ABSTRACT
The term ‘compatibilism’ in the free will/determinism controversy has a long and established history, meaning obviously that free will is compatible with determinism. (It is not obvious and indeed a subject of much dispute what the expressions ‘free will’ and ‘determinism’ mean. Also, some philosophers use the term ‘compatibilism’ to refer to the view that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility or with free will understood in a sense according to which free will is necessary for moral responsibility.) There is, however, no commonly accepted de nition of ‘classical compatibilism.’ Thus, for one charged with assigning ‘classical compatibilism’ a meaning, it is more fruitful and avoids arbitrariness to begin by recognizing the central presupposition of the existence of this concept. The term originated in order to highlight the striking convergence of compatibilist views found within British philosophy from Thomas Hobbes in the mid-seventeenth century to twentieth-century gures such as G. E. Moore and A. J. Ayer. This pantheon includes seminal gures such as John Locke, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill. With notable exceptions, such as Thomas Reid, Richard Price, and F. H. Bradley, compatibilism prevailed within the Anglo-American tradition until the mid-twentieth century, when it confronted stiff resistance from British incompatibilists such as C. A. Campbell and J. L. Austin and American thinkers such as Roderick Chisholm. Shortly thereafter, two internal revolts, one led by P. F. Strawson and the other by Harry Frankfurt, produced very different forms of compatibilism, so that we may now block out that 300-year-old tradition that terminates around the beginning of the nal third of the twentieth century-the period preceding Strawson and Frankfurt-as the ‘classical’ period. As some compatibilists continue to hold beliefs quite similar to the compatibilists of the classical period, they must now explain why they are not enamored of the newer versions advanced by thinkers like Strawson and Frankfurt.
