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I defend counterfactual decision theory, which says that you should evaluate an action in terms of which outcomes would likely obtain were you to perform it. Counterfactual decision theory has traditionally been subsumed under causal decision theory as a particular formulation of the latter. This is a mistake. Counterfactual decision theory is importantly different from, and superior to, causal decision theory, properly so called. Causation and counterfactuals come apart in three kinds of cases. In cases of overdetermination, an action can cause a good outcome without the latter counterfactually depending on the former. In cases of constitution, an action can constitute a good outcome rather than causing it. And in cases of determinism, either the laws or the past counterfactually depend on your action, even though your action cannot cause the laws or the past to be different. In each of these cases, it is counterfactual decision theory which gives the right verdict, and for the right reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequence argument purports to show that determinism is true only if no one has free will. Judgments about whether the argument is sound depend on how one understands locutions of the form 'p and no one can render p false'. The main interpretation on offer appeals to counterfactual sufficiency: s can render p false just in case there is something s can do such that, were s to do it, p would be false; otherwise, s cannot render p false. Here I show that, in the context of the consequence argument, this interpretation conflicts with widely endorsed principles governing the logic of counterfactuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a widely held principle that no one is able to do something that would require the past to have been different from how it actually is. This principle of the fixity of the past has been presented in numerous ways, playing a crucial role in arguments for logical and theological fatalism, and for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the ability to do otherwise. I will argue that, assuming bivalence, this principle is in conflict with standard views about knowledge and the semantics for 'actually'. I also consider many possible responses to the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to Lewis (1981) and Vihvelin (2013) , I argue that free will in a deterministic world is an ability to break a law of nature or to change the remote past. Even if it were true, as Lewis and Vihvelin think, that an agent who is predetermined to perform a particular act might not break a law or change the remote past by doing otherwise, it would nevertheless be true that he is able to do otherwise only if he is able to break a law or to change the remote past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to defend deliberation-compatibilism against several objections, including a recent counterexample by Yishai Cohen that involves a deliberator who believes that whichever action she performs will be the result of deterministic manipulation. It begins by offering a Moorean-style proof of deliberation-compatibilism. It then turns to the leading argument for deliberation-incompatibilism, which is based on the presumed incompatibility of causal determinism and the 'openness' required for rational deliberation. The paper explains why this argument fails and develops a coherent account of how one can rationally deliberate and believe in causal determinism without inconsistency. The second half of the paper then takes up Cohen's proposed counterexample and his Four-Case Deliberation Argument (FCDA) against deliberation-compatibilism, which is meant to mirror Derk Pereboom's famous Four-Case Manipulation Argument. In response, the author defends a hard-line reply to FCDA but also argues that the notion of 'sourcehood' relevant to rational deliberation differs from that involved in free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A notorious problem that has recently received increased attention in axiology, normative theory and population ethics is the apparent ubiquity of what can be generally called nondeterminacy. This paper illustrates how nondeterminacy can spawn cyclical rankings. So, accepting that practical reasons can admit of nondeterminacy challenges the widely held idea that 'better than' is transitive. As a result, standard approaches to rational choice under nondeterminacy fail to be action-guiding, since in some situations all options are dominated, that is, impermissible according to standard rational choice criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W. E. B. Du Bois wrote extensively about African-American cotton growers and the Southern Black Belt, beginning with the sociological studies he conducted while at Atlanta University. Over time, his approach to these subjects became increasingly literary and experimental. He made the region—and specifically its dirt—a medium for analyzing the history and dynamics of racial capitalism, and for imagining forms of value not grounded in the violent extraction and mystification of black labor power. In doing so Du Bois countered the blame narrative developed by white southerners like Alfred Holt Stone, who attributed soil exhaustion and economic stagnation to the "monstrocity" of self-possessed black labor. He dismantles racist figures of black encumbrance, nomadism, and decay in which antebellum theories of climate determinism were retooled to promote new forms of racial exploitation. This essay analyzes Du Bois's dirt poetics in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911). Drawing from Ernesto Laclau's work on the rhetoricity of Marxist social movements, it examines the revolutionary forms of radical contingency that Du Bois discovers at the intersection of linguistic and economic value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a famous passage drawing implications from determinism, Laplace introduced the image an intelligence who knew the positions and momenta of all of the particles of which the universe is composed, and asserted that in a deterministic universe such an intelligence would be able to predict everything that happens over its entire history. It is not, however, difficult to establish the physical possibility of a counterpredictive device, i.e. a device designed to act counter to any revealed prediction of its behavior. What would happen if a Laplacean intelligence were put into communication with such a device and forced to reveal its prediction of what the device would do on some occasion? On the one hand, it seems that the Laplacean Intelligence should be able to predict the device's behavior. On the other hand, it seems like that device should be able to act counter to the prediction. An examination of the puzzle leads to clarification of what determinism does (and does not) entail, with some insights about various other things along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As spirited debate continues on the appropriate philosophical and methodological foundations for consumer research, participants claim the literature has been full of misconceptions, misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and mischaracterizations. Through historical methodology, this article shows that these "misses" stem, at least in part, from the debate's having been historically ill informed about the origins and fundamental beliefs of a group of philosophers called logical positivists. After addressing a fundamental premise of the entire debate (i.e., that contemporary social science and consumer research are dominated by positivism), this article advocates critical pluralism and documents a favorable prognosis for rapprochement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the characteristics of Irish author W. B. Yeats' poems and Yeats as a poet of the past. Yeats' poems reportedly use the voice of the past regardless of their richness and magnificence, making him unique from his younger contemporaries. Topics include Yeats' views on the future, freedom and determinism and several of Yeats' poems. These poems include "The Wild Swans at Coole," "The Wanderings of Oisin," and "AVision."

