Overview

In 1687 Isaac Newton ushered in a new scientific era in which laws of nature could be used to predict the movements of matter with almost perfect precision. Newton's physics also posed a profound challenge to our self-understanding, however, for the very same laws that keep airplanes in the air and rivers flowing downhill tell us that it is in principle possible to predict what each of us will do every second of our entire lives, given the early conditions of the universe. Can it really be that even while you toss and turn late at night in the throes of an important decision and it seems like the scales of fate hang in the balance, that your decision is a foregone conclusion? Can it really be that everything you have done and everything you ever will do is determined by facts that were in place long before you were born? This problem is one of the staples of philosophical discussion. It is discussed by everyone from freshman in their first philosophy class, to theoretical physicists in bars after conferences. And yet there is no topic that remains more unsettling, and less well understood. If you want to get behind the façade, past the bare statement of determinism, and really try to understand what physics is telling us in its own terms, read this book. The problem of free will raises all kinds of questions. What does it mean to make a decision, and what does it mean to say that our actions are determined? What are laws of nature? What are causes? What sorts of things are we, when viewed through the lenses of physics, and how do we fit into the natural order? Ismael provides a deeply informed account of what physics tells us about ourselves. The result is a vision that is abstract, alien, illuminating, and-Ismael argues-affirmative of most of what we all believe about our own freedom. Written in a jargon-free style, How Physics Makes Us Free provides an accessible and innovative take on a central question of human

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9780190090586

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Jenann Ismael's book is a strikingly original monograph that somehow manages to be perfectly relevant and highly engaging to both the intelligent lay reader and the professional philosopher. It shows how well done philosophy of science can be relevant for the public at large, even when treating questions that have, of late, suffered from the ravages of analytic metaphysics. The book may be more widely read inside the academy than outside, but those on the outside who read it in full will surely come away with a better opinion of philosophy than they had at the start. Ismael's prose is beautiful, evocative, and full of helpful metaphors and analogies...It is a book that nobody who cares about how human freedom squares with modern physicalism can afford to ignore. -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online It is very well written, in a punchy style that often makes it a page-turner...we wholeheartedly recommend this delightful and richly rewarding book to anyone interested in free will and the self. -- Metascience

It is very well written, in a punchy style that often makes it a page-turner...we wholeheartedly recommend this delightful and richly rewarding book to anyone interested in free will and the self. * Metascience * Jenann Ismael's book is a strikingly original monograph that somehow manages to be perfectly relevant and highly engaging to both the intelligent lay reader and the professional philosopher. It shows how well done philosophy of science can be relevant for the public at large, even when treating questions that have, of late, suffered from the ravages of analytic metaphysics. The book may be more widely read inside the academy than outside, but those on the outside who read it in full will surely come away with a better opinion of philosophy than they had at the start. Ismael's prose is beautiful, evocative, and full of helpful metaphors and analogies...It is a book that nobody who cares about how human freedom squares with modern physicalism can afford to ignore. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online *

Author Information

J.T. Ismael is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D at Princeton University and has also taught at Stanford University and the University of Arizona for many years. She has held fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the National Humanities Center, a QEII from the Australian Research Council and the Templeton Foundation. In addition to How Physics Makes Us Free, she is the author of The Situated Self (OUP 2007) and Essays on Symmetry (2001). She splits her time between Manhattan and the Sonoran Desert, where she is happier than anywhere else.

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