Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power. By John R. Searle.

Abstract

Reviews the book, Freedom and neurobiology: Reflections on free will, language, and political power by John R. Searle (2007). This slim, elegantly written and intellectually rigorous volume, which consists of an introduction and two lectures given to general audiences, sets out some core issues on the interface between the philosophy of mind and the sciences. It can be read with profit by all psychiatrists, both those inclined towards Spinoza's and those inclined towards Searle's views. Searle wishes to salvage our subjective experience of free will as a legitimate expression of freedom. If free will makes a difference and is also biologically founded, Searle argues, we must find a way of relating it to quantum indeterminism in physics. However, the problem of free will is unusual among contemporary philosophical problems in that we are nowhere near a solution. Searle sets out why this is so and concludes that in order to understand free will we need to understand the self biologically, which we have also failed to do. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)