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Do human beings have free will? Are they genuinely responsible for
their actions? These questions have persisted all through the
history of philosophy, but in the 21st century they have become
defined more sharply and clearly than ever. Indeed, a vivid and
mighty tension underlies today's intellectual struggles over free
will. On the one hand, the rapid advances of several empirical
disciplines, notably neuropsychology and genetics, threaten our
instinctive affirmation that free will and moral responsibility
exist. On the other hand, the depth and force of our instincts-our
powerful intuition that there is free will, that there is moral
responsibility-present, for most people, an almost impenetrable
barrier against the sweeping denial of free will suggested by
empirical research. The papers in this volume address this tension
from a dual vantage point. While drawing heavily upon traditional
Jewish texts and teachings, they also offer a blend of scientific,
philosophical, psychological, and social insights into this most
mystifying of topics. In addition, they illuminate the concept of
repentance, a transformation of character that ranks in much of
Jewish literature as the highest expression of free will.
Do human beings have free will? Are they genuinely responsible for
their actions? These questions have persisted all through the
history of philosophy, but in the 21st century they have become
defined more sharply and clearly than ever. Indeed, a vivid and
mighty tension underlies today's intellectual struggles over free
will. On the one hand, the rapid advances of several empirical
disciplines, notably neuropsychology and genetics, threaten our
instinctive affirmation that free will and moral responsibility
exist. On the other hand, the depth and force of our instincts-our
powerful intuition that there is free will, that there is moral
responsibility-present, for most people, an almost impenetrable
barrier against the sweeping denial of free will suggested by
empirical research. The papers in this volume address this tension
from a dual vantage point. While drawing heavily upon traditional
Jewish texts and teachings, they also offer a blend of scientific,
philosophical, psychological, and social insights into this most
mystifying of topics. In addition, they illuminate the concept of
repentance, a transformation of character that ranks in much of
Jewish literature as the highest expression of free will.
From the Preface: "The principal thrust of this book is to
challenge the compartmentalization to which we seem all too easily
resigned, to discover whether, and to what extent, the methods of
modern scholarship can become part and parcel of the study of
Torah, conceived as a religious-intellectual way of life. Not
'Modern Scholarship and the Study of Torah, ' but 'Modern
Scholarship in the Study of Torah.
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