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Tallis in Wonderland

How On Earth Can We Be Free?

Raymond Tallis wrote this column of his own free will.

“We know our will is free, and there’s an end on it!” Dr Johnson harrumphed, dismissing those who pretended to think otherwise. Of course, that is not the end of it, and Johnson knew this. Arguing with his biographer Boswell, he famously observed that “All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.” He meant that experience discredits theory; but for some the boot is on the other foot. For them, the theoretical arguments prove that our experience of acting freely is an illusion.

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