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Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon
Is epiphenomenalism virtually entailed by the current empirical knowledge about how the mind/brain causes human behavior? I'll address this question by highlighting that recent discoveries in empirical psychology and neuroscience actually do not strike the final blow to the notions of free will...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2019
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6399109/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30863339 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00326 |
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author | Lavazza, Andrea |
author_facet | Lavazza, Andrea |
author_sort | Lavazza, Andrea |
collection | PubMed |
description | Is epiphenomenalism virtually entailed by the current empirical knowledge about how the mind/brain causes human behavior? I'll address this question by highlighting that recent discoveries in empirical psychology and neuroscience actually do not strike the final blow to the notions of free will and intentional agency. Indeed, most of the experiments that purport to show that our behavior is unconscious and automatic do not prove that it is indeed the case and that therefore we do not have free will. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that those experiments focus on a specific range of our behavior, one that manifests a significant correlation between unconscious priming and decisions or reactions. However, this doesn't mean that the entire range of our relevant behavior works the same way. It can be argued that there are situations of higher relevance in which we are fully conscious of our decisions or, at least, there are decisions such that psychological experiments cannot prove them to always be unconscious and automatic. However, the epiphenomenalist challenge may suggest that we should abandon some of the suppositions implied by a traditional idea of free will. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6399109 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-63991092019-03-12 Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon Lavazza, Andrea Front Psychol Psychology Is epiphenomenalism virtually entailed by the current empirical knowledge about how the mind/brain causes human behavior? I'll address this question by highlighting that recent discoveries in empirical psychology and neuroscience actually do not strike the final blow to the notions of free will and intentional agency. Indeed, most of the experiments that purport to show that our behavior is unconscious and automatic do not prove that it is indeed the case and that therefore we do not have free will. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that those experiments focus on a specific range of our behavior, one that manifests a significant correlation between unconscious priming and decisions or reactions. However, this doesn't mean that the entire range of our relevant behavior works the same way. It can be argued that there are situations of higher relevance in which we are fully conscious of our decisions or, at least, there are decisions such that psychological experiments cannot prove them to always be unconscious and automatic. However, the epiphenomenalist challenge may suggest that we should abandon some of the suppositions implied by a traditional idea of free will. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6399109/ /pubmed/30863339 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00326 Text en Copyright © 2019 Lavazza. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Lavazza, Andrea Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon |
title | Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon |
title_full | Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon |
title_fullStr | Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon |
title_full_unstemmed | Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon |
title_short | Why Cognitive Sciences Do Not Prove That Free Will Is an Epiphenomenon |
title_sort | why cognitive sciences do not prove that free will is an epiphenomenon |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6399109/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30863339 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00326 |
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