Schopenhauer´s lab? Benjamin Libet and his seminal experiment

Voluntas

Waldir Severiano de Medeiros Júnior¹  Renato César Cardoso¹ 

[1] Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG.;

关键词: Schopenhauer;    Benjamin Libet;    Liberdade da Vontade;   

DOI  :  10.5902/2179378633764

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Studying Schopenhauer's philosophy with an interested eye and keeping attention to our scientific landscape is bound to reveal interesting connections. One could easily find many insights that would later be proven relevant in different fields such as physics, biology, psychology and literature. It is neuroscience, however, that has produced some of the most intriguing confirmations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. His considerations on the topic of free will have found considerable proof in modern day knowledge of the brain. The neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet, for example, has found compelling scientific evidence that “will” precedes conscious volition, as sustained almost two hundred years ago by the German thinker. Undermining the idea of free will, however, brings about serious problems for traditional ethical and legal theories. The emerging fields of Neuroethics and Neurolaw, we sustain, could profit greatly from the kind of deterministic solution (figured in the idea of a prospectivist imputability, that is, focused on the future) proposed by Schopenhauer.

【 授权许可】

Unknown