Free Will and Determinism

Week-by-week

1. The scientific world-view and freedom

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You could have a go at one of Ted Honderich's spirited pieces: "Determinism As True, Compatibilism And Incompatibilism as Both False, and the Real Problem." A plunge into the deep end, though many professional pieces are much more inaccessible.

2. Causality and time-travel

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One argument on time-travel is here.

3. Human Autonomy and Cognitive Science

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Turing's pathbreaking paper is here.

Andrew Hodges' Alan Turing Home Page is the web at its best. You might start with the Scrapbook page and specifically the Scrapbook on the Turing Test.

4. Social evolutionism

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You might have a look at this - an important document historically: Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1877, Part 3 [Historical Materialism] (Actually part of an on-line mini-library of philosophy with lots of interesting and important stuff.)

5. The attempt to reconcile freedom and determinism

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Reading: choose one or two things from the Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Website Section 6

6. Causality

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Reading: choose one or two things from the Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Website Section 1

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