Great Philosophical Debates: Free Will and Determinism

This will challenge how you think!

Free will vs Determinism is one of those questions that I've always struggled to wrap my head around. How to reconcile what is clearly a universe whose parts are governed by well understood and well described forces and laws with human behavior that, at least for most of us, appears to entail acts of free will?

First off - this series of lectures from the Great Courses series doesn't settle the argument. Not only I, but philosophers in general are still struggling over it. However, what this course does and does well is introduce the various thoughts and concepts, both historical and current, on the nature of free will.

Cases are made from different approaches for both sides - that Free Will is true or that Free Will is false. These lectures cover the first half of the course and give me a lot of what I was expecting to find.

The later lectures that make up the second half of the course build on this and go in directions I didn't expect. Offering more abstract discussions on what free will really means. In addition, there are lectures bringing in the results and observations of neuroscience and speculations about what they mean to the free will consideration. Finally, there's discussion about morality, crime and punishment considered both from the notion that free will is true as well as the implications of determinism being true.

I found the lecturer easily listenable - neither put to sleep monotone, nor excessively dramatic. Overall I found the course interesting and challenging. It's helped me better understand my own beliefs and given me some new things to consider. I rate it a high success. This is my first exposure to one of The Great Courses products since they became available on Audible and I look forward to exploring other titles.

11 of 11 people found this review helpful

Why Are You Reading This Review?

Are you reading this review because of free will or have all the variables that comprise "you" lead you to read this review? Typical scientific reasoning suggests that if you knew all of the variables contributing to an outcome, then the laws of nature could predict the outcome. Why then do we think that we are the exception to this logic? These lectures tackle these types of questions.

The scope of these lectures is too vast to summarize easily. Indeed, sometimes I felt lost amongst all of the different schools of thought. The content of these lectures is approachable but advanced. It brings together many different philosophical ideas. The later lectures were more accessible as they touched on the application of these philosophical ideas to concepts such as crime and punishment, brain function, and quantum mechanics.

This is not a lecture series I would recommend to someone new to philosophy or to someone that has only a passing interest in philosophy. These lectures require careful listening and some thought. I would, however, recommend them to someone that is very interested in philosophy. I enjoyed them.

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

#TeamDeterminism

Any additional comments?

This was the second great courses audiobook I've done, so I had a decent idea of what to expect on the style and depth of the material. In that respect, it was deep enough to get a good understanding of the topic, but probably not deep enough for someone whose done dedicated research into it before. For me, coming from some philosophy courses at university, I had a decent understanding of the concepts already, but I never delved into it much. Based on that, I really enjoyed this course.

The lectures all had clear points and were well connected to each other and the main topic. The philosophies of each argument seemed well summarised and nicely explained in each case. The narrator/lecturer spoke in a natural and expressive manner which gave me the impression that he was just as excited to be teaching this course as I was about learning the concepts. There were a couple of instances where I lost the train of thought a bit, but those were more from my internal diversions on thinking about the topics and not paying enough attention to what was being said.

I particularly enjoyed how the lectures were structured by going mostly chronologically on when the different concepts were developed. Some of the later lectures weren't quite as interesting since they went more into the legal and moral implications of some of the arguments of each side, but that's not to say they weren't still quite enjoyable and interesting to think about.

Based on the course, I've definitely been swayed to the determinist side. I actually came to that conclusion quite early on and it was fun to have internal arguments with myself based on arguments both against determinism and also interpretations and justifications for determinism that were not in line with my view on it. I honestly can't think of any noteworthy issues regarding the course and therefore I'd highly recommend this course for anyone even mildly curious on the topic.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Superb

Absolutely fantastic. Best course yet. The instructor was incredible. The topic was timely and relevant. I feel that I benefited from this experience.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

It's a good lecture. BUT So Biased!!

Failed to keep up his promise of being unbiased. He didn't draw on the most recent studies from Neuroscience that we do have free will. Evidence from Neuroplasticity and the impact of Deliberate Practice really shows that we have free will, ability to change our habitual way of thinking, behaving, and go out of our characters.

Human minds are not subjected to Cause-Effect chains, and this can be seen from William James's 2-stage model and Bob Doyle's Cogito model. The Professor seems to believe in Reductionism and Free Will Skepticism, however, fails to examine a lot of compelling opposing views from Compatibilism and Free Will's camp

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

fascinating

great listen, very interesting and thorough. many different arguments are analysed and disected, giving a broad overview of the freewill debate.

to better understand choice and responsibility

To better understand free choice and determinism and societee and its impact on the decisions we make as individuals and collectively. This book is a great introductory course into previous thinkers on both sides of the debate along with those few individuals you have advocated for compatible view between determinism and free will.

Great Course - Leaves you Wanting More

I really enjoyed this course. It gave a great foundation for the topics required for a full look into free will and determinism. My only wish is that each lecture could have been longer and more in depth. Dr. Nichols did a superb job presenting everything at the surface level and giving a framework from which to build, but it only wet the whistle, so to speak. I say this not to knock the product in any way. Many of the topics discussed have entire courses dedicated to them and this course did a great job explaining the core of each.

In short, this is highly recommended and will make you want to dive deeper into each topic discussed.

a good, balanced account of free will

The author gave an interesting and thought provoking account of determinism and free will. I particulary enjoyed the discussion on the scientific aspect. Definitely learned some new information concerning arguments on determinism and free will.

outstanding overview

outstanding overview – great presentation, a lot of fun and well-explained. I would have preferred a bit less of the applications at the end and more theory, but that's just me.