II Blasco Disputatio: Does Free Will Require Alternative Possibilities?

Blasco Disputatio is a yearly workshop designed to promote the discussion on topics in epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. Each edition of this workshop focuses on a particular issue to be disputed by two invited speakers that will defend divergent, if not opposing, views. A call for papers will be made for contributions that will explore further aspects of the topic.

The availability of alternative courses of action seems to be a necessary condition on free will. How could an action be free, if the agent could not possibly have done otherwise? However, Harry Frankfurt’s well-known arguments seem to have established that freedom and moral responsibility do not require alternative courses of action. On Frankfurt’s influential conception, freedom has to do with the peculiarities of the actual causal history that produces the action. The 2016 edition of the Blasco Disputatio will be mainly focused on the question of whether free will requires alternative possibilities and on the role of causation in a proper understanding of freedom, but it is open to discussing any related issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of action. The invited papers, together with a selection of the submitted papers, will appear on a special issue in the journal Disputatio.

Invited speakers: Carolina Sartorio (University of Arizona) and Carlos Moya (University of Valencia)

Call for papers: We invite submissions on any aspect of the debate on free will and the metaphysics of action. Authors should submit full papers (5000 words) or extended abstracts (2000 words) by May 15th, 2016. Submissions should be sent to [email protected]. Notification of acceptance should be expected by June 15, 2016

Scientific Committee: María Álvarez (KCL), Manuel Pérez Otero (UB), Tobies Grimaltos (UV), Jordi Valor (UV), and Jesús Vega (UAM).

Organizers: Pablo Rychter (University of Valencia) and Josep E. Corbí (University of Valencia)

Sponsored by: Spanish Research Council via Network on Epistemology and Society (FFI2014-55256-REDT); Internationalization and Cooperation University Office, Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, Department of Metaphysics and Theory of Knowledge, and Philosophical Society in the Valencian Country.

Contact: [email protected]