INDUCTIVE METAPHYSICS
  • Subprojects 2017-2020
    • A1: The Research Programme of Inductive Metaphysics from Gustav Theodor Fechner to Erich Becher and beyond
    • A2: Creative Abductive Inference and Its Role for Inductive Metaphysics in Comparison to Other Metaphysical Methods
    • A4: Kant and Inductive Methods in 18th Century Metaphysics
    • B1: Modality in Physics and in Metaphysics
    • B2: Properties and Property Individuation
    • B4: Determinism, Control, and the Consequence Argument
    • B5: Statistical Causation, Intervention, and Freedom
  • Subprojects 2020-2023
    • A1: Inductive Metaphysics and Logical Empiricism
    • A2: Creative Abductive Inference and its Role for Inductive Metaphysics
    • A4: Inductive Methods in Kant and Neo-Kantianism
    • B6: The Role of Inference to the best explanation in the discovery of Gravitational Waves
    • B7: Graded Causation
    • B8: The Time of science and the time of our lives
    • B9: Complex biological dispositions: a case study in the metaphysics of biological practice
    • B10: Metaphysics of Evolution: justification and ontology of generalized evolution theory
    • B11: Abductive Methodology in the philosophy of logic
  • Events
    • Inductive Metaphysics: Insights, Challenges and Prospects
    • Non-Reductionism in the Metaphysics of Mind
    • Essences, Dispositions and Laws in Kant
    • The Methodology of Logic: Abductivist and Non-abductivist Approaches
    • Grounding and the Direction of Explanation
    • Wochenendseminar zur Philosophie der Physik
    • Dispositions in the Life-Sciences Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
    • New Work on Induction and Abduction
    • Compatibilist Libertarianism: Advantages and Challenges
    • Metaphysics as Modelling. Contemporary and Kantian Issues
    • Laws and Explanations in Metaphysics and Science
    • Causation and Responsibility
    • Thinking About the Cultural Evolution of Thinking
    • Causal Distinctions: Specificity and Beyond
    • Free Will and Causality
    • Epistemic Engineering
    • Counterpossibles, Counternomics and Causal Theories of Properties
    • The Possibility of Metaphysics
    • Abduction and Modelling in Metaphysics
    • Kant's Concepts of Metaphysics
    • Freedom and Determinism
    • What Do We Do When We Do Metaphysics?
    • Properties and Laws in the Light of Inductive Metaphysics
    • Free Will and Laws of Nature
    • Traditional and Inductive Metaphysics
    • Spacetime: Fundamental or Emergent?
  • People
  • Research
    • Publications
    • Talks
  • Contact
International Conference

Free Will and causality

Free Will and Causality
Haus der Universitaet, Schadowplatz 14, 40212 Duesseldorf, Germany
Sept. 26 - 27, 2019

Description

The conference aims at bringing together experts on free will and causality in order to explore what the debates about these topics can learn from each other. In particular, the connection between metaphysical aspects of the free will problem and how they depend on or relate to causation in general as well as to more specific theories of causation shall be investigated. It is, for example, widely believed that free will requires control and that control is a causal notion. Whether one is a compatibilist or a libertarian, one must have a theory of control that the agent exerts over her actions. Another important requirement for free will, according to sourcehood libertarians, is ultimate origination of one’s actions: to have free will is to be able to initiate causal chains, i.e., to have a certain causal ability, sometimes referred to as a ‘causal power’. These causal notions might greatly profit from being treated in accordance with different accounts of causation. Different understandings of free will might, the other way round, support different theories of causation or might help in solving tasks such as identifying causal structure.
 
Our conference will address questions like the following ones:  

  • What concepts of causation are required by libertarian and compatibilist theories of free will?
  • Which constraints and consequences follow from the endorsement of specific theories of causation for one’s understanding of control that the agent exerts over her actions?
  • What is the relation between concepts such as free will, agency, sourcehood, control, intervention, causation, and (in)determinism?
 
Questions to be addressed at the conference might also include traditional problems regarding the compatibility of free will with physical determinism and indeterminism or the conceptual relations between free will, rational deliberation, and moral responsibility as well as their bearing for different understandings of causation.

Invited Speakers

  • Sander Beckers, LMU Munich
  • Hans Briegel, University of Innsbruck & University of Constance
  • Laura Ekstrom, College of William & Mary in Virginia
  • Nadine Elzein, University of Oxford
  • John Lemos, Coe College
  • Christian Loew, Umeå University
  • Timothy O'Connor, Indiana University

The conference is organized by Maria Sekatskaya (DCLPS, University of Duesseldorf), Alexander Gebharter (University of Groningen), and Gerhard Schurz (DCLPS, University of Duesseldorf). The event is funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) research group FOR 2495: Inductive Metaphysics.

