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by narag 31 days ago
I don't know anyone who supports both ideas at the same time. Are you saying that philosophers do?

Every guy saying that free will doesn't exist is arguing exactly this. Physical causality considered an obstacle to freedom implies that the conscious entity is somehow outside the physical world.

2 comments

You are implying that consciousness has to include free will? Why?
That's backwards. People saying that there's no free will because determinism is implying that human consciousness is outside the physical world. Actually that's what TFA is about and makes a great job explaining it.

My comment was responding to energy123 questioning there are philosophers that are both materialistic and consider human consciousness is "special". The moment you separate consciousness from all the physical processes that support it (and that's what negating "free" will arguing that it's caused by material forces) you're placing it in a different "plane".

That's hardly an unheard-of position, there are many thinkers that fall for this.

That's strange, hard determinists are eliminativists, and eliminativists don't believe in consciousness, but I never saw them speaking about both at the same time.
They don't believe in consciousness... at all? I guess they don't recognize consciousness for some definition of it that includes agency.
That's one of their arguments: if a human is eliminated, then there's nothing to attribute agency to.
In case you didn't get it: you were invited to provide concrete examples of philosophers holding the explicit opinion you have described.
In case you don't get it: you don't get to set the discussion terms. You can argue all you want yourself, but my point is already made. If you want a list, search for "hard incopatibilism" or "hard determinism" and you get it.