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Overview
A landmark book in the debate over free will that makes the case for compatibilism.
In this landmark 1984 work on free will, Daniel Dennett makes a case for compatibilism. His aim, as he writes in the preface to this new edition, was a cleanup job, “saving everything that mattered about the everyday concept of free will, while jettisoning the impediments.” In Elbow Room, Dennett argues that the varieties of free will worth wanting—those that underwrite moral and artistic responsibility—are not threatened by advances in science but distinguished, explained, and justified in detail.
Dennett tackles the question of free will in a highly original and witty manner, drawing on the theories and concepts of fields that range from physics and evolutionary biology to engineering, automata theory, and artificial intelligence. He shows how the classical formulations of the problem in philosophy depend on misuses of imagination, and he disentangles the philosophical problems of real interest from the “family of anxieties” in which they are often enmeshed—imaginary agents and bogeymen, including the Peremptory Puppeteer, the Nefarious Neurosurgeon, and the Cosmic Child Whose Dolls We Are. Putting sociobiology in its rightful place, he concludes that we can have free will and science too. He explores reason, control and self-control, the meaning of “can” and “could have done otherwise,” responsibility and punishment, and why we would want free will in the first place. A fresh reading of Dennett's book shows how much it can still contribute to current discussions of free will.
This edition includes as its afterword Dennett's 2012 Erasmus Prize essay.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262332040 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MIT Press |
| Publication date: | 08/07/2015 |
| Series: | A Bradford Book |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 248 |
| File size: | 631 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Preface to the New Edition ix
Preface to the First Edition xiii
1 Please Don't Feed the Bugbears 1
1 The Perennial, Gripping Problem 1
2 The Bogeymen 7
3 Sphexishness and Other Worries 11
4 Overview 18
2 Making Reason Practical 23
1 Where Do Reasons Come From? 23
2 Semantic Engines, Perpetual Motion Machines, and a Defective Intuition Pump 30
3 Reflection, Language, and Consciousness 38
4 Community, Communication, and Transcendence 48
3 Control and Self-Control 55
1 "Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control" 55
2 Simple Control and Simple Self-Control 57
3 Agentless Control and Our Concept of Causation 62
4 Agents in Competition 67
5 The Uses of Disorder 73
6 "Let Yourself Go" 76
4 Self-Made Selves 81
1 The Problem of the Disappearing Self 81
2 The Art of Self-Definition 88
3 Trying Our Luck 100
4 Overview 108
5 Acting Under the Idea of Freedom 111
1 How Can You Co On Deliberating at a Time Like This? 111
2 Designing the Perfect Deliberator 118
3 Real Opportunities 126
4 "Avoid," "Avoidable," "Inevitable" 134
6 "Could Have Done Otherwise" 143
1 Do We Care Whether We Could Have Done Otherwise? 143
2 What We Care About 152
3 The Can of Worms 157
7 Why Do We Want Free Will? 167
1 Nihilism Neglected 167
2 Diminished Responsibility and the Specter of Creeping Exculpation 171
3 The Dread Secret Denied 181
Afterword: Erasmus: Sometimes a Spin Doctor Is Right 189
Bibliography 207
Index 219
What People are Saying About This
A spirited and engaging defense of a compatibilist view of free will that has had a significant influence on debates about the topic since its publication thirty years ago. Dennett's characteristically imaginative examples and arguments in this book continue to engage those who agree with his compatibilist position, and to challenge those of us who do not.
Elbow Room remains one of the most impressive and engaging defenses of compatibilism about free will and science—in Dennett's conception, the position that our scientific knowledge does not conflict with the kinds of free will worth wanting. In view of the tendency of recent scientific challenges to free will to dismiss compatibilism, this book is even more timely now than when it first appeared.
I have always enjoyed the energetic and often unexpected provocation of Daniel Dennett's mind. In these powerful and no doubt controversial lectures, he gives elbow room for fresh thought as well as free will. Anyone who reads them carefully will be delighted by the unexpected views which Daniel Dennett provides.
True classics are dazzling when they are written and should be dazzling forever. Daniel Dennett's Elbow Room makes the cut as he captures what a thorough analysis of the problem of free will looks like. Bravo!
Daniel Dennett throws light into the darkness of ourselves by asking whether we are free to control our actions. I am glad I was free to choose to read this book.
—Professor Richard L. Gregory, Director, Brain and Perception Labratory, University of Bristol, England
Once again Daniel Dennett has made a stunning contribution to our achieving a monist physicalism which is compatible with human experiences. Just as his funtional mind-brain identity theory enable us to avoid positing 'grandmother neurons', so his new analysis enables psychologist to understand the competitive advantage of those species that believe they have free will and the stupidity of teaching introductory psychology students that they have none. A readable, light hearted book on a very serious subject. While philosphy citations outnumber those to psychology about two to one, Dennett is both well read and subtley competent in psychology, and the book will be enjoyed by intellecutal psychology students fully as much as by philosophy majors.
—Donald T. Campbell, University Professor of Social Relations & Psychology, Past President, American Psychological AssociationI have always enjoyed the energetic and often unexpected provocation of Daniel Dennett's mind. In these powerful and no doubt controversial lectures, he gives elbow room for fresh thought as well as free will. Anyone who reads them carefully will be delighted by the unexpected views which Daniel Dennett provides.
—Jonathan Miller, Lever Hulme Research Fellow in Cognitive Science, University of SussexDaniel Dennett throws light into the darkness of ourselves by asking whether we are free to control our actions. I am glad I was free to choose to read this book.
—Professor Richard L. Gregory, Director, Brain and Perception Labratory, University of Bristol, EnglandOnce again Daniel Dennett has made a stunning contribution to our achieving a monist physicalism which is compatible with human experiences. Just as his funtional mind-brain identity theory enable us to avoid positing 'grandmother neurons', so his new analysis enables psychologist to understand the competitive advantage of those species that believe they have free will and the stupidity of teaching introductory psychology students that they have none. A readable, light hearted book on a very serious subject. While philosphy citations outnumber those to psychology about two to one, Dennett is both well read and subtley competent in psychology, and the book will be enjoyed by intellecutal psychology students fully as much as by philosophy majors.
Daniel Dennett throws light into the darkness of ourselves by asking whether we are free to control our actions. I am glad I was free to choose to read this book.