Freedom of will through the prism of the philosophy of mind

Abstract

The author presents the problem of free will through the philosophical discipline of the philosophy of mind. In order to answer the question about the future of freedom, we must first ask about the possibility of free will in general, especially in the light of contemporary discoveries in the field of neuroscience. If the mind and consciousness, mental states in general, turn out to be physical, they will inevitably become the object of deterministic explanation and reduction. Determinism rejects, as its basic position, the existence of alternative possibilities, which keeps the future “closed”. By denying freedom of the future, determinism negates the future of freedom. This paper will therefore examine some of the basic properties of the phenomenon of consciousness, such as the self, objectifying and dispositioning, modelling alternative possibilities as future states of a causally and  deterministically closed physical system. This would raise the issue of an “openness” of consciousness and for consciousness, without disturbing the “closedness” of determinism.