The Routledge Companion to Free Will

There is perhaps no issue in philosophy that has been debated for so long and so fiercely as the question of free will—are our actions determined by fate, history, genetics, and socialization or are we ultimately the captains of our own wills? This and related questions cut through the core areas of philosophy—metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion—as well through issues in neighboring disciplines like psychology, neuroscience, theology, law, biology, and physics. So, the debate is broad, though increasingly cohesive, as a diverse set of researchers who work on free will have begun to develop a set of shared tools, arguments, and methods.

Capturing much of this emerging collaboration, The Routledge Companion to Free Will is the first reference works of its kind: edited by active researchers at the center of the field’s debates, it brings together newly written chapters by major philosophers who have written on free will with new chapters on the explosion of recent research in the area. Its six Major Sections are: (1) Major Positions; (2) Major Arguments; (3) Historical Figures; (4) Empirical and Scientific Work; (5) Free Will and Theology; (6) Special Topics. The result is a comprehensive and cohesive collection of over 60 essays, all written by leaders in the field especially for this volume, and which systematically explain the history and contemporary terrain of free will.

Each chapter includes a List of Related Topics, List of References, and Suggestions for Further Reading, and the volume opens with a helpful General Introduction, includes Section Introductions, and concludes with a comprehensive subject and author index.

Kevin Timpe holds the W. H. Jellema Chair in Christian Philosophy at Calvin College. He has published a number of books on free will, including Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives, Second Edition (2013, Free Will in Philosophical Theology (2013), and Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns (2016).

Meghan Griffith is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Davidson College. She is the author of Free Will: The Basics (Routledge, 2013) and a number of articles centering on human agency.

Neil Levy is professor of philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney, and a senior researcher at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. He is the author of 7 books, including, most recently, Consciousness and Moral Responsibility (2014). He has published very widely on free will, moral responsibility, philosophy of mind, applied ethics and other topics.