Beneath metaphysical problems there often lies a conflict between what we want to be true and what we believe to be true. This book shows how these conflicts can be systematically thought through, and proposes a resolution as a general philosophical objective. It examines in detail a set of interrelated oppositions about the freedom and the reality of the will. It shows how difficult it is to find a freedom either of decision or of action that is both an object of reflective desire and an object of rational disbelief. It also discusses conflicts about volition as such, contending that the veri ... More

Beneath metaphysical problems there often lies a conflict between what we want to be true and what we believe to be true. This book shows how these conflicts can be systematically thought through, and proposes a resolution as a general philosophical objective. It examines in detail a set of interrelated oppositions about the freedom and the reality of the will. It shows how difficult it is to find a freedom either of decision or of action that is both an object of reflective desire and an object of rational disbelief. It also discusses conflicts about volition as such, contending that the veridicality of volitional experience is no less easy to doubt than the veridicality of our experience of colours. In this context, arguments emerge for a voluntarist theory of the self.