supposed to cause indeterminism, undetectability or failure of reference. I respond that these arguments at best support Leibniz Equivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derk Pereboom has posed an empirical objection to agent-causal libertarianism: The best empirically confirmed scientific theories feature physical laws predicting no long-run deviations from fixed conditional frequencies that govern events. If agent-causal libertarianism were true, however, then it would be virtually certain, absent 'wild coincidences', that such long-run deviations would occur. So, current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely. This paper formulates Pereboom's 'Problem of Wild Coincidences' as a five-step argument and considers two recent responses. Then, it offers a different response: The Problem of Wild Coincidences does not show that current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely, even if all events are governed by physical laws featuring fixed long-run conditional frequencies and even if agents can 'overrule' normal physical laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claims about freedom and predestination are ubiquitous in movies, novels, and myths. These claims touch upon the philosophical problem of the compatibility of free will and determination. In order to make an informed judgment about whether these claims are true, it is helpful to know what philosophers have to say about free will. However, philosophical discussions are usually absent in popular culture. It is perhaps no wonder, since free will is a topic that has been discussed for millennia. Consequently, these discussions have become quite complicated and not easy to decipher. This essay is a popular introduction to these discussions, accessible to readers without former acquaintance with the topic. I provide references to other works for readers interested in knowing more. My aim is to show that while there are persuasive arguments against free will, there are no fewer persuasive replies to these arguments. Free will is a fascinating topic, and I hope that acquaintance with the relevant philosophical discussion will prove useful for those who wonder if anyone is free to create their own destiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss critical remarks raised by Horodecki (2023 arXiv: 2301.07802 [quant-ph]) toward our work on the connection between superluminal extension of special relativity and fundamental aspects of quantum theory.

Dragan and Ekert ( New J. Phys. 22 033038) have recently claimed that fundamental properties of quantum physics (e.g. fundamental indeterminism and the principle of superposition) can be derived solely from relativistic considerations, if one takes as physically meaningful superluminal reference frames. In this comment we show that their arguments are flawed and their claims therefore unwarranted.

Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls towards the other end of the spectrum. Second, inspired by Hoefer, we argue that an interval of auxiliary conditions corresponds to a region in phase space, and to a bundle of possible block universes. We thus make room for a form of non-nomological indeterminism. Third, we combine crucial elements from the works of Hoefer and List; we attempt to give a libertarian reading of this combination. On our proposal, throughout spacetime, there is a certain amount of freedom (equivalent to setting the initial, intermediate, or final conditions) that can be interpreted as the result of agential choices. Fourth, we focus on the principle of alternative possibilities throughout and propose three ways of strengthening it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following theses concerning moral obligation are widely accepted. Future Obligation : it is possible that at some time you are morally obligated to do something that you have not yet done but will do at a future time. Obligation-Changeability : it is possible that although it is obligatory, at some specified time, for you to do something later, at a time pursuant to this specified time you no longer have this obligation. The author argues that analogous theses concerning moral blameworthiness are true too: it's possible that you may now be blameworthy for something you have not yet done but will do, and that blameworthiness can change with the passage of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the socio-psychological characteristics of management decisionmaking and recommendations to increase the performance of it. In this regard, managers must be involved in ensuring creative skills and can choose the methods of action and heuristic techniques of solving the problem in non-standard situations. These methods can serve for the successful adoption of decisions. The decision-making of top management level managers in the examined firms is overwhelmingly reasonable. It was interesting to note that there is a lack of understanding of what intuitive decision-making is. Individuals who claim to consider both cognitive choice types - rational and intuitive - are more rational in their decision-making in practice. A reasonable option is to respect the company's rules, standards, and processes to the managers. It also involves logical thinking and making conclusions based on data, figures, and facts in a systematic, realistic, transparent, objective, and technical manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that there is a quantum-physical and evolution-biological perspective for (libertarian) free will, and that the so-called scientific arguments against it are in reality metaphysical arguments and insufficient. The paper also develops the idea of a nonphysical organ of higher organisms: the Domindar (Detector of macroscopic indetermination, and restrictor).

