Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to criticize Daniel Dennett's main argument which has been formulated to explain and justify the compatibility of Human's mental phenomena, particularly his free will, with causal determinism on the basis of ontological naturalism (Physicalism). The article begins with the formulation of this argument. Then, the theories of naturalism and evolution as the backgrounds of Dennett's thesis are explained. Dennett tries to justify the premises of his argument by a novel interpretation of casual determinism based on a difference between casual determinism and inevitability. Finally, it is shown that Dennett's solution for making a compatibility between free will and causal determinism is insufficient and unsatisfactory, and, thus, he has not solved the deep and historical problem of compatibilism.

Keywords

Dennett, D. C. (2003).Freedom Evolves. New York: Penguin UK.
Harris, S. (2012).Free will. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Hospers, John. (1997). An Introdaction to Philosophical Analysis. New York and London: Psychology Press.
Jacob, Jan.(2009).Naturalism,in:http://www.Iep.Utm.edu/Naturalism/.
Morris, William Edward and Brown, Charlotte R. (2014) David Hume, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL <http: // plato. stanford. edu/ archives/ spr 2016/ entries/ hume/ >.
Papineau, David. (2007). Naturalism, in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at: http://Plato.Stanford.edu/entries/ Naturalism/.
Strawson, Galen .(2011). Free Will, in: E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, avail. at: http://www.rep.routledge.com
Timpe, Kevin .(2006). Free Will, in: http://www.Iep.Utm.edu/ Free Will/
Van Inwagen, Peter .(1983(.An Essay on Free Will. Oxford: Clarendon Press.