In this paper, I examine recent arguments for the widespread existence of simultaneous causation from Huemer & Kovitz and Mumford & Anjum, and conclude that they are mistaken. I argue that these arguments overlook two pictures of causation which are commonly assumed, which I call the Standard Modern Picture and the Contiguous Extended Picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Spinozist defence of the educational promotion of students' autonomy I argue for a deterministic position where freedom of will is deemed unrealistic in the metaphysical sense, but important in the sense that it is an undeniable psychological fact. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part investigates the concept of autonomy from different philosophical points of view, looking especially at how education and autonomy intersect. The second part focuses on explicating the philosophical position of causal determinism and it seeks to open up a way to conceive of education for autonomy without relying on the notion of free will in a metaphysical sense. The concluding part attempts to outline a Spinozistic understanding of education for autonomy where autonomy is grounded in the student's acceptance and understanding of the necessary constraints of natural causation rather than processes of self-causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Ugo Tarchetti balances the fantastic and the real in his narratives through explicit real-world location together with a deferral of the impossible. I argue that Tarchetti allows the fantastic and the real to coexist by enclosing the fantastic with reassuring markers, deferring its authenticity to lost manuscripts, or by allowing the narrator simply to claim to be passing on a story. Additionally, I make the case that Tarchetti's use of pan-determinism complements this effect, and that as well as balancing the real with the fantastic, he is also representing the new social reality of the rise of practices such as spiritualism in late nineteenth-century Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the strengthened consequence argument for incompatibilism. It aims to show the truth of determinism from the remote past and the laws of nature with argument that relies on two inference rules. It explores the relationship between unavoidability and logical necessity represented by material implication.

