A metaphysics for freedom / Helen Steward.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steward, Helen, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Free will and determinism.

Agent (Philosophy).

Causation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 267 pages)

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Steward argues that determinism is incompatible with agency itself - not only the special human variety of agency, but also powers which can be accorded to animal agents. She offers a non-dualistic version of libertarianism, rooted in a conception of what biological forms of organisation might make possible in the way of freedom.

Contents:

""Cover""; ""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Overview""; ""1. The Problem""; ""1.1 Freedom""; ""1.2 Determinism""; ""1.3 An argument against universal determinism""; ""2. 'Up-to-Usness', Agency, and Determinism""; ""2.1 Van Inwagen and the Consequence Argument""; ""2.2 Actions and agency""; ""2.3 The argument: agency is inconsistent with universal determinism""; ""2.4 Settling""; ""3. Action as Settling: Some Objections""; ""3.1 The objection from the impossibility of ensuring success""; ""3.2 The objection from imperfect execution""; ""3.3 Settling: the compatibilist�s conception""

""3.4 Deviant causal chains""""3.5 The disappearance of the agent""; ""3.6 Settling and the antecedents of action""; ""4. Animal Agency""; ""4.1 The concept of agency and the theory of mind""; ""4.2 Nichols on our folk-psychological commitment to agent causation""; ""4.3 Folk psychology and the animate-inanimate distinction""; ""4.4 Scientific language and conceptions of animals""; ""4.5 A 'logical' stopping place?""; ""4.6 Dennett on the 'intentional stance'""; ""4.7 Which animals?""; ""5. The Epistemological Argument""; ""5.1 Determinism and physics: two claims""

""5.2 Determinism: Fischer""""5.3 Determinism: Van Inwagen""; ""5.4 Conclusion""; ""6. Indeterminism and Intelligibility""; ""6.1 Beginning the descent: the Intelligibility Question""; ""6.2 The Challenge from Chance""; ""6.3 Two inadequate libertarian responses""; ""6.4 Reasons, determination, and the 'gap'""; ""6.5 Meeting the Challenge from Chance""; ""6.6 Decisions, actions, and activity""; ""7. Responding to the Challenge from Chance: Some Objections""; ""7.1 Matters of luck""; ""7.2 Frankfurt-style examples""; ""7.3 Refrainment and robustness""

""8. Agency, Substance Causation, and Top-Down Causation""""8.1 Agent causation""; ""8.2 The reduction of agent causation to event causation""; ""8.3 Agent causation and substance causation""; ""8.4 Movers, matterers, and makers-happen""; ""8.5 Objections to the possibility of substance causation""; ""8.6 Top-down causation""; ""8.7 Breaking the laws""; ""8.8 Causal exclusion""; ""Conclusion""; ""References""; ""Index""

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 19, 2012).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-870646-4

1-280-49964-8

9786613594877

0-19-162928-6

OCLC:

922970812