ARE WE TRULY FREE? FREE WILL BETWEEN CONDITIONS AND NEW BEGINNINGS

Mario De Caro, Professor of Moral Philosophy, Università di Roma Tre; Giorgio Vallortigara, Professor of Neuroscience, Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, Università degli Studi di Trento. Introduced and moderated by Costantino Esposito, Professor of History of Philosophy, Università Aldo Moro di Bari

The first and fundamental condition for a person to become a builder of the world and assert a hypothesis of meaning with which to live in reality is a free act. But freedom, as a condition for living life’s challenges as protagonists, is itself an unconditional condition. To affirm that the human being is free means that he or she is never just the result of prior biological or cultural processes but carries within the ability to begin something new. But are we truly free? This is the pressing question that is becoming increasingly urgent in today’s increasingly “artificial” world. What do philosophers and neuroscientists have to say?