Nearly all defences of the agent-causal theory of free will portray the theory as a distinctively libertarian one--a theory that only libertarians have reason to accept. According to what I call 'the standard argument for the agent-causal theory of free will', the reason to embrace agent-causal libertarianism is that libertarians can solve the problem of enhanced control only if they furnish agents with the agent-causal power. In this way it is assumed that there is only reason to accept the agent-causal theory if there is reason to accept libertarianism. I aim to refute this claim. I will argue that the reasons we have for endorsing the agent-causal theory of free will are nonpartisan. The real reason for going agent-causal has nothing to do with determinism or indeterminism, but rather with avoiding reductionism about agency and the self. As we will see, if there is reason for libertarians to accept the agent-causal theory, there is just as much reason for compatibilists to accept it. It is in this sense that I contend that if anyone should be an agent-causalist, then everyone should be an agent-causalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 120-year-old so-called Painlevé paradox involves the loss of determinism in models of planar rigid bodies in point contact with a rigid surface, subject to Coulomb-like dry friction. The phenomenon occurs due to coupling between normal and rotational degrees-of-freedom such that the effective normal force becomes attractive rather than repulsive. Despite a rich literature, the forward evolution problem remains unsolved other than in certain restricted cases in 2D with a single contact point. Various practical consequences of the theory are revisited, including models for robotic manipulators and the strange behaviour of chalk when pushed rather than dragged across a blackboard. Reviewing recent theory, a general formulation is proposed, including Poisson or energetic impact laws. The general problem in 2D with a single point of contact is discussed and cases of inconsistency or indeterminacy enumerated. Strategies to resolve the paradox via contact regularization are discussed from a dynamical systems point of view. By passing to the infinite stiffness limit and allowing impact without collision, inconsistent and indeterminate cases are shown to be resolvable for all open sets of conditions. However, two unavoidable ambiguities that can be reached in finite time are discussed in detail, so called dynamic jam and reverse chatter. A partial review is given of 2D cases with two points of contact showing how a greater complexity of inconsistency and indeterminacy can arise. Extension to fully 3D analysis is briefly considered and shown to lead to further possible singularities. In conclusion, the ubiquity of the Painlevé paradox is highlighted and open problems are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between understanding and knowing? This paper offers a defence of reductionism about understanding: the view that instances of understanding reduce to instances of knowing. I argue that knowing is both necessary and sufficient for understanding. I then outline some advantages of reductionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced:1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powersTherefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is incompatible with determinism, so compatibilism is false. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is argued that acceptance of determinism sits badly with the way we use counterfactual conditionals when considering gains and losses in light of how things would have been if such-and-such had or had not happened; it is further suggested that one type of indeterminism runs into the same difficulty; also that the difficulty may escape notice through failure to distinguish different uses of counterfactuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'rollback argument,' pioneered by Peter van Inwagen, purports to show that indeterminism in any form is incompatible with free will. The argument has two major premises: the first claims that certain facts about chances obtain in a certain kind of hypothetical situation, and the second that these facts entail that some actual act is not free. Since the publication of the rollback argument, the second claim has been vehemently debated, but everyone seems to have taken the first claim for granted. Nevertheless, the first claim is totally unjustified. Even if we accept the second claim, therefore, the argument gives us no reason to think that free will and indeterminism are incompatible. Furthermore, seeing where the rollback argument goes wrong illuminates how a certain kind of incompatibilist, the 'chance-incompatibilist,' ought to think about free will and chance, and points to a possibility for free will that has remained largely unexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to show that the truthmaker solution to the Gettier counter-examples can solve the Russell case of the stopped clock (other standard cases have already been analysed). The solution amounts to this: the truthmaker for the claim that it is, say, 2.00 pm, is a combination of natural and non-natural determinants. The latter are created by stipulation, but having been so made make it is a perfectly objective matter as to whether it is 2.00 o'clock. To know that it is 2.00 pm is to have the evidence for one's belief evidence of the very state of affairs that make the belief true. Thus, in the Russell case one does not have knowledge, in accord with intuition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Peter van Inwagen's Direct Argument (DA) for incompatibilism purports to establish incompatibilism with respect to moral responsibility and determinism without appealing to assumptions that compatibilists usually consider controversial. Recently, Michael McKenna has presented a novel critique of DA. McKenna's critique raises important issues about philosophical dialectics. In this article, we address those issues and contend that his argument does not succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses views on the Zygote Argument. It believes that there are positive reasons to adopt compatibilism about causal determinism and moral responsibility. It notes that some have thought that the Zygote Argument and other arguments such as the Four-Case Argument and other Manipulation Arguments bring out decisive objections to compatibilism. It concludes that the Zygote Argument does not provide strong support for the idea that compatibilism comes with a high price.

The author comments on claims made by I. Phillips in his article "Morgenbesser Cases and Closet Determinism." The first of his claims was that the problematic intuitions are wrong. His second claim stated that rejecting intuition and counterfactuals does not disrupt purposes in using counterfactuals. An objection presented by the author is that there is an intuitive route that does not presuppose determinism.

The article offers analysis of a paper by M. McKinsey about incompatibilism and the MC form. A definition of incompatibilism is presented, referring to the view that privileged access is incompatible with semantic externalism. One of the strategies deployed by incompatibilists is the consequence problem. Several types of compatibilist responses to the incompatibilist (MC) response include the soundness response and the apriority response.

The article looks at a flawed conception of determinism in the Consequence Argument. Specifically, it argues that the conception of determinism used in various versions of Consequence Argument is not plausible. In the context of Consequence Argument, determinism implies that the existence of God is logically impossible. A 1983 version of the Consequence Argument is illustrated.

