Alfred Mele è un filosofo americano specializzato in irrazionalità, akrasia, intenzionalità e filosofia dell'azione. Approfondisce i concetti di autonomia e autocontrollo, esplorandone le connessioni con la nozione di libero arbitrio. Mele offre argomentazioni a sostegno degli agenti autonomi per diverse posizioni filosofiche, senza impegnarsi definitivamente nel compatibilismo o nell'incompatibilismo con il determinismo. Caratterizza la sua posizione come "autonomismo agnostico".
What did you do a moment ago? What will you do after you read this? Are you in charge of your actions and decisions, or is your life following a script? Free will is such an important topic that it can feel overwhelming. In Free Will: An Opinionated Guide leading free-will expert Alfred R. Mele answers the big questions through engaging thought experiments, and provides a lively, beginner-friendly tour of the most prominent theories, puzzles, and arguments about free will.
Mele develops a view of paradigmatically free actions-including decisions-as indeterministically caused by their proximal causes. He mounts a masterful defense of this thesis that includes solutions to problems about luck and control widely discussed in the literature on free will and moral responsibility.
Ein Dialog
Ist unser Denken und Handeln so frei, wie wir für gewöhnlich glauben? Diese alte Frage beschäftigt und verwirrt Philosophen wie Laien und seit einiger Zeit auch die Naturwissenschaft. Nun bringt uns der renommierte Philosoph Alfred R. Mele das Problem auf neue und unterhaltsame Art näher: in Form eines Gesprächs unter Studierenden. Nach und nach zeigt sich darin, was wir unter Willensfreiheit verstehen sollten und wie den Herausforderungen insbesondere von Hirnforschern und Psychologen wie Benjamin Libet oder Stanley Milgram begegnet werden kann. Eine perfekte Einführung in die Willensfreiheitsdebatte und die damit verbundenen Grundfragen der Philosophie.
"Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will" by Alfred R. Mele examines the debate over free will, addressing claims from neuroscientists and social psychologists that challenge its existence. Mele critiques their experiments, arguing they fail to provide solid evidence against free will and highlights its importance for moral responsibility and rational decision-making.
People backslide.They freely do things they believe it would be best on the whole not to do -- a judgment developed from their own point of view, not just the perspective of their peers or their parents. The aim of this book is to to clarify the nature of backsliding - of actions that display some weakness of will -- using traditional philosophical techniques that date back to Plato and Aristotle (whose work on weakness of will or "akrasia" he discusses) and some new studies in the emerging field of experimental philosophy. Mele then attacks the thesis that backsliding is an illusion because people never freely act contrarily to what they judge is best. He argues that it is extremely plausible that if people ever act freely, they sometimes backslide. At the book's heart is the development of a theoretical and empirical framework that sheds light both on backsliding and on exercises of self-control that prevent it. Here, Mele draws on work in social and developmental psychology and in psychiatry to motivate a view of human behavior in which both backsliding and overcoming the temptation to backslide are explicable. He argues that backsliding is no illusion and our theories about the springs of action, the power of evaluative judgments, human agency, human rationality, practical reasoning, and motivation should accommodate backsliding.
"What place does motivation have in the lives of intelligent agents? Mele's answer is sensitive to the concerns of philosophers of mind and moral philosophers and informed by empirical work. He offers a distinctive, comprehensive, attractive view of human agency. This book stands boldly at the intersection of philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and metaphysics."--BOOK JACKET
'Autonomous Agents' addresses the related topics of self-control and individual autonomy. Self-control is defined as the opposite of akrasia - weakness of will. The study of self-control seeks to understand the concept of its own terms, followed by an examination of its bearing on one's actions, beliefs, emotions, and personal values. schovat popis
Exploring the intricacies of self-deception, Alfred Mele delves into essential questions surrounding belief and the human psyche. He examines the nature of self-deception, the mechanisms behind it, the motivations for such behavior, and the philosophical debate on its very possibility. Through a thoughtful analysis, Mele provides insights into how self-deception influences our understanding of ourselves and the world.