Nonetheless, the thesis can be known evidently through experience, since a human being experiences that, no matter how much reason dictates a given thing, the will is still able to will that thing, or not to will it, or to will against it. The thesis in question cannot be proven by any argument, since every argument meant to prove it will assume something that is just as unknown as or more unknown than the conclusion. This is nowhere more evident than in his argument for libertarianism. Ockham was also an uncompromising empiricist. The less possibility for falsehood in a theory, the more likely it is to be true. The rationale is that each individual hypothesis is a liability: no matter how benign it may seem, it carries the possibility of falsehood. Everything observed must be explained through hypotheses and there should be no more hypotheses than absolutely necessary for a complete explanation. They use the razor, not to simplify the data, but to find the simplest possible explanation of the data. Satisfied with probability in lieu of certainty, they begin with a large quantity of raw data about reality - as complex as you like. Empiricists, in contrast, typically embrace some version of the razor. Certainty is an ambitious standard that is liable to require a complex theoretical support. Rationalists often find the principle objectionable because they hold that true knowledge is certain. The crux of the dispute, in my view, depends on one's epistemological orientation. The principle of simplicity was just as controversial in the Middle Ages as it is now. He himself, after all, was a thoroughgoing libertarian, despite the popularity of various versions of determinism in his day. Understanding Ockham's libertarianism requires a closer look at his razor. Since the long string of biological and environmental causes presupposed in the theory of natural selection is sufficient to explain everything human beings do, there is no need to posit free will. Ockham's razor, the principle according to which the simpler theory is more likely to be true, is the lynchpin for the determinist's argument against free will. The determinist relies on Ockham's razor to justify the elimination of free will, but I will argue that this constitutes an abuse of the 'razor' and that the determinists have misrepresented the introspective argument as an argument from feeling. In so doing, I turn back to one of its earliest and most committed defenders, William of Ockham. I endeavour here to restore confidence in self-knowledge, and hence in personhood, by reviving the introspective argument. Despite its commonsense appeal and despite its role in shaping the tradition of metaphysical libertarianism, the introspective argument for free will has all but disappeared from the current debate and is widely regarded as a dead horse. How can we claim to be aware of ourselves as selves when we are so fundamentally deceived about what we are? People on the street claim to know of the existence of free will by examining their own experiences from the inside, what philosophers call 'introspection'. According to them, the belief is just as inescapable as it is mistaken.īut evolutionary determinism is disturbing because it undermines the possibility of self-knowledge and therefore personhood. Even the determinists themselves, who allegedly know they do not have free will, cannot stop believing they do. Without this conviction we could not function in a fully human way. For any given plan of action, we believe we could do otherwise. In our every waking moment we regard ourselves as agents with choices about what to think and what to do. Let us call this view 'evolutionary determinism', and let its proponents grant that the sensation of free will is central to human consciousness. Human beings, they seem to say, believe they have free will, not because this belief is true, but only because it is a useful survival strategy. It is common for philosophers to argue that free will is a natural illusion, by which they mean that belief in free will is a product of evolution. There is a disturbing movement afoot in contemporary philosophy.
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