The rise of compatibilism: A case study in the quantitative history of philosophy

Midwest Studies in Philosophy

Volumn 31, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 260-270

  Nichols, Shaun ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949437582     PISSN: 03636550     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4975.2007.00152.x     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. For statements of the intuitiveness of incompatibilism, see Robert Kane, "Responsibility, Luck, and Chance," Journal of Philosophy 96 (1999): 217-40
2. and Galen Strawson, Freedom and Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
3. For empirical challenges to the claim that incompatibilism is intuitive, see Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner, "Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?" forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
4. Rob Woolfolk, John Doris, and John Darley, "Identification, Situational Constraint, and Social Cognition: Studies in the Attribution of Moral Responsibility," Cognition (2006). And for a partial empirical defense of the intuitiveness of incompatibilism, see Shaun Nichols and Joshua Knobe, "Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions," forthcoming in Nous.
5. See Derk Pereboom, "Determinism al dente," Nous 29 (1995): 21-45
6. and Galen Strawson, "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility, " Philosophical Studies 75 (1994): 5-24.
7. Franco Moretti "Graphs, Maps,Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History-1," New Left Review 24 (2003): 67-93.
8. See P. Kitcher, The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) on economic models of scientific inquiry. To explain the history (and rationality) of science, Kitcher introduces the notion of a scientific entrepreneur who will pursue neglected lines of research purely out of self-interest. We might appropriate this idea into a quantitative approach to philosophy. We have philosophical economies, sets of theories that are in competition for attention and discussion, and we have philosophical entrepreneurs who want to make novel contributions to the field. Although we philosophers sometimes think we're above all this crassly self-interested jockeying, the idea of philosophers as entrepreneurs is likely no more of a distortion than that of scientists as entrepreneurs. Even Kant, revered for his philosophical purism, had an abiding, even passionate desire to say something new (see M. Kuehn, Kant: A Biography [Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press, 2001]).
9. For innate modules and cultural evolution see Pascal Boyer, "Cognitive Constraints on Cultural Representations: Natural Ontologies and Religious Ideas," in Mapping the Mind, eds. L. Hirshfeld and S. Gelman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 391-411
10. and Dan Sperber, Explaining Culture (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996).
11. For emotion and cultural evolution, see Shaun Nichols, "On the Genealogy of Norms," Philosophy of Science 69 (2002): 234-55.
12. Rasyid Sanitioso, Ziva Kunda, and Geoffrey Fong, "Motivated Recruitment of Autobiographical Memories," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57 (1990): 229-41.
13. Bertjan Doosje, Russell Spears, and Wim Koomen, "When Bad Isn't All Bad," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (1995): 642-55.
14. For a terrific review of the literature on motivated reasoning see Z. Kunda, Social Cognition: Making Sense of People (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Bradford Books, 1999).
15. Shaun Nichols, "Is Religion What We Want?" Journal of Cognition and Culture 4 (2004): 347-71.
16. If the philosopher's view was not described there (or the description was equivocal), I next went to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998).
17. If the view was not described in either Encyclopedia, then I relied on the secondary literature. For Table 2, the sources are as follows: Berkeley: P. Olscamp, The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 91-98.
18. Descartes: R. Taylor, "Determinism," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 2: 365.
19. Hume: D. MacNabb, "Hume, David," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 4: 89.
20. Kant: W. Walsh, "Kant, Immanuel," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 4: 318.
21. Leibniz: L. Russell, "Leibniz, Gottfried," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 4: 426-27.
22. Locke: R. Abelson, "Ethics, History of," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 3: 92.
23. Spinoza: A. Maclntyre, "Spinoza, Benedict," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 7: 540.
24. In contemporary work, some maintain that Locke is an incompatibilist and indeterminist (e.g., Gideon Yaffe, Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000]), but this remains a heterodox interpretation. Rather more contentious is the interpretation of Descartes.
25. While many interpret Descartes as indeterminist and incompatibilist (e.g., Lex Newman, "Descartes on the Will," in Blackwell Companion to Descartes, eds. J. Broughton and J. Carriero [Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, forthcoming]), many others (e.g., Vere Chappell, "Descartes's Compatiblism," in Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics, ed. J. Cottingham [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994]) interpret Descartes as determinist and compatibilist. Note, however, that none of these interpretations puts a philosopher in the key cell - indeterminist and compatibilist.
26. The sources for categorizing the additional philosophers are as follows: Hobbes: R. Peters, "Hobbes, Thomas," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 4: 41.
27. D'Holbach: A. Vartanian, "Holbach, Paul-Henri," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 4: 50.
28. Reid: S. Grave, "Reid, Thomas," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 7: 121.
29. Popkin, éd., The Philosophy of the 16th and 17th Centuries: Readings in the History of Philosophy (New York:The Free Press, 1966);
30. Beck, ed., Eighteenth Century Philosophy:Readings in the History of Philosophy (New York: The Free Press, 1966).
31. The sources for categorizing the additional philosophers are as follows: Bayle: J. Kilcullen, Sincerity and Truth: Essays on Arnauld, Bayle, and Toleration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 179-80.
32. Condillac: P. Johnson, "Condillac, Etienne," in Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 2: 526.
33. Diderot: N. Torrey "Diderot, Denis," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 2: 401.
34. G assendi: M. Osier, "Gassendi, Pierre," in Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Lessing: H. Chadwick, "Lessing, Gotthold," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 4: 446.
35. Malebranche: S. Nadler, "Malebranche, Nicolas," in E. Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 6: 63.
36. Pascal: M. Moriarty, "Grace and Religious Belief in Pascal," in The Cambridge Companion to Pascal, ed. N. Hammond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 149-52.
37. Rousseau: R. Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 77-78.
38. Wolff: L. Beck, Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 237, 271 (Wolff is characterized as a Leibnizian about free will).
39. Voltaire: N. Torrey, "Voltaire, Francois-Marie," in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, v. 8: 265.