Incompatibilism is often accused of incoherence because it introduces randomness in support of freedom. I argue that the sort of randomness that's thought to be detrimental to freedom results not from denying causal determinism, so much as denying what we might call 'rational determinism': denying that agents' actions are determined by their reasons for acting. Compatibilists argue that introducing the ability to decide differently allows agents to make choices that are irrational, and this undermines rather than furthering freedom. I maintain that this argument neglects scenarios in which reasons are in conflict with one another. In such scenarios, we can preserve rationality without claiming that the agent's choices are rationally determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay on creative determinism and its relevance to intellectual property is presented. It offers perspective on human civilization related to the creation of cultural influences and interpretation of information based on quotation or originality. The author concludes that the creative endeavors of writers would serve as grounds for them to claim and to have authority over their creative works and actions.

I introduce the notion of a ‘control variable’ which gives us a way of seeing how mental causation could be an unproblematic case of causation in general, rather than being some sui generis form of causation. Psychological variables may be the control variables for a system for which there are no physical control variables, even in a deterministic physical world. That explains how there can be psychological causation without physical causation, even in a deterministic physical world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the issue of land use ethics and economics from the Native perspective in Louis Owens' "Dark River." The author notes that the work focuses on wilderness, economic development and change, a trickster story that embodies the chaos theory, a new principle of modern science but an old one with respect to Native thought. All the central elements of the theory are incorporated in the work, including the paradoxical relationship between chance and determinism and dynamical systems evolving fractality.

The article offers an analysis on incompatibilism and fatalism in which it states that free will thesis is incompatible with determinism. It defines free will thesis as the possession of free will. Included in the discussions are the oscillating Adam and weak incompatibilism, and the article's response to the argument by Roberto Loss.

Autonomy is, among other things, an actual psychological condition, a capacity that can be developed, and an educational ideal. This paper contextualises, analyses, criticises and extends the theory of Richard S. Peters on these three aspects of autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that creativity is compatible with determinism and therefore with naturalistic explanation. I explore different kinds of novelty, corresponding with four distinct concepts of creativity – anthropological, historical, psychological and metaphysical. Psychological creativity incorporates originality and spontaneity. Taken together, these point to the independence of the creative mind from social learning, experience and previously acquired knowledge. This independence is nevertheless compatible with determinism. Creativity is opposed to specific causal factors, but it does not exclude causal determination as such. So creativity can be naturalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the compatibility of Richard Hooker's radical views on the freedom of the will and the resistibility of grace with his views on Augustinian doctrine of predestination. It highlights on Hooker's late manuscript defence that he wrote shortly before his death in 1600, in which he defended his views when it was criticized as heterodox and reminiscent of the dangerous opinions spread across England. Hooker's views on predestination in relation to Reformed tradition is evaluated, particularly on the order of the divine decrees and his distinction between the God's antecedent and consequent will. The article argues that in his doctrine of divine foreknowledge, Hooker incorporated the highly controversial Molinist concept of divine 'middle knowledge.'

The article discusses the general strategy in bringing the physical connection theory which is compatible with the preemption and overdetermination. It explains that causation is reducible to some non-causal relation among events that do not affect a physical connection but merely when those events are separated from the distorting considerations of accompanying preempted causes or other overdetermining causes. It mentions that abstracting away from strategy does not allow for an enough basis for covering with preemption and overdetermination. It further states that the strategist hopes to repair the preemption overdetermination problems presenting traditional reductionist accounts without stating a physical connection.

The article discusses the reductive singularism. The author explores that causation may be metaphysically and epistemologically indicated by the coming-to-be of resemblance. She identifies coming-to-be-resemblances and argues that such experiences suffice to justify singular casual beliefs. In addition, she stated that David Hume's discussion fails to establish that causal reductionism requires Casual generalism. She argues that coming-to-be of resemblances can play an important and crucial role in vindicating reductive singularism. The main objections to existing singularist accounts are intended to show that these accounts fail to provide a sufficient reductive basis for causation.

The article discusses the conceptual analysis of causation. It notes that counterfactual and probalistic accounts of causation are subject to obejctions when offered as reductive conceptual analyses. He cited Ned Hall's arguments against anti-reductionist positions as rare and brief. The contrast between reductionism and anti-reductionism presupposes a distinction between basic facts and derived facts. He revealed that the core of the disagreement between the anti-reductionist and the reductionist lies in which facts is basic.

The article discusses Peter van Inwagen's Third Argument. It cites the opinion of Joseph Keim Campbell on Inwagen's argument against compatibilism for its dependence on the existence of a remote past. It also presents Anthony Brueckner's new version of the Third Argument, which showed that determinism and free will are perpetually incompatible. It exploits Brueckner's new concept to establish another version of van Inwagen's original view that does not depend on the existence of the past.

