PLEASE NOTE this is a sample reading list for the 2015-16 academic year – precise seminar content
may change from year to year.
Term 1
USEFUL INTRODUCTORY TEXTS
Tom Pink (2004) Free Will: A very short introduction. Oxford Paperbacks.
Useful general collections:
Gary Watson (ed.) (1982) Free Will. Oxford Readings in Philosophy. Oxford: OUP.
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Week 1-2 / Lecture 1-3: HOBBES AND BRAMHALL
Readings:
Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity, Chappell ed., 1999, pp.1-43 , Chappell ed., 1999,
pp.1-43
Bramhall reading
Hobbes reading
Pink, 'Thomas Hobbes'
Pink, 'SUAREZ, HOBBES AND THE SCHOLASTIC TRADITION IN ACTION THEORY'
Lecture 1 ppt slides
Lecture 2 ppt slides
Lecture 3 ppt slides
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Week 2 / Lecture 4-: FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM
Readings:
D. Hume, Selections from A Treatise of Human Nature.
B. Loewer, Selections from his (1998) 'Freedom from Physics', reprint from Crane and Farkas
(eds.) Metaphysics: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford: OUP.
P. F. Strawson (1962) 'Freedom and Resentment', Proceedings of the British Academy. Also in
Watson (ed.)
Norton, J. (2003) 'Causation as Folk Science', Philosophers Imprint.
Lecture 4 ppt slides
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Week 3 / Lecture 5-6-: FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM
Readings:
P. van Inwagen (1975) 'The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism', reprint from Crane and
Farkas (eds.) Metaphysics: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford: OUP. Also in Watson (ed.)
D. Lewis (1981) 'Are we free to break the laws?', Theoria.
H. Frankfurt (1969) 'Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility', Journal of Philosophy.
Lecture 5 ppt slides
Lecture 6 ppt slides
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Week 4 -: FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
Harry Frankfurt (1971) "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person".
Galen Strawson (1994) "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility".
John Martin Fischer (2011) "Frankfurt-Type Examples and SemiCompatibilism: New Work" in
Robert Kane (ed.),The Oxford Handbook of Free Will: Second Edition .
Week 4 slides
Week 4 script
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Week 5 -: PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS OF FREEDOM
Susan Wolf (1988) "Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility", in: Ferdinand Schoeman
(ed.) Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions: New Essays in Moral Psychology.
Eddie Nahmias (2007) "Autonomous Agency and Social Psychology", in: Massimo Marraffa, Mario
De Caro, Francesco Ferretti (eds.) Cartographies of the Mind: Philosophy and Psychology in
Intersection.
Sarah Stroud (2014) "Weakness of Will", in: Edward N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition).
slides week 5
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Week 7 -: FREEDOM TO BELIEVE
Bernard Williams (1973) "Deciding to Believe" in: Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956–
1972.
Thomas J. Cook (1987) "Deciding to Believe Without Self-Deception".
Pascal Engel (2009) "Epistemic responsibility without epistemic agency".
Slides week 7
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Week 8 - Art and creativity
Plato, Ion
R. G. Collingwood, excerpts from The Principle of Art
Week 8 slides
Recommended: Christopher Janaway on Ion
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Week 9 - Art and freedom
Friedrich Schiller, excerpts from On the Aesthetic Education of Man
Noel Carroll, 'Art, Creativity, and Tradition'
Grace Paley, 'A Conversation with My Father'
Week 9 slides
Recommended: Patrick Gardiner essay on Schiller
Weeks 8 and 9 essay questions:
1. Explain Collingwood's conceptions of art and craft. Is the making of art more or less free than
the making of craft?
2. Argue for or against the following claim: the model of inspiration in Plato's Ion leaves no room
for creative freedom.
3. For Schiller, what is the significance for humans of aesthetic play?
4. How do tradition and artistic creativity interact?
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Week 10 - Is 'conscious will' an illusion?
Daniel M. Wegner (2004). Précis of The illusion of conscious will. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
27, pp 649-659 doi:10.1017/S0140525X04000159
Eddy Nahmias (2002). When consciousness matters: A critical review of Daniel Wegner's The
illusion of conscious will. Philosophical Psychology 15, pp 527-541
Al Mele (2011). Free Will and Neuroscience: Revisiting Libet's Experiments. Youtube video