title: "I" and the brain.
abstract: Many philosophers as well as many biological psychologists think that recent experiments in neuropsychology have definitively discredited any notion of freedom of the will. I argue that the arguments mounted against the concept of freedom of the will in the name of natural causal determinism are valuable but not new, and that they leave intact a concept of freedom of the will that is compatible with causal determinism. After explaining this concept, I argue that it is interestingly related to our use of the first person pronoun "I." I discuss three examples of our use of "I" in thought and language and submit a few questions I would like neuropsychologists to answer concerning the brain processes that might underlie those uses. I suggest answering these questions would support the compatibilist notion of freedom of the will I have offered in part 1.
authors.affiliation: New York University, New York, NY, USA. bl41@nyu.edu
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Longuenesse
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D019222:Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D012649:Self Concept; D013850:Thinking