ABSTRACT
This book investigates the problem of free will and aims to argue for a particular interpretation of it. Leibniz, in his work Theodicy, claimed that in order to be free in the morally relevant sense, an agent’s action must satisfy three conditions: contingency, intelligibility, and spontaneity.1 It seems to me that by identifying these three conditions, Leibniz has captured the fundamental problems about free will. In fact, the present book is an attempt to understand the three Leibnizian criteria in light of recent developments in the free will debate. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to highlight those aspects of the debate that I shall aim to discuss and to state briefl y my own position concerning the interpretation of the three Leibnizian conditions: contingency, intelligibility and spontaneity.
