The Core of Free Will

Everyone sober believes in freedom of the will. Whatever we precisely mean by it, it is something we have. The world, which includes us, may be deterministic. This generates a contradiction. Or the world may be indeterministic, but it seems common ground that this does not improve the dialectical situation; the freely willed cannot occur at random. There is no escape; we are dealing here with a sharp contradiction, an outright antinomy. When I look at the literature on the problem of free will I am sure the majority has escaped me-l am amazed at how many different thoughts and theories are provoked by it, each being relevant, well considered, a germ of a larger research program, and containing a grain of truth (or more). This variety of responses is what makes for a truly deep and fruitful philosophical problem. Here, my point will not be to offer any novel thoughts on the topic; every stone has been turned many times . Despite its richness, however, the literature appears to me to give only improper emphasis to a certain point that occurred to me in writing my dissertation (1978, 193) and which seems ever more central to me, the longer I observe the literature. Mathematicians know that a sharp contradiction needs a sharp answer; wiggling concepts till the contradiction dissolves is not allowed. 1 Let me explain what I take to be a sharp answer.