Because Mortimer J. Adler's teachings about Great Ideas are still little known in Poland, this chapter seeks to make his work better known to Polish readers by addressing different disputes related to religion and freedom that have been of recent interest to many Polish intellectuals (such as mind, materialism, determinism, atheism, communism), which Adler had addressed in some of his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In large part, Mortimer J. Adler's philosophical teaching arises from his conviction that thinkers of Greek antiquity and the Middle Ages, especially Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas, had focused their considerations on commonsense cognition of the found world, while thinkers of modern times had detached their philosophical considerations from commonsense and the real world. This chapter considers the issue of commonsense realism within Adler's philosophy. In addition, because Adler's concept of commonsense realism shapes his epistemological, anthropological, ethical, social, and religious thought, I will focus on his concept of the Great Idea of Religion against this background, and also because Adler's philosophical realism led him eventually to embrace religious faith-- to become a Christian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of branching space-times, put forward by Belnap (Synthese 92, 1992), considers indeterminism as local in space and time. In the axiomatic foundations of that theory, so-called choice points mark the points at which the (local) possible future can turn out in different ways. Working under the assumption of choice points is suitable for many applications, but has an unwelcome topological consequence that makes it difficult to employ branching space-times to represent a range of possible physical space-times. Therefore it is interesting to develop a branching space-times theory without choice points. This is what we set out to do in this paper, providing new foundations for branching space-times in terms of choice sets rather than choice points. After motivating and developing the resulting theory in formal detail, we show that it is possible to translate structures of one style into structures of the other style and vice versa. This result shows that the underlying idea of indeterminism as the branching of spatio-temporal histories is robust with respect to different implementations, making a choice between them a matter of expediency rather than of principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientists often think of the world (or some part of it) as a dynamical system, a stochastic process, or a generalization of such a system. Prominent examples of systems are (i) the system of planets orbiting the sun or any other classical mechanical system, (ii) a hydrogen atom or any other quantum–mechanical system, and (iii) the earth's atmosphere or any other statistical mechanical system. We introduce a general and unified framework for describing such systems and show how it can be used to examine some familiar philosophical questions, including the following: how can we define nomological possibility, necessity, determinism, and indeterminism; what are symmetries and laws; what regularities must a system display to make scientific inference possible; how might principles of parsimony such as Occam's Razor help when we make such inferences; what is the role of space and time in a system; and might they be emergent features? Our framework is intended to serve as a toolbox for the formal analysis of systems that is applicable in several areas of philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A basic intuition we have regarding the nature of time is that the future is open whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas we think that there are things we can do to affect how the future will unfold (e.g. acting in an environmentally responsible manner), we think that there are not things we can do to affect how the past unfolded ("what is done is done"). However, although this intuition is largely shared, it is not a straightforward matter to determine the nature of the asymmetry it reflects. So, in this paper, I survey various philosophical ways of characterizing the asymmetry between the 'open future' and the 'fixed past' in order to account for our intuition. In particular, I wonder whether the asymmetry is to be characterized in semantic, epistemic, metaphysical or ontological terms. I conclude that, although many of these characterizations may contribute to a global understanding of the phenomenon, an ontological characterization of the asymmetry is to be preferred, since it is superior to the alternatives in explanatory power, intelligibility, and in how it coheres with interesting senses of openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bergson argues that there is an incompatibility between free will and determinism: while free will has a dimension of creation, of invention, determinism corresponds to the idea that the future is fixed in advance by laws. In addition, he rejects determinism. According to him, the singularity of our deep-seated psychic states makes that their evolution cannot be governed by laws. However, Bergson does not defend classical indeterminism (of which contemporary indeterminism is only an extension) because it reduces free will to a choice between alternative possibilities, that is to say between pre-fixed futures. Such a conception does not take into account the creative dimension of free will. In fact, Bergson develops an original form of indeterminism based on a certain conception of causation. For determinism and classical indeterminism, causation is always the actualization of a pre-fixed virtual reality (single or multiple). For Bergson, causation can also be a creation, that is, the formation of something which is not pre-fixed.