The question of free will has preoccupied philosophers for millennia. In recent years the debate has been reinvigorated by the findings of neuroscience and, for some, the notion that we have free will has finally been laid to rest. Not so, says Raymond Tallis. In his quest to reconcile our practical belief in our own agency with our theoretical doubts, Tallis advances powerful and original arguments for the reality of freedom.

Tallis challenges the idea that the laws of nature wire us into a causally closed world that imprisons. He shows that our capacity to discover and exploit these laws is central to understanding the nature of voluntary action and to reconciling free will with our status as material beings.

Tallis brings his familiar erudition and insight to this most intriguing and important philosophical question, one that impacts most directly on our lives and touches on nearly every other philosophical problem – of consciousness, of time, of the nature of the natural world, and of our unique place in the cosmos. Tallis’s fascinating exploration takes us to the heart of what we are, and by understanding our freedom shows our extraordinary nature more clearly.

Contents

Overture: Intention and Intentionality
1. The Impossibility of Free Will
2. Bringing the Laws on Side
3. Unpicking Causation
4. Actions
5. The Human Agent
6. The Limits of Freedom
Coda
Appendices