Choosing a compatibilist free will perspective

by Dwayne Holmes [This essay is part of a special “free will week” at Scientia Salon. The Editor promises not to touch the topic again for a long while after this particular orgy, of course assuming he has any choice in the matter…] Despite the question having been around forever, the topic of Free Will …

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Free Will Skepticism and Its Implications: An Argument for Optimism — Part 2

by Gregg D. Caruso [This two-part essay was inspired by the author’s TEDx talk on the same topic, which can be viewed here.] [1] I. Addressing Pragmatic Concerns with Free Will Skepticism Let me begin with the concern that giving up free will belief will increase anti-social behavior. This concern has been fueled largely by …

Free Will Skepticism and Its Implications: An Argument for Optimism — Part 1

by Gregg D. Caruso [This two-part essay was inspired by the author’s TEDx talk on the same topic, which can be viewed here.] [1] Contemporary theories of free will tend to fall into one of two general categories, namely, those that insist on and those that are skeptical about the reality of human freedom and …

Farewell to determinism

by Marko Vojinovic Introduction Ever since the formulation of Newton’s laws of motion (and maybe even before that), one of the popular philosophical ways of looking at the world was determinism as captured by the so-called “Clockwork Universe” metaphor [1]. This has raised countless debates about various concepts in philosophy, regarding free will, fate, religion, …

Human nature, a Humean take

by Massimo Pigliucci Human nature is a funny thing. Some scientists, like biologist E.O. Wilson [1] and linguist Steven Pinker [2] are pretty convinced it is a real thing, and that it seriously constrains what we are going to do with our lives (the entire discipline of evolutionary psychology, or sociobiology as it was known …