An issue for Wegner’s theory about the conscious will: the Readiness Potential does not conclusively represent preparation for an action
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: The role of consciousness in the production of actions has received much attention from philosophy and neuroscience. Wegner (2002) claims that what he calls the conscious will plays no role in the causal production of human actions, and that it is just an illusion. I will argue that Wegner’s claim is mistaken, because his defense of the alleged illusion rests on how he conceives of what the Readiness Potential (RP) represents in a key experiment—Libet’s experiment—and this conception is mistaken. Therefore, Wegner has not offered a convincing reason to believe that humans are deluded about the way they produce their actions.
Source: Veritas (Porto Alegre)
Author: Beatriz Sorrentino Marques
Institution: Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso
Language: English
Topic: Free Will and Agency
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Award: G3572101131
OpenAlex ID: W2777210236