Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

In Greece, the problem of responsibility for choices was originally discussed by poets and legislators. Philosophical analysis developed in relation to these reflections, and Plato wanted to undermine the authority of poets with a new approach, inspired by Socrates. Aristotle tackled the question starting from Plato's position. His approach was not limited to the question of the responsibility of those who perform evil actions, but extends to a general evaluation…

In the Ethics, Spinoza famously rejects freedom of the will. He also offers an error theory for why many believe, falsely, that the will is free. Standard accounts of his arguments for these claims focus on their efficacy against incompatibilist views of free will. For Spinoza, the will cannot be free since it is determined by an infinite chain of external causes. And the pervasive belief in free will arises…

Since the beginning of his activity, Leibniz considers the notion of free will as absurd; he holds this notion not only unnecessary to found moral responsibility but also as an impediment to the correct understanding of divine and human retribution. What prevents many readers to accept this view is Leibniz's insistence on contingency as a requisite of free actions: I argue that the possibility of ‘being otherwise’ in a different…

This article summarizes John Locke’s considered views on freedom, explaining that freedom is a power of the mind to act in accordance with its volitions, that freedom is a power that can belong only to substances, that we have the freedom to will in many cases, including the power to hold our wills undetermined and thereby suspend the prosecution of our desires.  This is a seemingly reasonable account of how…

In this essay, I discuss David Hume’s reasoning on free will as he presents it in A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. I proceed by showing how Hume’s compatibilist solution acquires meaning in the light of his sentimentally based science of human nature, which conceives human beings as reasonable, social, and active creatures. Within Hume’s empiricist, naturalistic, and sceptical approach, we deal only with perceptions…

For Kant transcendental freedom consists in the power of agents to produce actions without being causally determined by antecedent conditions in exercising this power. He contends that we cannot establish whether we are actually or even possibly free in this sense. Kant claims only that our conception of ourselves as transcendentally free involves no inconsistency, and that as a result the belief that we are free in this sense meets…

In this essay I present Hegel’s philosophy of free will. Although free will plays a crucial role in Hegel's practical philosophy, freedom is also part of his philosophy of mind, his philosophy of nature, and his Science of Logic. After examining the philosophical motivations that led Hegel to create his system of philosophy, I will outline the basic concept of free will presented in the introduction to his Elements of…

Free will, famously described by David Hume as “the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science”, has long been a subject of intense debate, particularly regarding its compatibility with a deterministic universe and its implications for ethical questions, notably moral responsibility. Moritz Schlick, a leading figure in the Vienna Circle and the neopositivist movement, challenges the validity of this debate, asserting that it arises from linguistic and semantic…

The most usual philosophical questions about compromises have been those related to inter-personal compromises, in which parties are compromising with each other, rather than intra-personal compromises, which are often psychologically demanding. This paper aims to fill the gap in the discussion and briefly analyze the nature of intra-personal compromises. The starting point here is the assumption that inter-personal compromises cannot be made without intra-personal compromises, although intra-personal compromises are common…