Abstract
Whatever else they may be concerned with, philosophers on both sides of the world have been and are now committed to the search for freedom. Whereas it is difficult to find common ground for comparison between, say, Western ethical theories about the Good and Eastern theories about dharma and nirvāṇa, perspective can be gained if we address ourselves to philosophical problems from the standpoint of a common commitment to freeing ourselves from the shackles of uncontrolled circumstances. Though all philosophers have not always viewed this goal as supreme, it is hard to find philosophers who would not admit that it figures high in the hierarchy of human concerns.
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References
John Wisdom, Problems of Mind and Matter, Cambridge, England, 1934, pp. 123–126.
Nelson Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, Cambridge, Mass., 1951, pp. 178–180.
Arnold S. Kaufman, “Ability,” Journal of Philosophy, 60, 1963, 537–551.
This requirement that the state be physiological is contested by George Thomas, “Abilities and Physiology,” Journal of Philosophy, 61, 1964, 321–328. It is not important for my argument whether the state be physiological or not.
Strictly, it is true if he either tries to shoot Jones at t2 or fails to try to avoid shooting Jones at t2. Although failing to try to avoid something is perhaps a different kind of action from trying to do it, for convenience I shall go on speaking of trying with the understanding that failing to try is to be construed as a kind of trying.
A. I. Melden, Free Action, London, 1961, esp. p. 114, e.g.
Kaufman mentions what these further conditions might be toward the close of his paper, op. cit.
P. H. Nowell-Smith, Ethics, Penguin Books, 1954, p. 286.
I. Thalberg, “Abilities and Ifs,” Analysis, 22, 1962, pp. 121–126.
I. Thalberg, “Abilities and Ifs,” Analysis, 22, 1962, p. 132.
Arthur Danto, “What We Can Do,” Journal of Philosophy, 60, 1963, 435–445.
See, e.g., Sidney Shoemaker, Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963 and papers in recent journals by Shoemaker, Quinton, Flew and others.
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© 1968 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Potter, K.H. (1968). Pre-Existence. In: Raju, P.T., Castell, A. (eds) East-West Studies on the Problem of the Self. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0615-1_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0615-1_15
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