Powers, Time and Free Will

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. What’s Dynamic About Causal Powers? A Black Box!

   • Anna Marmodoro

   Pages 1-15

3. Toppling the Pyramids: Physics Without Physical State Monism

   • William M. R. Simpson, Simon A. R. Horsley

   Pages 17-50Open Access

4. Dispositional Essentialism in the Eternalist Block

   • Andrea Roselli

   Pages 51-68

5. A Dynamic B Theory of Time

   • Robert C. Koons

   Pages 69-82Open Access

6. Libertarian Freedom in an Eternalist World?

   • Ben Page

   Pages 83-94

7. The Temporal Structure of Agency

   • Janice Chik

   Pages 95-114

8. Freedom of the Will and Rational Abilities

   • Erasmus Mayr

   Pages 115-135

9. The Power to Will Freely: How to Re-Think About the Problem of Free Will Without Laws of Nature

   • Daniel D. De Haan

   Pages 137-160

10. Laws Loosened

    • Helen Steward

    Pages 161-183

11. The Problem of Radical Freedom

    • Andreas Hüttemann

    Pages 185-198

12. How the Libet Tradition Can Contribute to Understanding Human Action Rather than Free Will

    • Sofia Bonicalzi, Mario De Caro

    Pages 199-225

13. The Consequence Argument and an Ontology of Dispositions

    • Mauro Dorato

    Pages 227-255

14. Super-Humeanism and Mental Causation

    • Michael Esfeld

    Pages 257-272

This book brings together twelve original contributions by leading scholars on the much-debated issues of what is free will and how can we exercise it in a world governed by laws of nature. Which conception of laws of nature best fits with how we conceive of free will? And which constraints does our conception of the laws of nature place on how we think of free will? The metaphysics of causation and the metaphysics of dispositions are also explored in this edited volume, in relation to whether they may or may not be game-changers in how we think about both free will and the laws of nature. The volume presents the views of a range of international experts on these issues, and aims at providing the reader with novel approaches to a core problem in philosophy. The target audience is composed by academics and scholars who are interested in an original and contemporary approach to these long-debated issues.

Chapters [2] and [4] are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

• Laws of Nature
• laws of nature and moral practice
• dappled laws
• free will without laws of nature
• super-humeanism
• free will and deterministic laws
• the problem of free will
• philosophy of science of free will
• multi-track powers
• theory of time and potentiality

• Department of Philosophy, University of Reading, Reading, UK

  Christopher J. Austin

• Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

  Anna Marmodoro

• Department of Philosophy, Durham University, Oxford, UK

  Andrea Roselli

Dr. Christopher J. Austin is a Research Fellow in Philosophy in the Mereology of Potentiality project at Durham University, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Dr. Austin’s research specialisation is in Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science, with a particular focus on ontology, modality, and causation in the context of evolutionary developmental biology. He has written on a diverse range of topics including natural kind theory, process ontology, mechanistic explanation, information theory, structuralism, dispositional causation, persistence and identity, truthmaking theory, biological essentialism, and dynamical systems theory. He is the author of Essence In the Age of Evolution: A New Theory of Natural Kinds (Routledge, 2018), as well as a number of chapters in edited volumes including Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (Routledge 2017) and Evolutionary Developmental Biology: A Reference Guide (Springer). His work has been published in a wide range of philosophical journals including Synthese, Analysis, The European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Biology and Philosophy, Ratio, and Metascience.

Professor Anna Marmodoro holds the Chair of Metaphysics at Durham University. She is concomitantly a Research Fellow and an Associate Faculty Member of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Her research interests span metaphysics, ancient philosophy, philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion. She has published books, edited volume and journal articles in all these areas. Professor Marmodoro has directed a number of collaborative research projects including several early-career as well as senior collaborators, with funding from the European Research Council, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Levehurlme Trust and other national and international funding bodies.

Dr. Andrea Roselli is a Research Fellow in Philosophy at Durham University, where he also teaches metaphysics and introduction to philosophy. His areas of expertise include metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of time, epistemology. He has published a number of articles in journals. Most recently, he has had his work published in Erkenntnis, Brain and Behavioural Sciences, Disputatio, and has contributed chapters in books. He is currently, with Anna Marmodoro and Christopher Austin, part of a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust which focuses on the metaphysics of dispositions.