Pears (1964) and Grice (1971) on free-will

Predictability and decision.

By JLS
for the GC


-- Or, "Intention and uncertainty", rather? Considering Libet's experiments, etc., I am reminded, again, of

scratching my head.

Involuntarily? Voluntarily?

In his (1971) [British Academy] lecture on "Intention and Uncertainty", Grice yet again uses the example.

"The justifiability of Jones's factual commitment, if he expresses an intention by saying,

"I shall-i scratch my head in 1 minute's time"

to its being the case that he _will_, in fact, scratch his head in 1 minute's time reduces, then, to the question of the justifiability of an assumption, on his part, given that he _now_ wills that his head _be scratched_ [note again the subjunctive mood] in 1 minute time, that he _will_ (still) in 1 minute hence _will_ that this be so."

---- The timings for Libet are narrower still.

Note, incidentally, that Grice is having here the iterated occurrence, "Jones will will" which Nowell-Smith ("Libertarians and Determinists", Mind 1954) thinks is ordinary enough and traceable to Tolstoy ("I'll will him turn round").

Grice goes on to credit Pears:

"This question", Grice notes, "is fairly closely related to questions about the PREDICTABILITY [or lack thereof?] of one's own decisions (which have been worked on by D. F. Pears [British Academy Lecture, 1964] and others)."

JLS

Refs. Doyle, R. O. The Libet experiments. In I-Phi