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I'm writing a mini-dissertation for what is called an Access to HE Diploma (adult education thing to get into university). As the thread title suggests, I'm going to write it on free will in literature. So far, I am settled on 1000 words analysing The Odyssey with a focus on fate vs free will and 1000 words on Blood Meridian regarding determinism vs free will. However I would like to add a third book - one that, as it were, privileges human agency, volition, free will, whatever. If you have any suggestions for a book(s) that may be suitable, please say.
Other things:
- If you're from the UK, considering an Access diploma, and would like to discuss my experience of it, any advice I might have, anything else, I'd be more than happy to
- If you have any worthwhile secondary sources regarding free will I'd love to know
Pic unrelated
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Macbeth had elements of determinism and free-will.
Also oedipus.
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OP, do the right thing and go with the Iliad.
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What is the main counter-argument to the Consequence Argument?
Why is Compatibilism true? False?
What do Frankfurt cases highlight in the discussion of free will?
What the hell are agent-causal accounts of Free Will?
What role does God play in Free Will?
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>>8890759
Thanks man, these are good talking points. I'll give you the gist of my essay. Essentially, I am exploring why belief in free will persists despite strong scientific evidence that it does not. I'll be taking a largely semiotic approach to the selected texts, arguing that free will has been mythologised (Roland Barthes - https://seansturm.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/six-essays-from-ceasefire-on-barthes-by-andrew-robinson/) i.e disguised within language so that it appears as a condition of nature rather than an ideology. What do you make of that? Any further secondary sources?
>>8890752
Two words: Long. Ting. Jk, I will be mentioning it but I didn't want to focus on it because one of my source texts (Julian Jaynes: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind) has a section dedicated to the Iliad and I don't want to appear as if I've just stolen his analysis.
>>8890746
Thanks man, I will revisit Macbeth and see if it fits my needs
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>>8890700In Search of the Miraculous
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>>8890759
There is no such thing as a Frankfurt case. I can't believe he was published on this subject.
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>>8890846
Should probably show awareness of Kant then. Kant says it hasn't just been culturally absorbed or mythologised, but that believing our actions are free is a necessary condition of conscious thought. That's why "scientific evidence" can only result in conceptual antinomies - we can't really see ourselves as determined. Arguing about evidence of free will in nature (i.e., in the world which we observe "scientifically") is meaningless, because we see the world as a place of causal relationships and contingencies.
That's why, logically speaking, determinism is demonstrably true, but so is agency (if we want to talk about human beings as anything more meaningful than inert matter). The only outcome is an antinomy, a paradox.
Many other philosophers would say similar things, or things on similar topics. The subject you're touching on is very complex so be careful not to be glib when writing it.
I would consider looking into Oedipus Rex for the inevitability of fate, and of the destruction of mortal aims and stuff like that, which was big for the Greeks. Also check out Herodotus' theory of hubris maybe.
But for free will-positive stuff, check out Dostoevsky, especially the Grand Inquisitor. Dostoevsky's philosophical anthropology includes freedom as a sine qua non.
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>>8891044
This actually looks neat
https://www.amazon.com/Dostoevskys-Conception-Man-Philosophical-Anthropology/dp/1581120060
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