Mind and Will, the first section of Paul Draper's ebook God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence, has gone online at the Secular Web. This section features a debate between Andrew Melnyk, Stewart Goetz, and Charles Taliaferro, revolving around the issues of physicalism, dualism, freewill and determinism. In "A Case for Physicalism about the Human Mind" Melnyk argues that our minds are physical and that our wills are caused. In turn Goetz and Taliaferro present "An Argument from Consciousness and Free Will" which argues that our minds are immaterial and that some of our mental actions are uncaused. Each essay is followed by objections and replies. One of the great features of this format is that there is the opportunity for readers to post their own questions to the debate participants. Since I know you can ask some great questions, I encourage Prosblogion readers to take the time to get involved.
Let me add that Paul Draper is to be congratulated for lining up first rate contributors for a public access publication. Future installments will include Draper and Alvin Plantinga on Evil and Evolution; Quentin Smith and Robin Collins on Science and the Cosmos; and John Schellenberg and Jeffrey Jordan on Faith and Uncertainty. I'll try to post updates as the work progresses.
Matt,
So far, I think the exchanges have been pretty darn good. I wish that they had a better way of submitting questions, however. I tried to submit one, but on my MacBook, I can only submit a question if I set up a .mac email account. It's very annoying. Maybe for the next round they'll let us submit questions by YouTube? That seems to be all the rage these days.
It seemed to me that Goetz Taliaferro might have hit upon an argument that gave us reason to think we know we're blind from the armchair. I was dying to know where they thought it went wrong.
Thanks for this post. Very interesting. I didn't know about that.
Matthew,
Thanks for this post. Very interesting. I didn't know about that. I'm interested in your future hints concerning substantial insights and arguments of the debates.