Philosophy Colloquium
Please join us for a Philosophy Colloquium
*"Free Will and Representation"*
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 4:00 pm in Humanities 403
*Presented by Dennis Stampe*
/Professor Stampe is currently on faculty at UW-Madison (Oxford,
D.Phil.) with research interests in philosophy of language, philosophy
of mind, epistemology.
/Abstract: In this paper, I present a novel account of what freedom of
the will is. The thesis is that freedom of the will is the capacity we
have to do as we will (what we want), that derives specifically from the
will itself as opposed to other cognitive or physical abilities we have.
I argue that this ability arises from the same endowments as does the
language capacity, namely the extraordinary powers of mental
representation unique to the human mind. Freedom of the will arises from
particular employments of this capacity, in the service of our own
desires and designs.
Everyone is welcome to attend.