Galen Strawson is a Closet Existentialist; or, the Ballistics of Nothingness

Comparative and Continental Philosophy 9 (1):22-42 (2017)
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Abstract

The subject of free will has suffered something of a renascence in recent popularized American philosophy. The issue is, of course, a Gordian knot of underlying metaphysical and ontological presupposition, in both the analytic and continental traditions. In this paper, I attempt a bit of an untangling, and in doing so, I find that the fundamental position of the contemporary champion of “no freedom” (Galen Strawson) is not only compatible with a radical Sartrean freedom, but that the two philosophers’ deeper ontology is much the same, supports the same metaphysics and the same outline of an existentialist ethics. My approach is a combination of analytic and continental method and background: I continue to believe that there is no necessary separation between the analytic and continental camps, and that there is much to be gained from the reabsorption of analytic style into the broader philosophic tradition.

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References found in this work

Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 1962 - Proceedings of the British Academy 48:187-211.
Mortal questions.Thomas Nagel - 1979 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Being and nothingness.Jean-Paul Sartre - 1956 - Avenel, N.J.: Random House.
Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 2003 - In Gary Watson (ed.), Free Will. Oxford University Press.
Mortal Questions.[author unknown] - 1979 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 43 (3):578-578.

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