Program
​

​(Download Abstracts)

Thursday, Sept 26


08:15 – 08:30
Room 03.011/012:
Registration


08:30 – 09:30

09:45 – 10:45

11:00 – 12:00

12:00 – 13:30


13:30 – 14:15


14:20 – 15:05


15:10 – 15:55


15:55 – 16:30


16:30 – 17:30

19:30

Timothy O'Connor: Probabilistic Explanation and Free Will

John Lemos: A Modified Nozickian Model of Free Will

Nadine Elzein: Causal Explanation and Alternative Possibilities

Lunch

Room 03.011/012:
Alex Kaiserman: Causation, Reasons-Sensitivity, and Degrees of Free Will

Caroline Touborg: The Causal Role of Beliefs about Freedom

Gunnar Björnsson: The Unbearable Lightness of Agent Causation
Room 01.021:
Anne Sophie Meincke: Towards a Process 
Ontology of Actions and Agents

Amit Pundik: Factual Agent Causation


George Stamets: Powers, Agency, and         
 Freedom

Coffee Break

Room 03.011/012:
Christian Loew: Doing Otherwise in a Deterministic World

Dinner




Friday, Sept 27

0
08:30 – 09:30

09:45 – 10:45


11:00 – 12:00

12:00 – 13:30


13:30 – 14:15


14:20 – 15:05


15:10 – 15:55


15:55 – 16:30


16:30 – 17:30

17:45 – 18:45



Room 03.011/012:
Laura Ekstrom: Indeterminist Free Will

Alexander Gebharter and Gerhard Schurz: Free Will, Control, and the Possibility to Do Otherwise from a Causal Modeler’s Perspective

Hans Briegel: A Stochastic Process Model for Free Agency under Indeterminism

Lunch

Room 03.011/012:
John Thorp: Causality and Explanatory Priority:
Could the Mind Sometimes Run the Brain?

Louis Vervoort: Free Will, Causation and Bell’s 
Theorem

Valentin Widmann: Why Agent Causality is
Needed for Libertarian Free Will

Room 02.021:
Mathieu Baril: A Case for the Non-Causal
Approach to Agency

Jingbo Hu: Is Reasons-Responsiveness Causally
Irrelevant?

Artem Besedin: Attentiveness Requirement for
Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Coffee Break

Room 03.011/012:
Maria Sekatskaya and Gerhard Schurz: Alternative Possibilities and the Meaning of ‘Can’

Sander Beckers: Causation and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities

Registration

There is no conference fee and attendance is open to all. Attendees not giving a presentation are required to register via sending an email to maria.sekatskaya@gmail.com before September 1, 2019. Because space is limited, early registration is strongly recommended to ensure your participation
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  • Subprojects 2017-2020
    • A1: The Research Programme of Inductive Metaphysics from Gustav Theodor Fechner to Erich Becher and beyond
    • A2: Creative Abductive Inference and Its Role for Inductive Metaphysics in Comparison to Other Metaphysical Methods
    • A4: Kant and Inductive Methods in 18th Century Metaphysics
    • B1: Modality in Physics and in Metaphysics
    • B2: Properties and Property Individuation
    • B4: Determinism, Control, and the Consequence Argument
    • B5: Statistical Causation, Intervention, and Freedom
  • Subprojects 2020-2023
    • A1: Inductive Metaphysics and Logical Empiricism
    • A2: Creative Abductive Inference and its Role for Inductive Metaphysics
    • A4: Inductive Methods in Kant and Neo-Kantianism
    • B6: The Role of Inference to the best explanation in the discovery of Gravitational Waves
    • B7: Graded Causation
    • B8: The Time of science and the time of our lives
    • B9: Complex biological dispositions: a case study in the metaphysics of biological practice
    • B10: Metaphysics of Evolution: justification and ontology of generalized evolution theory
    • B11: Abductive Methodology in the philosophy of logic
  • Events
    • Inductive Metaphysics: Insights, Challenges and Prospects
    • Non-Reductionism in the Metaphysics of Mind
    • Essences, Dispositions and Laws in Kant
    • The Methodology of Logic: Abductivist and Non-abductivist Approaches
    • Grounding and the Direction of Explanation
    • Wochenendseminar zur Philosophie der Physik
    • Dispositions in the Life-Sciences Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
    • New Work on Induction and Abduction
    • Compatibilist Libertarianism: Advantages and Challenges
    • Metaphysics as Modelling. Contemporary and Kantian Issues
    • Laws and Explanations in Metaphysics and Science
    • Causation and Responsibility
    • Thinking About the Cultural Evolution of Thinking
    • Causal Distinctions: Specificity and Beyond
    • Free Will and Causality
    • Epistemic Engineering
    • Counterpossibles, Counternomics and Causal Theories of Properties
    • The Possibility of Metaphysics
    • Abduction and Modelling in Metaphysics
    • Kant's Concepts of Metaphysics
    • Freedom and Determinism
    • What Do We Do When We Do Metaphysics?
    • Properties and Laws in the Light of Inductive Metaphysics
    • Free Will and Laws of Nature
    • Traditional and Inductive Metaphysics
    • Spacetime: Fundamental or Emergent?
  • People
  • Research
    • Publications
    • Talks
  • Contact