Elbow room
Subtitle: the varieties of free will worth wanting
By: Daniel C. Dennett.
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1984
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Format: Trade Paperback
Number of pages: 200
Subjects: Free will and determinism
Notes: Bibliography: p. [173]-183.
"A Bradford book."
Based on the author's presentation of the John Locke lectures at Oxford, 1983.
Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Please don’t feed the bugbears. The perennial, gripping problem -- The bogeymen -- Sphexishness and other worries -- Overview -- Making reason practical. Where do reasons come from? -- Semantic engines, perpetual motion machines, and a defective intuition pump -- Reflection, language, and consciousness -- Community, communication, and transcendence -- Control and self-control. “Due to circumstances beyond our control” -- Simple control and simple self-control -- Agentless control and our concept of causation -- Agents in competition -- The uses of disorder -- “Let yourself go” -- Self-made selves. The problem of the disappearing self -- The art of self-definition -- Trying our luck -- Overview -- Acting under the idea of freedom. How can you go on deliberating at a time like this? -- Designing the perfect deliberator -- Real opportunities -- “Avoid,” “avoidable,” “inevitable” -- “Could have done otherwise”. Do we care whether we could have done otherwise? -- What we care about -- The can of worms -- Why do we want free will? Nihilism neglected -- Diminished responsibility and the specter of creeping exculpation -- The dread secret denied.