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Title: An Essay on Free Will by Peter Van Inwagen, Inwagen Van ISBN: 0-19-824624-2 Publisher: Clarendon Pr Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent treatment of its chosen subject
Comment: Van Inwagen's first major work, the "Essay on Free Will" has in many ways revolutionized the free-will debate; terms like "compatibilism", "incompatibilism", "no-choice principle", and so forth, central to today's debate on agency and freedom, were invented here. The book begins by explaining the issues involved--the problems associated with fatalism, arguments for compatibilism, arguments for incompatibilism, the consequences of our not having free will, and the "traditional problem", which is mainly the question of whether or not we have free will. Van Inwagen examines and criticizes fatalistic claims, criticizes arguments for compatibilism, argues at length for incompatibilism, and claims that lack of free will is incompatible with moral responsibility, and that the belief in free will is psychologically necessary for deliberation. He then gives reasons for thinking that we in fact have free will, and defends this claim against various objections, scientific and metaphysical. Among the most striking arguments of this part of the book is a disproof of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

This book is a treasure-trove of valuable insights on its chosen subject, clear, lucid, and impressively argued. It is worth any philosopher's careful time, but especially those who are interested in the free-will debate. The book does suffer, however, from a certain surliness of tone, and a certain persistent defensiveness, which to my mind is unwarranted and unseemly. These stylistic defects are minor, however, compared to its great philosophical merits.

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