Mar 20, 2017 11:19 PM
(This post was last modified: Mar 20, 2017 11:20 PM by C C.)
Time and the philosophy of action: Interview of Roman Altshuler
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/time-philosophy-action/
EXCERPT: Roman Altshuler is interested broadly in human agency and issues surrounding it, including free will, personal identity, moral philosophy, and, a bit more distantly, issues of death and its relevance to the ways we create meaning in life.
Many of our actions reflect background commitments on our part, and these commitments, in turn, shape who we are. So it would seem to follow that we can create ourselves and shape our identities simply by tweaking our commitments. At the same time, however, we didn’t get to choose where we were born, the people who raised us, or any number of other factors that have shaped our identities in countless ways. So while it might seem like we have an unlimited ability to shape our identities by tweaking our commitments, it also seems as if the commitments we select stem from influences on us that lie beyond our control.
His hunch is that we can resolve the problem by understanding the role time plays in our commitments, and especially in the way those commitments are affected by our relation to the future and the narratives we use to shape our agency. Here he discusses the relation of time to action, why explanations of action require a tensed reality, basic actions, Kavka’s toxin puzzle, Heidegger and free-will, John Fischer and temporal loops, whether Heidegger is a narrativist about selves, Sam Scheffler and the afterlife, responses to the the Doomsday Scenario, whether Bernard Williams is right about whether we should desire immortality, and Kant’s views about evil. This is a long walk...
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/time-philosophy-action/
EXCERPT: Roman Altshuler is interested broadly in human agency and issues surrounding it, including free will, personal identity, moral philosophy, and, a bit more distantly, issues of death and its relevance to the ways we create meaning in life.
Many of our actions reflect background commitments on our part, and these commitments, in turn, shape who we are. So it would seem to follow that we can create ourselves and shape our identities simply by tweaking our commitments. At the same time, however, we didn’t get to choose where we were born, the people who raised us, or any number of other factors that have shaped our identities in countless ways. So while it might seem like we have an unlimited ability to shape our identities by tweaking our commitments, it also seems as if the commitments we select stem from influences on us that lie beyond our control.
His hunch is that we can resolve the problem by understanding the role time plays in our commitments, and especially in the way those commitments are affected by our relation to the future and the narratives we use to shape our agency. Here he discusses the relation of time to action, why explanations of action require a tensed reality, basic actions, Kavka’s toxin puzzle, Heidegger and free-will, John Fischer and temporal loops, whether Heidegger is a narrativist about selves, Sam Scheffler and the afterlife, responses to the the Doomsday Scenario, whether Bernard Williams is right about whether we should desire immortality, and Kant’s views about evil. This is a long walk...