ABSTRACT
All libertarianism appeals to what may be broadly called a distinction between the standpoint of the agent and that of the observer. Philosophers often appeal to 'what we would say in such and such a case', and if they belong to what may be very broadly called the tradition of linguistic analysis there is fairly wide agreement as to both the purpose and the logical status of the remarks they make. The debate between libertarian and determinist is ultimately about 'the nature of man', or about 'our view of man', or about 'our whole conception of man and his place in the universe'. Such debates may involve factual beliefs and expectations, and to that extent are in principle empirically corrigible. It is of the nature of such debates, though perhaps not confined to them, that men can hardly avoid beginning by taking their convictions to be precisely what they are not, namely presuppositions of all thinking.
