Mark Balaguer Research Articles

Libertarian Free Will and the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that agents (or, agent-involving events) cause actions to occur or not occur: Maddy’s decision to get a beer causes her to get up off her comfortable couch to get a beer, though she almost chose not to get up. Libertarian free will notoriously faces the luck objection, according to which agential states do not determine whether an action occurs or not, so it is beyond the control of the agent, hence lucky, whether an action occurs or not: Maddy’s reasons for getting beer in equipoise with her reasons to remain in her comfortable seat do not determine that she will get up or stay seated, so it seems beyond her control, hence lucky, that she gets up. In this paper I consider a sub-set of the luck objection called the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection, according to which indeterministic physical processes cause actions to occur or not, and agent’s lack control over these indeterministic physical processes, so agent’s lack control over, hence it is lucky, whether action occurs or not. After motivating the physical indeterminism luck objection, I consider responses from three recent event-causal libertarian models, and conclude that they fail to overcome the problem, though one promising avenue is opened up.This paper is divided into six parts. In Section One, I minimally define libertarian free will as accepting agential indeterminism, which is the conjunction of indeterminism and agential causation, where agential indeterminism occurs when an agent’s reasons, efforts or character indeterministically cause actions. In Sections Two and Three I outline the physical indeterminism luck objection to libertarian free will, which states that sub-agential physical processes in the brain indeterministically cause actions to occur, and agents lack control over these indeterministic physical causes, so agent’s lack control over whether their actions occur. If agent’s lack control over whether actions occur, the occurrence of these actions is lucky, where this luck jeopardizes free will and moral responsibility. In Sections Four through Six I consider three recent libertarian responses to this objection—Mark Balaguer in Section Four, Chris Franklin in Section Five, and Robert Kane in Section Six. I conclude that none of these models satisfactorily overcomes the physical indeterminism luck objection, though one interpretation of Kane yields a promising avenue of reply.

Mark Balaguer. Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion: Towards a Widespread Non-Factualism

As hardly needs to be said, the history of philosophy, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, East and West, is littered with disputes about whether entities of certain kinds exist. In the present book Mark Balaguer aims to puncture at least many such debates. He argues that for many important questions of this kind — and so for others which presuppose the existence in question — there is simply no fact of the matter. He calls this view non-factualism. After a brief Chapter 1 introducing matters, the book has two parts. The first makes the case for non-factualism in detail for two specific questions: whether there are abstract mathematical entities, and whether there are partite objects. Chapter 2 argues that there are substantial issues here, and not merely verbal ones. It might be thought that non-factualism about mathematical entities undercuts both the objectivity and the applicability of mathematics. Chapter 3 argues that this is not the case. Such things can be accommodated by an appropriate version of fictionalism. Specifically, let |$M$| be some mathematical claim. Even if there is no fact of the matter about whether |$M$| is true, the conditional, is both true and suffices for these matters. A similar point is then made about realism concerning partite objects.

Pleas against Balaguer’s superplatonism

Mark Balaguer ha elaborado una peculiar variante del platonismo matemático –denominada ‘full-blooded platonism’ o ‘FBP’– para solucionar el problema de Benacerraf sobre la inaccesibilidad de las entidades abstractas. Según FBP, todos los objetos matemáticos consistentemente caracterizables existen, aunque de modo contingente. En este trabajo quisiera mostrar que la plenitud ontológica y la contingencia modal no pueden converger en una teoría de objetos matemáticos filosóficamente respetable. Para esto argumento que FBP no cubre algunos factores elementales de confiabilidad epistémica y que envuelve un criterio de plenitud tanto matemática como metafísicamente implausible.

Libertarianism and Free Determined Decisions

Free determined decisions are free decisions that are causally determined by the character of the agent. Robert Kane is a libertarian about free will who believes some of our free decisions are determined in this way. According to Kane, for a determined decision to be free it must proceed from the agent's character and the agent must have shaped that character through previous undetermined free decisions. In recent writings, Mark Balaguer has argued that human beings may well possess libertarian freedom, but he rejects Kane's view that free determined acts must proceed from a character that is constructed from prior undetermined free decisions. This essay explains Balaguer's argument for rejecting the Kanean view and critically responds to it in defense of Kane's position on free determined decisions.

The disappearing agent objection to event-causal libertarianism

The question I raise is whether Mark Balaguer’s event-causal libertarianism can withstand the disappearing agent objection. The concern is that with the causal role of the events antecedent to a decision already given, nothing settles whether the decision occurs, and so the agent does not settle whether the decision occurs. Thus it would seem that in this view the agent will not have the control in making decisions required for moral responsibility. I examine whether Balaguer’s position has the resources to answer this objection.

