Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge

We typically think we have free will. But how could we have free will, if for anything we do, it was already true in the distant past that we would do that thing? Or how could we have free will, if God already knows in advance all the details of our lives? Such issues raise the specter of "fatalism". This book collects sixteen previously published articles on fatalism, truths about the future, and the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human freedom, and includes a substantial introductory essay and bibliography. Many of the pieces collected here build bridges between discussions of human freedom and recent developments in other areas of metaphysics, such as philosophy of time. Ideal for courses in free will, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion, Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge will encourage important new directions in thinking about free will, time, and truth.

John Martin Fischer is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, where he has held a University of California President's Chair (2006-10). He was President of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division (2013-4). He is Project Leader of The Immortality Project (2011-14), sponsored by The John Templeton Foundation.

Patrick Todd is a new faculty member (as Chancellor's Fellow) at the University of Edinburgh, where he began in October 2013. Previously he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Innsbruck and the Munich School of Philosophy. Before that, he completed his PhD in philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, in December 2011.

I. Preface

II. Introduction Patrick Todd and John Martin Fischer

III. The arguments for fatalism

Richard Taylor, "Fate"
Peter Van Inwagen, "Fatalism"
Trenton Merricks, "Truth and Freedom"
John Martin Fischer and Patrick Todd, "The Truth about Freedom: A Reply to Merricks"
Penelope Mackie, "Fatalism, Incompatibilism, and the Power to Do Otherwise"
Michael Rea, "Presentism and Fatalism"
John Perry, "Compatibilist Options"

IV. The problem of foreknowledge

Linda Zagzebski, "Omniscience and the Arrow of Time"
David Widerker, "Troubles With Ockhamism"
Alicia Finch and Michael Rea, "Presentism and Ockham's Way Out"
Patrick Todd, "Geachianism"
David Hunt, "On Augustine's Way Out"

V. The logic of future contingents

Charles Hartshorne, "The Meaning of 'Is Going to Be"
A.N. Prior, "It Was to Be."
John MacFarlane, "Future Contingents and Relative Truth"
Sven Rosenkranz, "In Defence of Ockhamism"

VI. Bibliography (compiled by Patrick Todd)

Index