What Sort of Free Will Are We Supposed to Be Talking About? Who or What Is a Will a Will Of? What Are Praise and Blame / Guilt and Innocence For? What Is Fatalism and Why Is it Bad for You?

These are some of the questions we will aim to answer in open discussion, after reading an array of interesting documents, from courts of law, medical ethics boards, philosophy journals, psychology journals, neuroscience, and beyond. We will interact with, critique, and test the merits of Sam Harris’s book Free Will, which you will need to purchase for the course (print or digital; a digital edition is fine). All the other readings will be provided for free.

The course is only $69 and lasts one month. You can participate as much or as little as you like. Begins August 1. Registration ends August 10.

This is a great opportunity to ask all the questions you have of a published expert in philosophy, or to test all the thoughts you’d like vetted on this subject.

This is also an excellent subject for introducing yourself to philosophy and thinking like a philosopher, or honing those skills further. Because “free will” touches on everything: controversy, logic, semantics, metaphysics, morality, epistemology…even the aesthetic phenomena of experiencing free and coerced decision-making.

• More details on the content of the course, and course registration, are here. That plus the course text are all you need.

Join us and let’s have an interesting and educational discussion about both the science and philosophy of this central concept in Western morality, society, and law! Come away from it knowing a whole lot more than you ever did, much of it fascinating and new.