Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T04:01:01.745Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why conscious free will both is and isn't an illusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2005

Max Velmans
Max Velmans*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, LondonSE14 6NW, United Kingdomhttp://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/psychology/staff/velmans.html
*
m.velmans@gold.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Wegner's analysis of the illusion of conscious will is close to my own account of how conscious experiences relate to brain processes. But our analyses differ somewhat on how conscious will is not an illusion. Wegner argues that once conscious will arises it enters causally into subsequent mental processing. I argue that while his causal story is accurate, it remains a first-person story. Conscious free will is not an illusion in the sense that this first-person story is compatible with and complementary to a third-person account of voluntary processing in the mind/brain.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 27 , Issue 5 , October 2004 , pp. 677
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)