Martin Gerwin

The issue of determinism and free will raises a problem about the relation of human abilities to the necessity of causes. But what if our very idea of causes and causal connections is derived from our interacting with the world as agents rather than as passive observers? Hume had neither the first word nor the last word on this subject. What I will call the “agency” view of the origin of causal concepts predated Hume’s “regularity” view, and has endured in a form that takes account of Hume’s arguments. My intention in writing this book is to contribute to the development of the agency view, and to do so in a way that displays the relevance of this analysis of causal concepts to the issue of determinism and free will.

Published Feb 2018 by Archway Publishing.

MARTIN GERWIN was born in England in 1940 and moved to Canada at the age of eleven. He holds a B.A. (Honors) from Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, and earned his Master’s and doctoral degrees at Princeton University. He was a member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1965 until his retirement in 2003. He and his wife Judith Rutledge live in Toronto, Canada.