Schedule of Events

Do we have free will? The answer to this question describes how we live our everyday lives. Within this talk, I will explain why compatibilism is the best answer to this question. In order to do this, I will examine each theory (determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism) and explain the pros and cons. Determinsim is where all our actions are determined by the past and previous events, we don't have free will. Libertarianism is where we are the ultimate source of our actions, we have free will. Compatibilism is where free will and determinism can work together and we still have free will. After this, I go into more detail about compatibilism and how it best answers the free will question. 

In “What is Authority”, chapter three of Hannah Arendt’s book titled “Between Past and Future”, Arendt states that genuine authority no longer exists. I set out to find what she means by authority, where it went and if and how we can get it back. To do this, I studied Arendt’s work as well as Dean Hammer’s essay that directly addresses her work. I looked for places where their ideas seemed to differ and where they were in accord with each other. I also looked for inconsistencies in both their writings and looked to see if they were problematic to their arguments. Where they were problematic, I proposed my own interpretation of the works in hopes of remedying these problems. In the end, I was left with many questions and much room for discussion.

Douglas B. Klusmeyer and Bhikhu Parekh both offer their interpretations of Hannah Arendt's theory of the disappearance of authority in the modern world.  First, I will present, explain and compare both Parekh and Klusmeyer arguments, which will build up to my critique of these arguments. Next, I will offer a possible resolution to these two fragmented arguments.  Lastly, I will consider and discuss any possible objections or counter objections to my proposed solution of Parekh and Klusmeyer’s arguments. Overall, in this discussion I will present, explain and critique both Klusmeyers and Parekh’s responses to Hannah Arendt’s theory of the disappearance of Authority.  After criticizing, i will utilize the components of both Klusmeyer and Parekh’s argument to offer an argument that is more compatible with Arendt’s theory.

Free will and determinism are two issues worthy of exploration because the choices we seem to make and the agency we appear to have heavily inform who we are and how we shape the world. The goal of this presentation, based on my fall 2017 Capstone Project supervised by Dr. Tierney, is to explain, in abridged form, why I agree with Robert Kane’s understanding of the ideas of choice and agency. I began the Capstone Project by researching various compatibilist and incompatibilist views on free will and determinism across the history of philosophy, but primarily views from the seventeenth-century onwards. Eventually, I focused on the libertarian subsection of incompatibilism, more specifically the event-causal, agent-causal, and causal-agent-causal variants of libertarianism. In my paper, I first summarize the history of the controversy surrounding free will and determinism. Second, I outline Robert Kane’s version of event-causation, Roderick Chisholm and Charles Taylor’s versions of agent-causation, and Randolph Clark’s causal-agent-causal position. Third, I defend Kane’s theory from those views and from the compatibilist position Harry Frankfurt presents. Through this presentation, I hope to showcase the philosophical process at work and inspire interest, even cultivation, in this enterprise.