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Colloquium: Nicholas Jolley
February 26, 2020 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Nicholas Jolley (University of California Irvine)
‘Hobbes and Bramhall on liberty and necessity’
Wednesday 26 February 2020 • 4:00pm-5:30pm • LA1–303
Abstract: The controversy between Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Bramhall (1594–1663) is one of the classic documents in the literature about free will. Hobbes’s contribution to the debate has long been recognized as a pioneering defense of determinism, but it has also been criticized for its errors. From Bramhall to the present day, critics have complained that Hobbes adopts an excessively cavalier attitude towards Scholastic distinctions and that he is guilty of glaring fallacies. In this talk, I first review Bramhall’s libertarian position and then argue that Hobbes can be at least partly defended against familiar criticisms.