Torn decisions, luck, and libertarian free will: comments on Balaguer’s free will as an open scientific problem

Kane offers his comment on Mark Balaguer's book on free will as an open scientific problem. Kane does not believe this disappearing agent objection and other powerful versions of the luck objection against libertarian free will can be answered with less resources than I have suggested here, some of which resources were not available to us prior to the advent of modern neuroscience. If free will is an open scientic problem as Mark Balaguer has cogently argued in this important work, we may thus hope that science will not merely be an obstacle to making sense of it, but an aid as well.

The Implausibility of Hermeneutic Non-Assertivism

In a recent paper, Mark Balaguer has responded to the argument that I launched against Hermeneutic Non-Assertivism, claiming that, as a matter of empirical fact, ‘when typical mathematicians utter mathematical sentences, they are doing something that differs from asserting in a pretty subtle way, so that the difference between [asserting] and this other kind of speech act is not obvious’. In this paper, I show the implausibility of this empirical hypothesis.

The Implausibility of Hermeneutic Non-Assertivism

In a recent paper, Mark Balaguer has responded to the argument that I launched against Hermeneutic Non-Assertivism, claiming that, as a matter of empirical fact, ‘when typical mathematicians utter mathematical sentences, they are doing something that differs from asserting in a pretty subtle way, so that the difference between [asserting] and this other kind of speech act is not obvious’. In this paper, I show the implausibility of this empirical hypothesis.

Understanding and Mathematical Fictionalism

In a recent paper in this journal, Mark Balaguer develops and defends a new version of mathematical fictionalism, what he calls ‘Hermeneutic non-assertivism’, and responds to some recent objections to mathematical fictionalism that were launched by John Burgess and others. In this paper I provide some fairly compelling reasons for rejecting Hermeneutic non-assertivism — ones that highlight an important feature of what understanding mathematics involves (or, as we shall see, does not involve).

Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem, by Mark Balaguer.

In this book, Mark Balaguer articulates and defends a libertarian view of free will. Of its four chapters, the first introduces a number of basic concepts and questions, while the second argues that the significant metaphysical issues in the free will problem concern the truth of libertarianism. The long third chapter maintains that if certain decisions — what he calls torn decisions — are undetermined then they are both authored and controlled by the agent whose decisions they are, and that, far from leaving us at the mercy of chance, indeterminism is freedom-enhancing. The final chapter argues that whether some torn decisions are wholly undetermined at the moment of choice is an open scientific question. Throughout the book, Balaguer's style remains brisk and to the point, and his patient examination of various objections to his arguments and claims is admirably forthright. In all, he has provided an engaging, tightly-argued, and clearly-written discussion of free will that is a welcome addition to contemporary philosophy.

Free will sans metaphysics?

The central thesis of Mark Balaguer’s short, lively and accessible book is that there is no distinctively metaphysical problem of free will. On the one hand, we have a question of conceptual analysis (and hence not of metaphysics): what do we, or should we, mean when we say that someone acts freely? Thus acting freely might be a matter of being able to act on the basis of your choices (‘Humean’ freedom), or having effective second-order volitions (‘Frankfurtian’ freedom), or being in control of decisions that are undetermined right up to the moment of choice (a certain kind of libertarian freedom), and so on. This is the ‘what-is-free-will’ question. On the other hand, we have the ‘which-kinds-of-freedom-do-we-have’ question: do we actually have Humean freedom, Frankfurtian freedom, libertarian freedom, and so on? Granted that it is pretty obvious that most of us do, at least sometimes, enjoy compatibilist freedoms, such as Humean and Frankfurtian freedom, the interesting part of this question amounts to whether we have libertarian freedom. And that, Balaguer argues, is an empirical question—and so, again, not a question of metaphysics. Moreover, it is a question that is, given the current state of scientific enquiry, wide open, hence the title of the book. The book’s structure is admirably straightforward. Chapter 1 sets the stage by identifying what Balaguer sees as the central problem of free will. He defines the notion of ‘L-freedom’ (short for ‘libertarian freedom’) as: ‘a person is L-free if and only if she makes at least some decisions that are such that (a) they are both undetermined and appropriately non-random, and (b) the indeterminacy is relevant to the appropriate non-randomness in the sense that it ‘procures’ or ‘enhances’ nonrandomness (10). He then defines the thesis of ‘FE-determinism’, or ‘No FreedomEnhancing Indeterminism’: ‘There are no freedom-enhancing indeterminacies in any human decision-making processes. In other words ... human beings do not possess L-freedom’ (12). With these definitions in place, Balaguer’s ‘new and

Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem * By MARK BALAGUER

Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem * By MARK BALAGUER

New directions for nominalist philosophers of mathematics

The present paper will argue that, for too long, many nominalists have concentrated their researches on the question of whether one could make sense of applications of mathematics (especially in science) without presupposing the existence of mathematical objects. This was, no doubt, due to the enormous influence of Quine’s “Indispensability Argument”, which challenged the nominalist to come up with an explanation of how science could be done without referring to, or quantifying over, mathematical objects. I shall admonish nominalists to enlarge the target of their investigations to include the many uses mathematicians make of concepts such as structures and models to advance pure mathematics. I shall illustrate my reasons for admonishing nominalists to strike out in these new directions by using Hartry Field’s nominalistic view of mathematics as a model of a philosophy of mathematics that was developed in just the sort of way I argue one should guard against. I shall support my reasons by providing grounds for rejecting both Field’s fictionalism and also his deflationist account of mathematical knowledge—doctrines that were formed largely in response to the Indispensability Argument. I shall then give a refutation of Mark Balaguer’s argument for his thesis that fictionalism is “the best version of anti-realistic anti-platonism”.