The article discusses the reductive singularism. The author explores that causation may be metaphysically and epistemologically indicated by the coming-to-be of resemblance. She identifies coming-to-be-resemblances and argues that such experiences suffice to justify singular casual beliefs. In addition, she stated that David Hume's discussion fails to establish that causal reductionism requires Casual generalism. She argues that coming-to-be of resemblances can play an important and crucial role in vindicating reductive singularism. The main objections to existing singularist accounts are intended to show that these accounts fail to provide a sufficient reductive basis for causation.

An object's disposition to A in circumstances C is masked if circumstances C obtain without the object Aing. This paper explores an analogous sense in which abilities can be masked, and it uses the results of this exploration to motivate an analysis of agents' abilities in terms of dispositions. This analysis is then shown to provide the resources to defend a version of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities against Frankfurt-style counterexamples. Although this principle is often taken to be congenial to incompatibilism concerning free action and determinism, the paper concludes by using the dispositional analysis of abilities to argue for compatibilism, and to show why the 'master argument' for incompatibiism is unsound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that a proper response to the absurdities which seem to be entailed by the doctrine of determinism requires that we find a way to make sense of the idea that there might be such things as ‘fresh starts’ in nature—times and places where the world in a sense begins itself anew by rolling forwards in ways that are not wholly attributable (given the laws) to the way it was previously. It considers three powerful orthodoxies which seem to stand in the way of an acceptance of the existence of such things—fundamentalism, empiricist agnosticism and the ontology of events—and examines the prospects for overturning these orthodoxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the international relations field witnessed a surge in literature dealing with the concept of identity, a trend that is likely to continue. At the same time, the multi-directional focus of the current identity literature, together with the rather loose application of the term “identity”, leaves some observers sceptical about the validity and utility of identity as an analytical concept. With this backdrop, the article seeks to articulate an essential mechanism by which identity functions as a source of a state's foreign policy: A concept of state identity generates a specific value (a pro attitude toward a certain kind of action), which in turn determines a state's preference for a particular foreign policy option. This causal mechanism is then demonstrated by the empirical analysis of Japan's foreign policy toward post-Cold War regional institution-building. Further, by placing the identity mechanism within the value-action framework of general foreign policy, the study raises concern about the conditions by which identity becomes a prominent factor, that is to say when identity matters. Along this line, the study highlights the context-dependent and versatile natures of identity's function, and therefore, it cautions against overly deterministic approaches toward the role of identity in foreign policy and international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes on the recent criticism about excessive determinism in institutionalist research in comparative political economy. It is argued that institutionalist reasoning holds too strong assumptions about the existence of self-reinforcing features of institutional configurations. In particular, such features are unlikely to be found in institutional configurations in domains shaped by competing logics. For such sectors, a 'more political' theory of institutional dynamics referring to the coalitional base of institutional configurations and stabilising efforts by political elites seems more appropriate. The paper provides empirical support for these claims by a comparison of the dynamics of the British and German football industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I reply to the challenges to Frankfurt-style compatibilism about causal determinism and moral responsibility presented in Daniel Speak's paper ‘The Impertinence of Frankfurt-Style Argument’. I seek to show how Speak's critiques rest on an ‘all-or-nothing’ attitude in various ways, and I attempt to defend the importance of Frankfurt-style argumentation in defence of compatibilism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the philosophical claim that the free will thesis is incompatible with determinism, as argued by Peter van Inwagen. The author critiques the notion on the basis of the claim that the past is in some sense necessary. Having a remote past is said not be an essential feature of deterministic worlds. The author urges caution in the distinction between whether one can change the past versus whether anyone in the past ever had a choice about the truth of a proposition in the past.

The article discusses deterministic philosophical viewpoints brought about through hindsight, referring to philosophical cases from Sidney Morgenbesser. The author finds that these Morgenbesser cases are not in objection to suppositional accounts of the subjunctive conditional. He discusses the use of counterfactuals in empirical reasoning.

This paper aims to distinguish a conception of ‘free will’ that Nietzsche opposes (that of the pure agent unaffected by contingencies of character and circumstance) and one that he supports. In Human, All Too Human Nietzsche propounds the ‘total unfreedom’ of the will. But by the time of Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy he is more concerned (a) to trace the affective psychological states underlying beliefs in both free will and ‘unfree will’, (b) to suggest that the will might become free in certain individuals, a matter of having a consistent strong character, self-knowledge, and ability to create values. The paper explores the kind of autonomy required in agents who would ‘revalue’ existing values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]