|
Philosophers
Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias G.E.M.Anscombe Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Augustine A.J.Ayer Mark Balaguer William Belsham Isaiah Berlin Bernard Berofsky Susanne Bobzien George Boole F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Carneades Ernst Cassirer Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Donald Davidson Democritus Daniel Dennett René Descartes Richard Double Fred Dretske John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus John Martin Fischer Owen Flanagan Philippa Foot Alfred Fouilleé Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Carl Ginet Nicholas St. John Green Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume William James Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan Christine Korsgaard Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Leucippus C.I.Lewis David Lewis John Locke John R. Lucas Lucretius Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Alfred Mele John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore Thomas Nagel Friedrich Nietzsche P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor Charles Sanders Peirce Derk Pereboom Steven Pinker Plato Karl Popper H.A.Prichard Willard van Orman Quine Frank Ramsey Ayn Rand Thomas Reid Charles Renouvier Nicholas Rescher Josiah Royce Bertrand Russell Paul Russell Gilbert Ryle T.M.Scanlon Moritz Schlick Arthur Schopenhauer John Searle Henry Sidgwick Walter Sinnott-Armstrong J.J.C.Smart Saul Smilansky Michael Smith Galen Strawson Peter Strawson Eleonore Stump Richard Taylor Kevin Timpe Peter van Inwagen Manuel Vargas John Venn Kadri Vihvelin G.H. von Wright R. Jay Wallace Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists Margaret Boden Neils Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Max Born Stephen Brush Arthur Holly Compton Abraham de Moivre John Eccles Arthur Stanley Eddington Albert Einstein Richard Feynman A.O.Gomes Joshua Greene Jacques Hadamard Martin Heisenberg Werner Heisenberg Pierre-Simon Laplace David Layzer Ernst Mach Henry Margenau James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Mayr Jacques Monod Steven Pinker Max Planck Henri Poincaré Erwin Schrödinger Herbert Simon B. F. Skinner William Thomson (Kelvin) John von Neumann Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg |
C. A. Campbell
C. A. (Charles Arthur) Campbell's inaugural address at Glasgow University in 1938, In Defence of Free Will, attempted to restore sensible discussion to a problem he regarded as unparalleled in the history of metaphysics.
Since Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosophy had turned to logical positivism (or logical empiricism) and linguistic analysis. Free will had been declared a pseudo-problem (by Schlick) that could not be solved, only dis-solved, by careful attention to the use of language.
Logical positivists delighted in framing such problems in terms that revealed impossibilities, contradictions, paradoxes, or category mistakes. Free will was declared "unintelligible," a term previously reserved for the concept of absolute chance.
Campbell argued that a free choice must involve an "effort" of the will. He said only choices made from "duty" were really uncaused. Choices based on desires were caused by those desires. This is the Kantian view and what we call the ethical fallacy. Kant said that we are free only when our actions are good. When our actions are bad, he said, we are slaves to our passions.
Campbell was negative about involving quantum indeterminacy in free will:
"I am not myself...disposed to rest any part of the case against universal determinism upon these recent dramatic developments of physical science."A dozen years later, a specific aspect of the free will problem that continues to concern even libertarians today was addressed by Campbell in his essay Is Free Will A Pseudo-Problem?. Campbell showed that Schlick's analysis of the problem was severely limited - to questions of external compulsion and the usefulness of punishment for "educative reasons." But Campbell took up a more difficult question - "Could one have done otherwise?" or the modern, "Could one do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances?"
In his Ethics, G. E. Moore in 1912 had argued it could only mean "could have done otherwise, if one had chosen to do otherwise." But since one had not so chosen, and since one's choices are entirely determined by the causal chain, one could not have so chosen.
In 1948 P. H. Nowell-Smith had raised this question again, asking what libertarians thought it could mean. The second half of Campbell's 1951 article attacked Moore's hypothetical construction of meaning for "could have done otherwise only if one had chosen otherwise."
See our historical review of "could have done otherwise" from the time of Bramhall and Hobbes to the present.
Articles by C. A. Campbell
In Defence of Free Will
Is Free Will A Pseudo-Problem?
For Teachers
For Scholars
Add Campbell's Reply to J.J.C.Smart article.
|
