Abstract
One of the relatively minor skirmishes in the ongoing philosophical controversy over the reality of free will is the debate about whether the determinist position is somehow self-refuting. This debate has seemed to be of minor importance because the argument that determinism is self-refuting has the appearance of sophistry; it seems like a short, fast way out of a very complicated problem.
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Notes
James N. Jordan, “Determinism’s Dilemma,” The Review of Metaphysics,23 (1969) 48–66, is the most persuasive formulation of this argument that I know of.
See Joseph M. Boyle Jr., Germain Grisez, and Olaf Tollefsen, Free Choice: A Self-Referential Argument,University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), pp. 43–46 for a development of this argument. Hereafter this work will be cited as Free Choice.
See Free Choice,pp. 153–181.
See Free Choice,pp. 11–12 for a fuller explanation of this definition. Kenneth Konyndyk, “Rational Affirmation and Free Choice: A Study of Free Choice,” The New Scholasticism,53 (1979) 504–505, provides suggestions for the improvement of the more formal definition offered there.
See Summa Theologica,First Part of the Second Part, question 10, article 1.
See Free Choice,pp. 18–23 for a more complete description of the experience of free choice.
See Free Choice,pp. 105–110 for a fuller treatment of soft determinism.
See Nichomachean Ethics,Book 3, 1111B 4–10, and 1112A 1–5.
See Free Choice,pp. 122–138 for a more systematic and thorough treatment of of self-reference and self-refutation.
See Free Choice,pp. 139–144 for a fuller discussion of the rational affirmation of Nfc.
See Free Choice,p. 151 for a further elaboration of this point along with some examples.
See Free Choice,pp. 164–166.
See Free Choice,pp. 51–57 for a statement and critique of the fatalist argument.
See Free Choice,pp. 57–90 for an exposition of these arguments and references to the literature.
See Free Choice,for a discussion of all the major types of arguments for Nfc which I know of.
See Free Choice,pp. 144–152 for a development of this argument.
“Rational Affirmation and Free Choice,” 512.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Boyle, J.M. (1987). Is Determinism Self-Refuting?. In: Bartlett, S.J., Suber, P. (eds) Self-Reference. Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3551-8_11
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