Thanks for clarifying this! Our professor brought up Lewis' objection in our lecture and I was in the dark about it until I watched this video. Thank you.

Brilliant video and extremely helpful. Thank you very much helped alot 😀

Great explanation. At 15:50 I have a problem with the analogous statement of PvI. Does "strictly implies" strictly implies "causes"? I don't think so because (1) no two things A and B cause each other, and (2) there are biconditionals (A if and only if B). Here's an example: suppose I get full marks on my exam if and only if I get every question right. By virtue of the biconditionals, getting full marks on my exam strictly implies that I get every question right, but it seems wrong to say that getting full marks on my exam causes I getting every question right. The causation arrow should be pointing the other way. Keep up the good work!

@GordonPettit

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your attentive comment! I do not think I quite understand your concern, as PVI's statement is not a biconditional, but a conditional. To make it brief, he claims that If I do X, then L is false. He is not claiming that if L is false, then I do x.

@williamnathanael412

3 жыл бұрын

@@GordonPettit If I understood correctly, the weak thesis say that my doing it implies a law to be broken, but it is the law breaking that causes my doing it. Whereas the strong thesis say that my doing it causes the law breaking. Am I right on this? If I am right, then you cannot change 'strictly implies' in the analogous statement into 'causes', hence it's still the weak thesis and Lewis would still affirm it. Lewis would affirm that our actions could imply but not cause the falsity of L. Granted, your next slide 'another criticism' provides a good route, but I don't see it explaining PvI's analogous statement.

@GordonPettit

3 жыл бұрын

@@williamnathanael412 I do not think either Lewis or van Inwagen would accept your claim, " . . . it is the law breaking that causes my doing it," as they both eschew using 'cause' in their claims. If I may speculate a bit, part of the reason is likely that they have very different views about causation (Lewis is a Humean, PvI is not), so they keep the discussion in terms of implications, not causal connections. They both are being charitable to the other in doing so.

May I cite your videos in my upcoming undergraduate thesis project as a secondary source regarding the fundamental claims made by those whom you make this content about?

@GordonPettit

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, you have my permission, as long as you provide your citation, but you may want to check with your advisor. We philosophers can be picky about such things :-)

@blakeevans8492

3 жыл бұрын

Gordon Pettit will do. Thanks for your initial approval and timely response

I'm not a philosopher, and I understand that this is a response to a specific position by another philosopher, but going on and on about "breaking the laws of nature" is really weird. You can't break the laws of nature because there are no laws of nature. As I'm sure you know, what are called laws are just regularities in nature that are so consistent that you can take them for granted. If a natural phenomena like free will seems to contradict a "law" then either your data/interpretation is wrong or the "law" needs to be changed to reflect that actual functioning of nature, so using "breaking the laws of nature" in an argument is almost meaningless. As an aside, determinism is not a law of nature, and is not the same as cause and effect, plus saying that the configuration of the universe at any moment somehow controls what happens in the next moment is sophistry at best. Determinism is just an updated version of the religious concept of Fate, with physics replacing the will of the gods as the controlling entity. Control is a human concept and doesn't even exist in nature.

@danielnaylor7737

2 жыл бұрын

The argument is built on the assumption that determisim means: that you could not have done anything other than the thing you did. Or in other words, given the universe as it is + the laws of nature, every 'thing' that happens from that moment on is determined. That is what determinism is, and this is why philosophers like to define stuff very clearly. The problem that you address in your first paragraph is then a problem with your definition of determinism. But these philosophers are arguing whether free will is compatible with determisim as it has been defined. Determinism is a philosophical concept, its not strictly scientific. That being said, I agree with the stuff you mention, its just that philosphers are limited in how they can address these issues just because philosphical ideas have to be so stricly compart-mentalised for the sake of coherence basically.

@caricue

2 жыл бұрын

@@danielnaylor7737 Thanks for the thoughtful response. Dan Dennett coined the term "intuition pump" for words that send people off on crazy flights of fancy. Determinism is one of these intuition pumps. As soon as you say that something is determined, the mind shuts down and it just makes sense. That trope about "couldn't have done differently" is a perfect silliness that is enabled by the power of the word "determined." Obviously, you can't change the past, so it is meaningless in that sense. If you are talking about the metaphysical functioning of the universe, then it is just rank speculation. If you are talking about some sort of physical causation at the level of subatomic particles then show me the empirical data that supports this assertion, which, naturally, doesn't exist, and cannot exist. So it is an empty projection of human level understanding of nature onto the functioning of reality. The worst part is the arrogance and cock-sureness of determinists who cannot conceive of their strange doctrine being wrong.