Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site sjuvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cadre!psuvax1!burdvax!sjuvax!tmoody
From: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Free Will Definitions
Message-ID: <1201@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Jul-85 20:58:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.1201
Posted: Sat Jul 20 20:58:57 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Jul-85 05:42:47 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA.
Lines: 48

*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am a newcomer to the net, and I apologize in advance for any ineptness
in using the system.  I have followed the free will debate for a couple of
weeks -- long enough to have something to add.

Mr. Rosen, arguing the hard determinist/incompatibilist position, is at
pains to point out that his understanding of freedom (being exempt from
causal necessity) is in some sense *the* meaning of free will.  He
asserts that it is "well rooted in documentation: philosophical discussion
of the topic for centuries has used that definition, as does the 
dictionary."  He then points out that if free will indeed involves a
suspension of physical law, then it is incompatible with a scientific
worldview.  It is, in short, a fiction.

This is, in my view, a mistaken way to approach the matter.  First of
all, a dictionary is the *last* place to look for the meaning of any
philosophically interesting term, since a dictionary merely records
guidelines of acceptable usage.  What is acceptable usage need not be
philosophically legitimate.  It is a howler to suppose that "free will"
has some single univocal meaning that is historically entrenched.  This
concept has been under philosophic scrutiny for a *long* time; it has
worn many "definitions."  Hence, it is just wrong to point, as Mr. Rosen
does, to a definition of free will as "espoused for centuries and as
understood by philosophers and laypeople alike."

There is an aspect of human reality that has been of intense interest
and concern to thinking people of the West for a very long time.  This
aspect has something to do with one's intuition of authorship of one's
actions.  It has been named "free will", and the task of philosophy is
not to prove that it does or does not "exist", but to *understand* it
and fit it into a larger worldview.  For a long time, that larger 
worldview was religious, and free will was tightly linked to salvation
and immortality.  I believe that it is this worldview that Mr. Rosen
refers to as "wishful thinking."  Today, the larger worldview is a
scientific one.  The *hypothesis* of free will as an emergent property
of certain systems is at least a promising one.  It is a significant
line of questioning that is initiated when one wonders whether there
is any rational basis for distinguishing between free and non-free
systems.

As Bertrand Russell pointed out, the significant definitions come at
the *end*, not at the beginning, of philosophical inquiry.  And we all
know that the deepest inquiries do not end.

Todd C. Moody    (tmoody@sjuvax)
Philosophy Department
St. Joseph's University               Philadelphia, PA   19131