Volume 22, Fall 2015
Peter van Inwagen
Pages 16-30
Some Thoughts on An Essay on Free Will
In this essay I record some thoughts about my book An Essay on Free Will, its reception, and the way analytical philosophers have thought about the free-will problem since its publication 30 years ago. I do not summarize the book, nor am I concerned to defend its arguments—or at least not in any very systematic way. Instead I present some thoughts on three topics: (1) The question ‘If I were to revise the book today, if I were to produce a second edition, what changes would I make?’; (2) Aspects of the book I should like to call to the attention of readers (aspects that, in my view, readers of An Essay on Free Will, have been insufficiently attentive to); and (3) The course of the discussion of the problem of free will subsequent to the publication of the book.