Eddy Nahmias
Associate Professor, Philosophy
Georgia State University, United States

Eddy Nahmias is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University. He specializes in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, free will, moral psychology, and experimental philosophy. He has published two dozen chapters and articles in these areas and is co-editing a volume titled Moral Psychology: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Wiley-Blackwell). His current research focuses on the study of human agency: what it is, how it is possible, and how it accords with scientific accounts of human nature. His book in progress, Rediscovering Free Will (Oxford University Press), develops a naturalistic theory of free will and examines scientific research that poses relevant challenges to free will, as well as research that helps to explain—rather than explain away—the capacities that allow us to have valuable types of freedom, responsibility, and wisdom.

Free Will and Wisdom in the Age of the Mind Sciences
This project has three objectives. The first objective is to complete a book manuscript that develops several novel arguments. In Rediscovering Free Will Nahmias argues for refocusing the philosophical debates about free will away from deadlocked debates about determinism to examine potential threats to freedom, wisdom, and responsibility from various sciences of the mind. He explains why determinism should be distinguished from the ‘bypassing threats’ to free will posed by these sciences. He then develops a theory of free will as a set of cognitive and volitional capacities tied to self-knowledge and wisdom. Like wisdom, agents possess and exercise these capacities to varying degrees. Nahmias then examines how the sciences of the mind bear on questions about free will and wisdom. He discusses research in social psychology and neuroscience that challenges the degree to which we possess the requisite capacities. But he also explores responses to these threats and examines scientific research that helps to explain, rather than explain away, our free will. The book frames the free will debate in a new way, better situating it for empirical investigation. Nahmias’ second objective is to develop and teach a Seminar on the Philosophy and Psychology of Wisdom. The course will cover historical literature from philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza) and from religious traditions. It will then consider more recent literature in philosophy and psychology (e.g., on expertise and positive psychology) and discuss connections between the traditional and contemporary accounts of wisdom and potential methods for developing wisdom in individuals and cultures. Students will discuss connections between wisdom and free will and scientific research that threatens them as well as research that helps to explain them. The third objective is to develop experimental studies on people’s conceptions of wisdom.  Mapping the various ways people conceive of wisdom is an important step in attempts to systematically study the cognitive and neurobiological systems involved in wisdom and the methods for developing wisdom in individuals and groups.

As Nahmias continues his research on relevant work in neuroscience and psychology, his primary focus has been on his book, Rediscovering Free Will.  He completed the Introduction, which sets up the organization of the book and explains why the traditional philosophical debates need to be reconsidered in light of recent scientific challenges to free will.  Chapter 1 is in progress and outlines arguments against the incompatibility of free will and determinism. For instance, Nahmias develops an error theory for incompatibilist intuitions based on the common confusion of determinism with the reductionism and epiphenomenalism that are suggested by scientific claims about human decision-making.  Nahmias also initiated a new set of studies on people’s intuitions about free will, the results of which will be incorporated into Chapter 2.  Last February, Nahmias presented an overview of the book’s central arguments in a talk, “Scientific Challenges to Free Will,” at the American Philosophical Association meeting in Chicago. In addition to his book manuscript, he plans to co-edit (with Valerie Tiberius) a volume tentatively entitled, Wisdom: Readings from Philosophy and Psychology.

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