Timelessness and freedom

Synthese:1-15 (2018)
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Abstract

One way that philosophers have attempted to defend free will against the threat of fatalism and against the threat from divine beliefs has been to endorse timelessness views. In this paper, I argue that, in order to respond to general worries about fatalism and divine beliefs, timelessness views must appeal to the notion of dependence. Once they do this, however, their distinctive position as timelessness views becomes otiose, for the appeal to dependence, if it helps at all, would itself be sufficient to block worries about fatalism and divine beliefs. I conclude by discussing some implications for dialectical progress.

Other Versions

reprint Cyr, Taylor W. (2020) "Timelessness and freedom". Synthese 197(10):4439-4453

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Taylor W. Cyr
Samford University

Citations of this work

Dependence and the Freedom to Do Otherwise.Taylor Cyr - forthcoming - Faith and Philosophy.

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References found in this work

An Essay on Free Will.Peter van Inwagen - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Eternity.Eleonore Stump & Norman Kretzmann - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (8):429-458.
Time and Eternity.Brian Leftow - 2018 - Cornell University Press.
Ability, Foreknowledge, and Explanatory Dependence.Philip Swenson - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (4):658-671.

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