Hosted by the Mita Philosophical Society
Event Date
Event Venue
Workshop: "Am I Free?—A Thorough Debate between Takuo Aoyama and Keinosuke Saito"
2022/08/17
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Date & Time | 1:00 PM–3:30 PM, Friday, September 23, 2022 (JST) |
Location | Online |
Eligibility |
Open to everyone. *Advance registration is required.
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Speakers | Takuo Aoyama (Kyoto University), Keinosuke Saito (Keio University) |
Moderator | Tatsuya Kashiwabata (Keio University) |
Organizer | Mita Philosophical Society |
Overview:
Am I free? On the one hand, freedom seems to form the foundation of our existence and society. On the other hand, it is considered a kind of illusion with no place in a causally determined physical world. The contemporary philosophical debate surrounding such freedom is becoming increasingly complex, and its future is difficult to foresee.
Amid this situation, Takuo Aoyama, in his book "Time and Free Will: Does Freedom Exist?" (2016, Chikuma Shobo), shed new light on various forms of freedom—such as compatibilist freedom, free will, unfreedom (and non-freedom)—by presenting the "branching problem," an original model that delves into the issues of time and modality. On the other hand, Keinosuke Saito, in "Am I Perhaps Free? The Metaphysics of 'Freedom as Responsibility'" (2018, Keio University Press), applied the theory of "grounding" (Begründung)—passed down through Meinong, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty—to the mind-body problem to develop his own philosophy of life. Building on this foundation, and drawing inspiration from Heidegger's "analysis of death and conscience" and Levinas's philosophy of the "Other," he presented the idea of freedom as "pure possibility."
In this workshop, these two philosophers, whose backgrounds and approaches appear entirely different at first glance, will attempt to delve deeper into the issue of freedom by engaging in a cumulative discussion on this common problem. The session will be moderated by Tatsuya Kashiwabata, who is particularly knowledgeable about theories of freedom in analytic philosophy (he co-supervised the collection of essays "Free Will: Skinner/Dennett/Libet" [2020, Iwanami Shoten] with Aoyama and also co-authored its introduction).
The workshop will begin with 40-minute presentations by Saito and Aoyama, respectively. After a break, the latter half of the session will be a 40-minute intensive discussion between Saito and Aoyama, moderated by Kashiwabata.