Full-Blooded Reference

In ‘Just what is full-blooded platonism?’ Greg Restall outlines several objections to Mark Balaguer's theory of full-blooded platonism. I reply to these objections by explicating the semantic framework for the reference of mathematical terms that full-blooded platonism requires. Expanding upon these replies, I then explain how the full-blooded platonist, in light of the explicated semantic framework, should treat mathematical terms and statements in order to avoid certain pitfalls.

Is It Possible to Nominalize Quantum Mechanics?

Hartry Field (1980) has developed an interesting nominalization strategy for Newtonian gravitation theory—a strategy that reformulates the theory without quantification over abstract entities. According to David Malament (1982), Field's strategy cannot be extended to quantum mechanics (QM), and so it only has a limited scope. In a recent work, Mark Balaguer has responded to Malament's challenge by indicating how QM can be nominalized, and by “doing much of the work needed to provide the nominalization” (Balaguer 1998, 114). In this paper, I critically assess Balaguer's proposal, and argue that it ultimately fails. Balaguer's strategy is incompatible with a number of interpretations of QM, in particular with Bas van Fraassen's version of the modal interpretation. And given that Balaguer's strategy invokes physically real propensities, it is unclear whether it is even compatible with nominalism. I conclude that the nominalization of QM remains a major problem for the nominalist.

Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics

In this deft and vigorous book, Mark Balaguer demonstrates that there are no good arguments for or against mathematical platonism (i.e., the view that abstract, or non-spatio-temporal, mathematical objects exist, and that mathematical theories are descriptions of such objects). Balaguer does this by establishing that both platonism and anti-platonism are defensible positions. In Part I, he shows that the former is defensible by introducing a novel version of platonism, which he calls full-blooded platonism, or FBP. He argues that if platonists endorse FBP, they can then solve all of the problems traditionally associated with their view, most notably the two Benacerrafian problems (that is, the epistemological problem and the non-uniqueness problem). In Part II, Balaguer defends anti-platonism (in particular, mathematical fictionalism) against various attacks, chief among them the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument. Balaguer's version of fictionalism bears similarities to Hartry Field's, but the arguments Balaguer uses to defend this view are very different. Parts I and II of this book taken together clearly establish that we do not have any good argument for or against platonism. In Part III, Balaguer extends his conclusions, arguing that it is not simply that we do not currently have any good argument for or against platonism, but that we could never have such an argument, and indeed, that there is no fact of the matter as to whether platonism is correct (ie., whether there exist any abstract objects). This lucid and accessibly written book breaks new ground in its area of engagement and makes vital reading for both specialists and anyone else interested in the philosophy of mathematics or metaphysics in general.

Mathematics: Truth and Fiction?

Mark Balaguer's project in this book is extremely ambitious; he sets out to defend both platonism and fictionalism about mathematical entities. Moreover, Balaguer argues that at the end of the day, platonism and fictionalism are on an equal footing. Not content to leave the matter there, however, he advances the anti-metaphysical conclusion that there is no fact of the matter about the existence of mathematical objects. Despite the ambitious nature of this project, for the most part Balaguer does not shortchange the reader on rigor; all the main theses advanced are argued for at length and with remarkable clarity and cogency. There are, of course, gaps in the account (some of which are described below) but these should not be allowed to overshadow the significant steps Balaguer takes towards an extremely interesting philosophy of mathematics—a philosophy of mathematics for which the present reviewers have considerable sympathy. In short, this book is an important contribution to the philosophy-of-mathematics literature.

Prom Full Blooded Platonism to Really Full Blooded Platonism

1. Full-Blooded Platonism Let a platonic entity be an entity entirely free of causal powers. Let platonism be the view that at least some platonic entities exist. Restricted to mathematical entities, platonism is the view that at least some mathematical entities are platonic entites. Benacerraf's [1973] epistemic challenge to platonism is the challenge of explaining how we could gain knowledge of platonic entities. hi his [1998] Mark Balaguer argues that full blooded platonism is the only theory that can solve Benacerraf's epistemic challenge to platonism. The idea of full blooded platonism is this: Any mathematical entity that can exist does exist. More accurately: (FBP) Every consistent mathematical theory truly describes some part of the mathematical realm.